Amy Marchand Collins

What Darkness Does

By Amy Marchand Collins

What darkness does is bring us close, closer together, closer to the Light. 

So it has always been, since first we left the trees and congregated around fires to tell the stories that make us who we are. 

The woman sitting and knitting in the back of meetings and council halls going back thousands of years, has been oft-overlooked. But she hears more than you realize. And when she speaks, all in earshot would do well to listen to her wisdom. She is speaking now, reminding us of who we are, who we have been, and who we yet can be. 

What darkness does is draw us close, seeking Light and warmth and the comfort of togetherness. May we in our togetherness remember to welcome and even celebrate the stranger in our midst. For we all have been strangers too.  Besides. It’s just the right thing to do. 

What darkness does is call forth our instincts to nurture and protect what is precious and most sacred. In the dark, seedling ideas can gestate, protected from harsh criticisms until they grow past the point of vulnerability.

Those who bring the darkness want us

     Separate

       And small

         And voiceless

           And frightened

             And forgetful of who we are

But instead, here we stand. 

Not against, but FOR:

For Peace, 

For Justice, 

For Science, 

For Hope, 

For the Environment, 

For Fairness, 

For Inclusivity,

For Kindness. 
Anchored in Love

Shining our Lights

Over and over, saying to our friends on our left and on our right, “I see you. I love you. I am so glad you are here.”
II

Handcrafted pussyhats, the color of the sunset sky. As my hands form each stitch, I imbue them with my love and prayers, which join with the wearer’s intentions, our love and prayers blending and joining as one. 

As we head into the long dark ahead of us, the friends, connections and memories made now must sustain us through the dark times ahead. Would that it were dawn already and these pink hats were instead harbingers of a new day!

Not all who enter this night will live to see the dawn. 

But let these hats be reminders of all that we stand FOR. 

We hoped to make history by inaugurating one woman to occupy the seat of power. Instead, we who are alive today bear witness to the last gasp of a system that no longer works. For anyone. And more importantly, to the galvanizing of all of us, as we awaken to how much work remains to be done – by us – to make the changes needed, both in our systems and in our hearts to create a world that works for everyone. 

What darkness does in its arrogance is revel in its power. 

And that WILL prove its undoing. 

Because in its power-drunk madness it forgets: 

There have always been those with the ability to see right through it. 

And this is why 

what darkness does best 

is give strength and clarity to the Light.

By Amy Marchand Collins

Wouldn’t it be fun

If instead of mud-slinging,

People and politics were more about light-flinging?

What needs to seen?

What’s there to be healed?
Instead of lobbing bombs or bullets

We could shine the light of compassion

Where were you bullied?

How were you oppressed?
Rather than cut people down, dragging them through the mud

Let’s lift them up

Like a snowball fight,

Each landed “shot” leaving us that much warmer, safer, clearer, whole

Turn up the light. All the way up.

And drag the old stained mattresses and cupboards and hiding places we have used,

Thinking ourselves or others unworthy of this light

Drag it all outside

Put it on the lawn

Like the contents of a house after a flood.

Let the antiseptic sunlight into every crevice and corner

To dry and heal and strengthen

Let’s salvage what is good

Let’s toss what no longer works

The foundation is strong.

Let’s rebuild a more perfect union

This one founded on love and light and dedicated not just to the principle of equality and justice for all,

But to making that a reality

For Everyone.

But first things first

Fling Light!

For every person, with or without a disability, there are a web of people who support that person as they grow and develop to live an independent, productive life. For children, that web starts but cannot end with the child’s parents.

For a child with a disability, much of that web of support depends on programs that rely on federal funding through Medicaid.

As a parent of two teens with disabilities, a parent who already struggles even WITH the supports we receive, I can make a prediction.

If these cuts are allowed to happen, they will drive millions of people OUT of the labor force. Millions of mothers (and some fathers, too) who are already stretched because private insurance doesn’t cover the treatment or therapy or medication their child needs. Millions of mothers who are ALREADY underemployed, working in jobs far below their earning potential or intellectual capacity because the needs of their child (or children!) makes their schedule too unpredictable. Mothers who are spending their own prime earning years and college degrees changing pull-ups on teenaged bodies. Mothers who are risking injury and disability of their own lifting and changing and rolling — and ducking the unexpected spasm.
A New Foundation for American Greatness, you say? You are building it on the blood, tears, sweat and bones of myself and my beloveds.
–and to that I say NO.
I WILL NOT LET YOU FORGET THAT WE EXIST. OR THAT WE MATTER.
You are perhaps counting on the smallness and meanness of politicians whose limited measure of a person’s worth is what they add in economic value to the already overstuffed coffers of the billionaires who fill the cabinet and the Congress. And you are counting, perhaps, on the smallness and meanness of people who are also struggling and who don’t want to see any of their hard-earned money go to ‘undeserving moochers” on the system.
When and how did we the people become so jaded and calloused?
I was born years after his death, but the echoes of JFK’s challenge still reverberated through my childhood – “Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask what you can do for your country.” I was brought up to revere education, learning for learning’s sake, curiosity, travel for the way it opens first our minds and then our hearts. I took to heart the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. “Everybody can be great, Because anybody can serve.” I believe that generosity and optimism and kindness will always take us further than cynicism, let alone hatred.

We need a new foundation for American greatness, I agree with you there. But what I have in mind involves taking a full, clear-eyed grown-up assessment of who we are and where we stand.
Certainly anything that requires further denigrating or diminishing the lives of human citizens of our republic isn’t worthy of the appellation ‘great.’

To be great, to be worthy of honor and esteem, we need to know what we value as a nation and then demonstrate those values by our collective spending. Words alone are not enough.

This is a momentous night for our nation. A full moon. Unsettled thoughts after tonight’s shocking action by the President. Firing the Director of the FBI! Unprecedented! And Unpresidential.  What revelations will the new day bring?

Tonight our Democracy is fighting for her life. If she survives this crisis, there are fundamental changes that will need to be made. This meddling by the Russians and probable collusion by one or more members of the current administration is a grievous insult right to our core. It strikes at our fundamental values of life, liberty equality, and justice for all. 

If she doesn’t survive, it will be because the elegant system of checks and balances that has worked for 228 years will have finally succumbed, collapsed under the weight of partisanship. (A weight the structure was never built to support – there is no mention of political parties in the Constitution)

I have felt this peculiar tension before, sitting between the isolettes of my twins in the NICU before they were big enough for me to hold. As if by my watching and waiting, through sheer force of will I can prevent anything worse from happening. 

Bad news: I can’t. Not then and not now. 

And I know I need to go to bed and make an attempt at sleep soon. 

But first let me unravel a bit more of this. 

He said he wanted to make America “Great Again.” That may well come to pass, but probably not the way his followers envision. Instead, if he does succeed at this slogan it will be after the fact and accidental. Also much more like the way Anakin Skywalker brought “balance to the Force” than any return to some mythical great American past. 

So. 

Leave off the again. Let’s listen. What would a truly great America look and sound like?

An America, a United States that rose to the challenge of those who have called to her greatness over the years, an America that lives out the fulfillment of her creed. And expands upon it.

An America that recognizes that ALL people are created equal. Where one person equals one vote. And an America that recognizes that no one’s achievements are theirs alone. We all stand on the shoulders of those who have come before. An America that can honor and learn from the past but also not be condemned to repeat it. 

An America that fosters community, compassion and courage.  

An America that honors the sanctity of the land and our obligation to protect and preserve it. Not to plunder it for our own economic gains. 

An America where we recognize the state as having an active role to play in protecting and fostering the full implementation of the inalienable rights we all are born with. Whether it is healthcare for all, education policy, a universal minimum income or consistent treatment across state lines, some things cannot be left to the invisible hand of the market     

No. 

For America to become truly great, we need to learn how to reach out to one another with our real flawed human hands, across the issues that divide us. 

I take seriously the injunctions of my faith traditions to love your enemies, and “pray for those who would spitefully use you.”

It is often hard work. I have to dig deep to get beneath my own fear and anger and outrage, to try to find some thread of humanity that I am willing to join common cause with. 

I see confusion and suspicion in the expression here.   

Looking at this picture, I see both confusion and suspicion in the narrowed but foggy gaze. Perhaps the suspicion covers a layer of sadness or fear?

I don’t know. This man is in many ways a modern day embodiment of the archetype of King Midas. That ancient King had all the money and all the power that went with it, but it ended up costing him love and all of the valuable human experiences that money cannot buy. 

Midas’s story did not end happily. 

I cannot speak to this man’s personal experiences, but certainly having him as leader of our country, as “leader of the free world” has led to a greater emphasis on winning at all costs and on permitting hate in the public sphere.  The rest of the world holds its breath while he and the leader of North Korea trade barbed insults more typical of schoolyard bullies than world leaders, threatening the entire planet with destruction by nuclear weapons.

In many ways he embodies America’s shadow — he is the American Dream taken to its obscene extreme.

Perhaps at some point in the future we will look back on this time as one where we finally got real and let go of the old consciousness, the often violent beliefs that have held our species back.  

We may come to view this time as a collective chemicalization, and once we have bubbled it all up and out, we will finally have room to begin to remember the truth that what unites us really is stronger than what divides us. 

But for now we are here in this moment, peering into an unknown future. Tensions on the geopolitical scene are higher than they have been since I was in college in the early 1980s. 

I pray we and all our leaders find a way to see our differences with a new understanding. I pray we may look upon one another with eyes of love and compassion, rather than suspicion or fear. 

I pray.