Day 88 Coming to This Tipping Point; and, Metaphysicians of the Heart

Peaceful protests continued unabated across the country and around the world. As Andy Ramos, 72, mayor of Alpine, Texas had it, “My generation, we did a lot of good, but we stagnated. We need a push in the butt and you guys are the ones who have to do it. You have to bring social change to this world.”

One of the largest protests was in the nation’s capital, where new fences, concrete barriers and a force of unidentifiable guards have shrouded the White House, projecting a new symbolism of militarized defensiveness rather than openness and democracy.

Roger Cohen did not pull his punches this week. “No, the point would be this: to assert with a great show of force, after the slow-motion murder of George Floyd by a white police officer, that the oppressive system that produced this act is not about to change and armed white male power in America is inviolable. That is Trump’s fundamental credo. His Bible-brandishing, American Gothic portrait this week outside St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington is one of the most disturbing portraits of psychopathic self-importance seen since 1933.”

The Tweeter-in-Chief maintains his too little, too late, all caps stance on law and order all the while denying that he is, certainly by my reckoning, bunkered down in The People’s House cowering behind a ‘show’ of force, not the moral force or fortitude that would allow true empathy or kindness to flow toward citizens in pain. “Trump you’re a racist,” one sign read.” Uh, yeah. That’ll do.

“Sheriff Hubert A. Peterkin of Hoke County helped the family [of George Floyd] organize the viewing in his home state [of North Carolina.] At a private memorial service later in the day, Sheriff Peterkin earned a standing ovation when he said that the nation’s police officers ‘are part of the problem’ and, looking directly at Mr. Floyd’s family, that ingrained racism had led to Mr. Floyd’s death. ‘If there were four brothers that threw a police officer on the ground and one of them put his knee on that officer’s neck and killed him on a video,’ there would be a ‘national manhunt,’ said the sheriff, who is black.”

And even though “[p]olice [d]epartments across the United States are re-examining their use-of-force policies as protesters continue to express outrage over such tactics in the wake of George Floyd’s death as Democrats in Congress plan expansive legislation to address police brutality and racial bias,” symbolic gesture does not begin to address what needs redressing.

“The Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Stackhouse said the video of Mr. Floyd’s death lasted eight minutes and 46 seconds, but that ‘it was 401 years in the making’—a reference to the history of slavery in America.” What makes anyone think that a sweeping gesture of any kind, no matter how symbolic, could touch the roots of this tipping point or resolve them in any meaningful way?

“Protests over the death of George Floyd were held in cities around world on Saturday. Thousands gathered in Britain, France and Germany, following marches earlier in the day that drew thousands in cities like Tokyo and Sydney. And while many of the global protests were inspired by the unrest in the United States, they have also pointed to issues of racism and police brutality at home.”

How did we come to this tipping point? A lethal combination of events.

Coronavirus, minimized by those charged to protect us, spreading like wildfire through under-insured, under-housed, under-healthy communities of color which did not have the capacity to follow the admittedly chaotic, mutable guidelines for social distancing. That’s one factor, but that one factor is so complex, so diverse, so hydra-headed that to reduce it to one thing, an invisible pathogen, say, is to belittle the actual problem.

The murder of George Floyd—and a list of others so long that it shocks me still—through the actions of police brutality and the Blue Wall of Silence, backed by its union, that has kept the disciplinary actions of law enforcement in a secret, legal limbo for decades.

A judiciary branch, a legislative branch, an executive branch into which white, male supremacy is so woven as to be a part of the literal fabric of the structure of our country and not enough gathered, reinforced unity of agenda to insist that it change for the better.

And another thing. “For several years, there has been no work more vital to ending police brutality than abolishing laws and policies that weaken transparency and soften repercussion. Chief among them are the statutes, like 50-a, that enshrine police misconduct in secrecy, shielding the personnel and disciplinary records of police officers from public view so that there is often no way for a victim to know if an abusive officer has a history of dubious behavior unless someone has happened to sue him.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci as well as epidemiologists the world over are moaning that protesters not practicing social distancing are at even higher risk for Covid-19. “Rajikh Hayes, an activist, said protesters were acutely aware that they were risking exposure to the coronavirus, which is far likelier to kill black people than white people, and of the suffering Covid-19 had caused in their community.

“‘It’s really a simple question: “Am I going to let a disease kill me or am I going to let the system—the police?” he said. “And if something is going to take me out when I don’t have a job, which one do I prefer? Folks who don’t have much else to lose—they understand that this system isn’t built for black people. And that’s why people are in the streets.’”

Not only is it not ‘built for black people,’ but it’s actually built for white men, then white women, and against black people and people of color. That’s a bitter pill to swallow, isn’t it? Especially if you, like I, am a member of the privileged minority. Only yesterday—yesterday!—did I learn there is a difference between ‘I am not a racist’ and ‘anti-racism.’

You can imagine, I’m sure, that I’ve been praying about Covid-19 for months now. The other day, I asked the Mother if She could tell me, simply, what’s beneath all of the turmoil. I’m accustomed to getting answers from Her, but rarely have I received one as fast as I did this one. She gave me one word so fast that it blew back my hair.

“Impatience,” She said.

Bret Stephens cites, “In ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail,’ Martin Luther King Jr., explained why patience was no answer to injustice: ‘When you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity … then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.’”

I do not believe the Mother is recommending patience—or waiting—as an answer to the black community in any way, shape, or form. How I heard it was ... humans love to have things “done, and settled, and set,” to quote Queen Aggravain from Once Upon A Mattress, and there is no done or settled or set to be had without ALL OF US being patient with the process which will not likely be cut, dried, easy, good, cheap, or fast. There is too much fear built as fortification all around it. The fear must be dismantled, and that is what mandates patience, Beloved.

Like this observation. “Jonni Gartrelle, yelling through a bullhorn as people gathered at the Torch of Friendship monument, a 1960 beacon for Caribbean and Latin American immigrants, ‘It’s not just the racist institutions that we’re fighting. It’s the apathy of the people. People think racism is like a rock in a boat that you can throw overboard and fix it, but it’s really a hole in the boat that has to be fixed.’”

This is why gesture is inadequate. More, disrespectful. It’s the apathy that must be broken to pieces because apathy is what’s behind inertia, and inertia—an object at rest tending to stay at rest—is deadly in the face of racism of all kinds.

Stacey Abrams is the founder of Fair Fight Action and was the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia in 2018. She wrote a Times essay this week. “To say that the answer is to go cast a ballot feels not just inadequate, but also disrespectful. ‘Go vote’ sounds like a slogan, not a solution.”

That’s a powerful acknowledgement. She’s right. It does sound like a slogan. Not only that, but a lot of us do vote. We went. We voted. The electoral politics that really determined our Chief Executive overruled the vote.

Ms. Abrams begins to lay out the questions we need to be asking, not impatiently, but with infinite patience, and a unified desire for social change. “Which systems are broken? How do we fix them and what does fixing them look like at the federal, state and local levels? We’ve got to be that granular because that’s how people learn.

“But to the extent that we are reductive in how we speak about it—‘just go vote’—we shouldn’t be surprised about the rejection of the solution. So then we have to say, ‘And it doesn’t stop with the vote.’” Mr. Obama has said the same. “Don’t boo—vote.”

I think we have to boo and we get to vote.

So here are a few bright spots that are reminding me that change begins in all sorts of ways, and that each of us is called to our own way of protest.

Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C.renamed as Black Lives Matter Plaza the area in front of Lafayette Square and had city workers paint “Black Lives Matter” in giant yellow letters along the street.

I found it particularly moving that the image ‘happened’ to catch a red light. Red means Stop. Indeed, that’s a powerful message. Stop, pay atten on, Black Lives Matter. I also appreciate deeply that The White House has a new address: 1600 Black Lives Matter Plaza. Um, yes, they do.

“After President Trump renewed criticism of N.F.L. players protesting during the national anthem, Commissioner Roger Goodell on Friday delivered his strongest support yet for their right to demonstrate to fight racism and police brutality.” Anything to distract ’em might be the best way to describe the policy.

But no. Colin Kaepernick and his teammate Eric Reid ‘took the knee’ during the national anthem in 2016 to protest racism and police brutality. They settled on the gesture in conversation with a former Green Beret named Nate Boyer. Mr. Boyer had seen an image of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others do the same in a civil rights protest in 1965. Together, the two players and the Green Beret agreed it was the best alternative to not standing. Mr. Kaepernick has not been drafted by a professional team since.

Wouldn’t it be nice if blame has had its heyday and we could actually be done with it? I do not see that day on the horizon any time soon.

Jenna Wortham, writing in “A ‘Glorious Poetic Rage,” quotes “Alicia Garza, the civil rights organizer based in Oakland, Calif.,” [who] “said she hopes the current momentum carries the movement forward without tempering it. ‘We can go one of two ways. The “law and order” route or the route where we make black lives matter because we all want them to matter. And have access to the things we deserve, and peace and justice in our communities.’”

A recent Mary Engelbreit Instagram post read, “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes patriotism.”

Injustice has become, if not law, formal enacted law, then woven so thoroughly into our system that it will be micro-surgeries that undo it. A LOT of small actions that add up to create change. Eleanor Roosevelt is one of my heroes. She said, “Do what you feel is right—you’ll be criticized anyway.”

So let us come to what we each can do now, Beloved.

Part of my spiritual journey has included study with a Sufi Master Teacher named Mark Silver. He introduced me to the 99 Names of Allah. Each one holds a different facet of Divinity, and each is worthy of contemplation and embodiment. In Physicians of the Heart, I read something that changed my fundamental understanding of the human energy system this morning.

The job of the heart is to make the infinite finite.

Those of you who are familiar with my chakra teachings know that I have found an 8th Chakra that lives in front of the thymus gland along the sternum. It’s named Da’ath, and was first noticed by Kabbalistic rabbis in their energy practice more than 150 years ago. I use the name Compassionate Heart for that chakra. It sits right above the Personal Heart.

What made sense to me this morning for the first time is that the Personal Heart is responsible for the Finite. It is the Personal Heart that goes to a protest or writes an essay or counsels those who suffer. The Personal Heart takes personal action.

The Compassionate Heart, on the other hand, is responsible for the Infinite. It is the Compassionate Heart that breaks in the face of the Black Lives Matter movement, that feels the anguish of Black mothers whose children are murdered by police brutality, that weeps to see video after video attesting to blatant prejudice.

The Compassionate Heart holds all of it. It is infinite.
The Personal Heart holds what it can. It is finite.

The Personal Heart wants, impatiently, a big gesture to “Fix it!” as Keenan Thompson so wonderfully screeched on Saturday Night Live for years.

The Compassionate Heart holds the infinite patience to go granular as Stacey Abrams so wisely recommends, to undo the weaving of cruelty into our society one thread at a time.

Bret Stephens’ essay “Donald Trump Is Our National Catastrophe” is a tour de force. “We are in the midst of an unprecedented national catastrophe. The catastrophe is not the pandemic, or an economic depression, or killer cops, or looted cities, or racial inequities. These are all too precedented. What’s unprecedented is that never before have we been led by a man who so completely inverts the spirit of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. With malice toward all; with charity for none: eight words that encapsulate everything this president is, does and stands for.”

But that is not what you are, do, or stand for, is it, Beloved? I can say with certainty that it is not what I am, do, or stand for.

Dr. Bonnie Henry is the provincial health officer who led British Columbia through the coronavirus pandemic with generosity and aplomb. She said from the beginning, and it’s become a mantra of sorts, “‘This is our time to be kind, to be calm and to be safe.’”

Your Personal Heart is fully capable of kindness, calm, and safety. As is mine.

“‘It really is about the recognition that we are all in the same storm,’ said Dr. Henry, 54, now on her 156th straight day at work on the crisis. ‘This is a storm that’s affecting the world. But we are not in the same boats, so we can’t make assumptions about other people. I am going to give you everything we know so you can do your best to keep afloat.’”

A storm. A boat with a hole in it. Water images. Mystically, water represents feeling. We are awash in feeling right now. Passionate feeling. We need these feelings so that we’ll do what we’re called to do to change our world. One person, one thread, one boat, one storm at a time.

Dr. Susan Corso is a metaphysician and medical intuitive with a private counseling practice for more than 35 years. She has written too many books to list here. Her website is www.susancorso.com

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