I’ve needed to work my way through this political moment in our country, and writing is what is helping me to do that. Going forward my focus will not zoom in on politics. I will return instead to what is always at the heart of my message, which is to connect who we are in our soul with how we live in the world—which when you think about it is about as political as it gets.
I hope you’ll stick with me. Thank you for helping me navigate this week by your presence here. I am deeply grateful.
The world is on fire.
As it always is.
The world is still beautiful.
As it always is.
~ Drew Jackson
We live in a small rural town where the risk of wildfire is high, which means that for several months of the year we are under a burn ban. Just recently after a few days of good, heavy rain, the burn ban was lifted. Fires have been burning throughout the valley as neighbors and logging operations have set off slash piles, but we hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
On Wednesday morning, November 6th, the day after the election, we weren’t quite sure what to do with ourselves having learned the outcome. Consuming more news, doom scrolling, and imagining the worst felt like adding fuel to our emotional fires. Time to set off the burn pile.
We’ve accumulated stuff all year and tossed it on a pile out in our field. Branches, brush that needed to be cleared, an old wooden dresser and a stool beyond repair, sensitive documents, and a little bit more of this and that. When we torched it off, fueled by a few dashes of gasoline, it burned fast and hot, quickly reducing the pile to a fraction of the size of the original. There was lots and lots and lots of smoke at first, obscuring the view on the other side of the pile. It felt a lot like the post-election world, obscured from view by the scorching hot flames that have been fanned in our country over the past decade. It was hard to imagine what lay on the other side of that political fire.
As the major flames burned themselves out, there was more smoke and less fire. As the pile continue to burn, the smoke became less dense making it is possible to see through it. Our flag, the one we fly every day, became visible although a bit distorted. It looked a lot like how America feels right now.
As the pile burned lower, we pushed any embers and still smoldering branches in towards the center, reducing the size of the pile a little bit at a time until it was nothing but a heap of glowing ashes that will take a few days to burn out.
The fire had burned hot and fast, consuming everything. The pile was gone and the air had cleared. It felt as if something had burned away for me too. Looking toward the house, our flag was still hanging there. No longer distorted but definitely tattered and a bit worse for the wear since we purchased it. The morning light was shining through her stars and stripes, and the sun a bright beacon in the distance. She reminded me that our country still stands, even if on different footing.
What is true of the burn pile is true of our lives. We’ve gotten ourselves to this moment in our shared history together. No one is exempt, which means that we all have things that are best taken to the burn pile, set aflame, and reduced to ashes.
America has always been an aspiration. A promise. Something to work toward, but never arrive at, because the work is never done.
Time to get to work.
