Courage
Seeing It Through No Matter What
Welcome. Below is the March 18 preview from the forthcoming, tentatively titled All of Us: A Pro-Democracy Book of Days for America. See earlier editions of this newsletter for more about the book.
This March 18 entry is one of several that respond to the question, Who am I, really? It explores one way to consider Spirit—in the context of involution, evolution, the Absolute, and the relative. In one regard it has nothing to do with the content of the rest of this post; in another regard it is the essence of everything posted here, throughout Substack, and beyond.
March 18 – Who Am I, Really?.5
“Well, how does Spirit normally feel? The truth is, it always feels good…. It always feels open and light. Because of this, you naturally begin to center more and more on the spiritual part of your being. You do this not by reaching for Spirit, but by letting go of the rest.”
- Michael A. Singer
Necessarily predating our human attempts to evolve into Spirit, Spirit first involved into—manifested as—the finite, relative, manifest universe of things and beings: hydrogen, helium, oxygen, oceans, trees, frogs, gorillas, and humans. Humans (we) learned how to operate on and in the relative world of things and beings and make stone, wooden, and metal things: shovels, hammers, knives, guns, bombs, boats, phones, medicines, cars, planes, and computers, which together, so enraptured us we forgot ourselves and our involution.
Spirit is not other than Body-Mind and Soul, but transcends and includes, exceeds and encompasses them. The underworld and middleworld arise through, and as the upperworld.
Our development from me to us to all of us to all that is is inherent in our evolution from Body-Mind to Soul to Spirit. Do you think Spirit involved as the universe, the galaxies, the stars, and the planets in order to have humans destroy a planet and subjugate other humans? Of course you don’t.
Who am I, really? Absolute and relative. Unmanifest and manifest. Emptiness and form. Spirit, Soul, Body-Mind.
_____
Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself. (New Harbinger, 2007), 175.
You Rarely Win, But Sometimes You Do
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
- Atticus Finch1
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.-Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly2
Be as courageous as you can.
- Timothy Snyder3
By these and most other measures, Donald Trump, his sons, members of his cabinet, and those in Congress who cower in silent fealty to him—whether they’re Special Forces veterans or doting grandmothers—are not courageous.
Trump has lived his adult life lying about winning and losing, claiming to have won when he settled in court, and leaving a trail of betrayal and self-aggrandizement in his wake, which in another meaning of the word can’t come soon enough. As his father and Roy Cohn taught him, he has taught his sons and son-in-law.
It used to be that his transgressions impacted local business competitors, contractors, women he preyed upon, and other collateral casualties. Now that tens of millions of Americans and a counter-majoritarian electoral college4 have seen fit to give him eight years as the nominal leader of the free world, the damage he does has global ramifications: his choices dehumanize people, kill people, render ordinary people’s lives increasingly unaffordable and desperate, and he continues to choose through an ignorant, arrogant, fearful, bigoted, violent, greedy, excessive, bullying, and untrustworthy view of the world.
Mike Pence refused to speak up until it was too late. J.D. Vance is an ambitious and unskillful politician who, despite degrees from the Ohio State University and Yale, refuses to learn from Pence’s failure. Trump, Pence, Vance, and those who would support or excuse them not only refuse to acknowledge being beaten decidedly by constantly greater beings, they refuse to acknowledge that such greater beings exist. Their ignorant arrogance allows them to win some finite battles while guaranteeing they are and will always be losers in the infinite game that beckons—unacknowledged by them and embraced by millions—for their attention.
We’ll end today with Kris Kristofferson’s “The Hero” - live at Farm Aid, 1986.
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Warner, 1982/1960), 112.
from “The Man Watching” by Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Poems if Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly, (HarperCollins, 1981).
Timothy Snyder, and Nora Krug, Illustrator, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Graphic Edition, (Ten Speed Graphic, 2021), 107.
Trump’s total popular votes in three elections: 214.4 million. Total popular votes for his opponents, Clinton, Biden, and Harris: 221 million.