#NaNoWriMo 2021: I Am Weary of My Crying…
… my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.
I had intended to write a newsletter yesterday, but after the verdict came in yesterday afternoon exonerating Kyle Rittenhouse in the deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and the shooting of Gaige Grosskreutz, I didn’t feel much like discussing creative writing practices. I still don’t, to be honest, but maybe I can get there in the next few paragraphs.
I can’t say that I’ve been taking solace in the imprecatory psalms, like Psalm 69 (from which the headline for this newsletter comes), but they speak to my anger and frustration at the verdict, and at the systemic racism that made this verdict almost inevitable. I want to believe a better world is possible. I generally do believe a better world is possible. But we are falling woefully short of the mark.
I tell people that we write to share what matters most to us with others, and in believing that I have to believe that it’s important for us to hold on to our visions of a better world even when forces in this world are doing their best not only to suppress those visions, but the very possibility of those visions. As I’ve said before, fascists, white nationalists, and others of that ilk are suppressive precisely because they know their ideologies have a limited audience. It’s not a non-zero audience, unfortunately, but it’s an audience that’s too small to be a controlling force in a just and equitable society.
Which is precisely why they go to such lengths to prevent a just and equitable society from occurring.
And yet we have to resist. We don’t have to believe, as the narrators of the imprecatory psalms do, that God will come to make things right, to pour out God’s indignation upon the fascists, and let God’s wrathful anger take hold of them (69:24). In fact, it’s probably better if we don’t believe that—if we believe that we’re going to have to do it ourselves.
And it’s not going to be easy. There will be many more days like yesterday, when we look for pity and comfort, and find none (69:20). Of course, for many people this means more than feeling frustration about a verdict we’ve heard about; for them, the injustice of this world already impacts their lives directly every day.
But we hang on to our vision all the same. And, when we can, we do what we can to make that vision stronger—refining it into a shareable state, and then going out into the world to share it… and making room in our hearts for other people and their inclusive visions as well.
I wish I had something more definitive to offer in response to yesterday’s injustice, and maybe one will come to me as I continue to sit with these frustrations. In the meantime, I won’t give up, and I hope you won’t give up, either.