Keeping up the strength to bring bread to neighbors
I am stronger when I remind myself that we don't know what is going to happen.
It was almost a year ago that I spent an early November morning walking to my neighbors houses to bring them bread after the election.
Their guy had won. I was very worried. I didn’t talk to them about the election then. I still have not.
Getting up the Strength to Bring Bread to Neighbors After the Election
It took me two days to get up the strength to bring the bread over.
You could make that argument that I am being strategic, but allowing that word lessens my neighbors and our relationship. We are being sensible. It is sensible and makes things better to keep the conversation on weather, family, cars, tomato plants, and barking dogs. Talking to each other the way we would talk to our respective MSNBC and Fox News crowds would make it hard to stay in each other’s presence.
This is the instinct of people who are tied to a place. This is community. This is our interchanges functioning.
”We don’t know what is going to happen.”
In two days I heard the same phrase from two wise people in completely different circumstances.1
We don’t know what is going to happen.
It stuck with me the first time, but my ears get perked up when providence repeats a message for me. “We don’t know what is going to happen” has become my refrain for this season, the stanza at the beginning of a stressful moment and at the end of a political act.
Why is this so peaceful a thought? Because I don’t have to be strategic. I can do the work of seeking what to do next in my heart. In my heart I know that caring for people does not create bad outcomes. I know that listening to people fills my heart with appreciation of them. I am bringing them bread because I want them to enjoy bread.
When people believe that they know that is going to happen, they say and do things to make that outcome true. They are self conscious, not self aware.
If I don’t know what is going to happen, the outcome is not my focus. I focus on the people around me. It is humbleness in the moment. It is humbleness that leads me to right action.
To bringing bread. Accepting the invite and staying for a beer. To telling stories of family.
I am making more bread today. Two loaves are in the proofing bowls. The first rise was hot and big. I hope the dough holds onto that and becomes wild and light in the oven.
If they come out, I am bringing one loaf of bread to my neighbors tomorrow. The other I am bringing to a picnic of progressive activists. The people who eat my bread will come from different places and want for different outcomes. Many of them are willing to tell me what they think is going to happen.
But we don’t know what is going to happen.
Thank you for reading. If you like my non-fiction, you just might adore my fiction. Right now, early contributors to the publishing of my first novel Clear and Sane: The Craft of the Green Paintbrush can get a lot of rewards, including the book early.
You can read an excerpt (or have me read it to you) or sign up now for an early copy. The campaign runs until Tuesday. Your early contribution will help market the book, getting it into more hands.
The second was in an interview with the author David James Duncan regarding his very timely book Sun House. https://emergencemagazine.org/conversation/sun-house/