In Times of Darkness, Choose Something Like a Star

I have prided myself on my ability to put my head down and get on with business, despite all the chaos of the Trump administration. I knew my lane and I stayed in it, trying to let go of what I could not control.

But this week, the heaviness of our political reality has felt inescapable.

Undoubtedly, I have been naive. I’ve indulged in the fantasy of a modern-day French resistance without ever really grappling with what that resistance cost. (I blame A French Village, which affords its main characters plenty of plot armor.) But witnessing the rampaging cruelty of ICE agents in Minneapolis has stripped away my illusions of safety.

My naivety comes with a heavy side of privilege. Middle-class white women like me are typically seen as non-threatening and are often treated respectfully by law enforcement. I know my Black and brown neighbors often aren’t afforded that same benefit of the doubt.

Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Logically, I knew that this kind of government-sanctioned brutality happened, but I hadn’t experienced the fear of it in my body until I saw my fellow wine moms reporting how they’d been groped, beaten, and detained simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

None of this is by accident. Intimidation is the whole plan. Trump is a bully who can only rule by coercion and fear. This administration wants people like me to look at the murder of Renee Good and see that the cost of resistance is simply too high.

But then I remember purpose. Why am I here on earth? Is it simply to preserve my own life for as long as possible? To maximize my material comforts, even if it means shutting the door while my neighbors suffer? Or am I here to be part of a community? Am I here to point my life towards something bigger than myself? Will I struggle towards ideals I can never achieve, even if it means failing, again and again?

Is there beauty in that struggle?

In the midst of all this fear and grappling, I remembered one of my favorite poems:

“Choose Something Like a Star,” by Robert Frost:

O Star (the fairest one in sight),We grant your loftiness the rightTo some obscurity of cloud –It will not do to say of night,Since dark is what brings out your light.Some mystery becomes the proud.But to be wholly taciturnIn your reserve is not allowed.Say something to us we can learnBy heart and when alone repeat.Say something! And it says “I burn.”But say with what degree of heat.Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.Use language we can comprehend.Tell us what elements you blend.It gives us strangely little aid,But does tell something in the end.And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,Not even stooping from its sphere,It asks a little of us here.It asks of us a certain height,So when at times the mob is swayedTo carry praise or blame too far,We may choose something like a starTo stay our minds on and be staid.

(Emphasis mine.)

Like our mysterious star, much remains unknown. We can’t say, for sure, where ICE will show up, whether the courts will be able to constrain them, whether things will get worse. That uncertainty is hard to live with.

But I also know that when fear comes, the thing to do is take an action, no matter how small. Without going into too much detail publicly, I’ll say that groups are organizing and plans are being made to help keep our neighborhood safe.

As a friend in Minneapolis told me this week, we can’t wait for outside forces to save us. We will have to count on each other.

We can’t know for sure whether our actions will end up making a difference. Everyone must tally the cost and be prepared to pay it. But I believe fixing our gaze on something higher than ourselves can give us strength to bear those costs.

Bonus Materials:

* this encouraging post by Heather Cox Richardson

* I still think you should watch A French Village

* for the Christians among us, I’m also finding this devotional book helpful

Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe