There is too much to say this week, so I retreat further toward silence. Too much to say about the awakening of a generation of young white people, and the brutal attempts to corral them back into lines and boxes. Too much to say about the young black and brown people who have been brutalized for generations. Too much to say about injustice and my preoccupation with it, despite – and in the midst of – the joy in my life, the joy of this place, the joy in the world.
Silence holds me.
I’m supposed to be attending the American Academy of Religions conference this weekend. Today, there is another rally in Oakland, and a vigil tonight in San Francisco. These are my choices: on the streets with these bright people or sitting in a conference center, listening to scholars? I suppose, as always, there is a third road: curling more deeply into this silence and doing neither.
Likely, I will attend the AAR, listen to my scholar friends, discuss ideas, represent Solar Cross Temple at the Covenant of the Goddess gathering tonight, have a glass of wine and be sociable… all the while knowing a large part of me would rather be holding a candle against the dark, listening to Dr. Cornel West speak about justice in the cold night air.
Perhaps – standing in a hotel ballroom, discussing some fine intellectual point – I’ll light a candle in my silence, and let it burn.
What will you do today?