“Not even a month and I’m already weary,” a friend said yesterday. “How will I ever make it through 4 years of this?” Another responded “I don’t read the paper or listen to the news anymore. I know I need to stay informed but I can’t handle the daily assault on things that matter so much to me. I don’t want to give up but I need a break and I don’t know what else to do.” “I know how you feel,” I said to them both. “I feel the same way.” People come into my office each week with overwhelming personal and family issues. Yet those issues rest in a cauldron of social unrest and general anxiety that amplifies their concerns because the foundation of the world appears to be crumbling.
When the ground gives way beneath us people scramble for something to hold onto. I remember being at the epicenter of the Loma Prieta earthquake in Santa Cruz, 1989. Like most people, I suppose, I had always taken for granted that the ground I stood on was dependably solid and stable. But in those few minutes the earth itself gave way. It shook and rumbled with an unnerving roar and I reached for the door of my office, holding on, unsure the building would remain standing. When the first wave was over a second, third and fourth followed.
When it seemed safe to leave and go outside, everything was absolutely and eerily still. I made my way home through debris cluttered roadways, downed power lines. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my house still standing but inside the shelves were askew, their contents thrown across the floor. Cupboard doors were blown open, dishes flung and broken. The rooms were in shambles. Now and again the earth would thunder to life once more. Many chose to sleep outside that night and the next as aftershocks continued. Downtown looked like a war zone. Heaps of rubble were everywhere. The bookshop, coffee shop and other local landmarks were gone. Many died—friends of friends, neighbors. All roads leading into and out of town were impassable. We were cut off from the world for over a week. The inability to move in or out was frightening.
These memories return as I look at the state of collapse in so many of our inner cities with people stranded and dying on our streets, social networks and environmental protections threatened, healthcare divorced from a basic need for support in sickness, the value of a healthy society shattered, pieces strewn across the lawns and fields of every town. The earthquake mirrors my experience of what I see and feel happening today. The ground of shared reality has come undone. Gaping craters appear where there were once stable roadways. Even many of our operating principles lie in piles of rubble or are threatening to collapse. Laws we passed and thought invincible are being torn from their moorings. The nation-town has crumbled. Everyone is in shock, waiting for the next wave of after shocks. (more…)
