Catherine Woodiwiss, associate Web editor for
Soujourners: Faith in Action for Social Justice,
writing last August:
events this year — from the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act to the House eliminating funding for food stamps to the Trayvon Martin trial — are posing serious challenges to our national progress towards true equality for all....
President Obama reminded the thousands gathered at the Lincoln Memorial that the courage to face these challenges comes “when we turn not from each other, or on each other, but towards one another, and we find that we do not walk alone. And with that courage, we can stand together for good jobs and just wages...for the right to health care in the richest nation on Earth for every person...for the right of every child, from the corners of Anacostia to the hills of Appalachia, to get an education that stirs the mind and captures the spirit.”
“That,” said the president, echoing Dr. King, “is how history bends.”
Woodiwiss on the subject of how to behave toward people who have experienced unspeakable grief and trauma,
last week:
6. Do not offer platitudes or comparisons. Do not, do not, do not....
7. Allow those suffering to tell their own stories.
David Brooks, on the subject of Woodiwiss's recent blog post,
today:
[offers platitudes]
[tells her story for her]
[concludes with a quietism too explicitly Brooksist-Burkean to ignore, in direct opposition to Woodiwiss's healthful and noble activism] We have a tendency, especially in an achievement-oriented culture, to want to solve problems and repair brokenness — to propose, plan, fix, interpret, explain and solve. But what seems to be needed here is the art of presence — to perform tasks without trying to control or alter the elemental situation. Allow nature to take its course.
This is how history breaks.
Generous Driftglass asks us to understand that Brooks is going through a lot of stress at the moment.
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