21 January

Marching Into Town

by Jon Katz
Pretty Good For Glens Falls

It wasn’t Washington or Chicago or New York, but they will be talking about it for a long time in Glens Falls, N.Y., a huge crowd descended outside the office of a Republican legislator to demand support for women’s rights, and I imagine it did not make her day. The march went for one mile and paused in the downtown traffic circle before moving on the library. Here, the crowd looked like 1,000 people to me. Many more were still heading into the square.

21 January

Marching With Women In Glens Falls, N.Y., Today

by Jon Katz
Standing With Women

I had one of the most powerful and meaningful experiences of my adult life today when Maria and I went to Glens Falls, N.Y., a gateway Adirondack industrial city about an hour North of where we lived. The women’s march was sponsored by Planned Parenthood, the organizers said they expected about 50 people to show up, they had reserved a room in the basement of the town’s public library, where hot chocolate was awaiting the marchers.

We were all stunned when somewhere between 800 and 1,000 people showed up, the police said it was the largest demonstration in recorded Glens Falls history. There was a beautiful feeling in the March, a sense of community and common ground. People marched for all sorts of reasons.

It did not, to me, have the feel of being only an anti-Trump protest, although there was surely unease and anger towards the new President. For a small upstate New York town, the march was remarkable, even unprecedented.

I felt the future was right in front of me, the people who are tolerant, empathetic, cheerful, positive, I was full of hope. It was so good for me to be there with Maria, who was nearly overwhelmed by the power of it.

People said they marched for all kinds of reasons, most to simply speak up for women their rights and equality. Unquestionably, the marchers felt the new administration was pursuing an agenda hostile to women, and there was a powerful sense of commitment, even of revolution,  if the rights of women are violated or trampled.

The crowd was genial, but intensely committed and quite angry about efforts to withdraw federal funding from Planned Parenthood and put aside the drive for equal pay and reproductive rights. Just as many journalists and politicians greatly underestimated the appeal of Donald Trump, so have they underestimated this movement. It is not going away.

I would not want to mess with this crowd, or deny them their rights. I was part of something so much bigger than me, I was so happy to be there.

It was young and old, and for upstate New York, diverse, determined and very aroused. The march had a festival quality to it, people were joking and laughing. But there was also a sense of purpose.

Women and men driving by honked their horns in support, I especially loved the number of men, most of them young, holding up signs in support of women. I was asked why I was there, and I said it was to support women by showing up, it is for them to set their agenda, and me to support it.

We were so glad we didn’t go to Washington, Boston or New York City, this rally was enormous by Glens Falls standards but intimate in comparison.It was the right place for us to go, there is something about local demonstrations that is stirring and uplifting.

A Glens Falls City Council member said in an interview that local politicians were much shaken by the size and intensity of the march. “This is something we have to pay attention to, and we will. It will send shivers down the spines of some politicians, this was something big and I don’t think it is going away.”

The police were cheerful, efficient, the march was peaceful, the passersby friendly and patient. We parked right across from Planned Parenthood and then stopped downtown afterwards for some Tacos at a Spanish-American restaurant. We were so grateful we didn’t head for New York, Washington or Boston.

This was upstate democracy in so many ways.

I had the best time,and so did Maria. We were joined by two friends, Cathy Stewart and Jackie Thorne, I was so happy to be there, and so proud. I felt I was present for something very powerful and historic. Women are different from men, the sense of community and connection was palpable. So many people thanked me for being there, and I thanked them.

Three generations of my family – me, Emma and Robin – were walking for women today. Emma and Robin were walking in New York City, where the march was so large the crowds had to be re-routed on different avenues. I felt good about my country today, this is, in fact, what democracy looks like and how it works. The women had a sense of being dismissed and ignored and I believe only the most foolish of politicians would ignore their message: there is no going back.

21 January

The New Era: Finding Grace Within.

by Jon Katz
Grace: The Virtuous Impulse

It seems we are in a new era, hopeful for some, frightening for others.

There are all kinds of personal challenges for everyone – what to do, how to feel – and the spiritual challenges are enormous as well.  Our civic world has abandoned spirituality for power and greed, but a spiritual life is my salvation.

In this new time, I thought deeply yesterday about grace, divine and otherwise, about grace within, and I believe it is grace that will carry me, lift me up and ground me.

I should warn you that I am not hear to tell you about the awful times we are living in, to shake my head in sorrow, to share my outrage with strangers, to despair. I am full of hope, the world is full of crisis and wonder and mystery, as always.

I had this mystical dream last night, it went on forever.

I was alone in a vast crowd of angry, jostling, frightened people, all shouting their grievances at one another. It was kind of Hellish scene, out of Dante, off of cable news, off of television: we were all doomed to shout at one another for all eternity, God is punishing us, we were told,  for our many shortcomings and cruelties, for despoiling the earth, abandoning the poor; he decreed that our arguments would continue forever and could never be resolved.

We were condemned to never listen and never be heard for all eternity.

That was our punishment for shedding empathy, for surrendering to hatred.

Only it was not God, of course, who issued those decrees. It was our country, our only world. It was the TV news.  And the most horrifying thing was that the dream went on forever, I believed it would never end.

The revolution begins, a non-violent one that turns sharply in another direction, towards grace.

Divine grace is a theological term present in many different faiths. it has been defined in many ways. In Christianity it is the divine influence which exists inside of human souls, and which brings the salvation of God and sanctity.

In almost all faiths, grace inspires virtuous impulses, and imparts strength to endure trial, avoid conflict, keep faith and resist the temptation to hate and despair. This is, after all, our only world, and we must all live together in it. That is what it means to be human.

Grace is the state of individual virtue or excellence, of strength and truth and compassion. For some grace is of divine origin, for others it is the rainbow at the end of the hero journey, the discovery of our true and beautiful selves. I have to ask myself, what do I want to be in this new time? Who do I want to be? Surely not in that Hellish dream, is that a conscious choice of any thinking person?

I want to find grace within.

Last night, I had dinner with a good friend, we were talking about the need to stand in our strength and truth, to do good when we could, to not be sucked into the hateful whirlpool of argument and division. To listen and grow and, if need be, to change.  How true, he said, I agree, that is important. Then, in the next breath, he said “but you must watch the Inauguration coverage, I think you will find it disturbing, upset. It’s important to watch.” And he began to recite the litany of angry things I know so well by now.

I took his hand, and said thanks much, but I don’t need to watch the inauguration coverage, I know the story,  I don’t need to hear the speeches, or make the arguments. I am not spending years of my life in that way, I will find a better way to deal with it.

Speeches are not important, talk is so very cheap.

Over the next years I wish to do my work, live my life, show up when necessary, be able to love and create and find peace as I enter this new and perhaps final phase of my life. I can do that without arguing or complaining or stirring up my lesser angels.

Living that way is a choice, not a sentence.

Grace is the other choice,  to live in peace and faith, to find the strength to endure trial, avoid conflict, do good and resist the temptation to hate and despair. Grace is the open mind, and the open ear. Grace is the art of  listening and hearing. Of learning how to state and hold my values and beliefs without denigrating or harming other people or pushing them away. To speak for myself, not to speak to tell others what to do or think.

Thomas Merton, whose live epitomized grace, wrote once of the monks he met before he decided to become a Trappist and undertake his hero journey and leave the secular world behind. He wrote of his idea of grace:

“I just remember their kindness and goodness to me, and their peacefulness and their utter simplicity. They inspired real reverence, and I think, in a way, they were certainly saints. And they were saints in that most effective and telling way: sanctified by leading ordinary lives in a completely supernatural manner, sanctified by obscurity, by usual skills, by common tasks, by routine, but skills, tasks, routine which received a supernatural form from grace within.”

Grace within. That’s what I seek, what i want,  what will ground me and uplift me and carry me forward on wave of virtuous impulse, to endure trial and conflict, to keep my faith and resist the temptation to hate and despair.

Grace within. It is not about the speeches others make, it is about the speeches I make, inside of my head, and to me, sanctified by obscurity, common tasks, small deeds of good.

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