Blessings, Curses, Perspective, and Politics

[TexasTowelie]

By Carol Morgan

It’s strange how writing and thinking operates. One thought leads to a door, then another and another. I’m wandering through a series of rooms and then arrive at a different conclusion than the one I started with. At first, I wished I’d sprinkled some bread crumbs along the way to find my way back to the beginning, but then the foggy-word-thought-journey magically fell into place.

It’s a wholesale metaphor.

Five years ago today, I moved into the run-down, bizarre and quirky home where I live now. It had all the makings of a disaster. As a matter of fact, it was a disaster. The day the movers were hauling away 26 years of my life’s accumulations is same day my buyers backed out on my big house, the stock market crashed, Bear-Stearns crapped-out, taking the lion's share of my 30 years’ worth of savings.

For 30 years, I’d done all the right things. I saved, I invested, and I was a good law-abiding citizen. But life had something else in mind for me. I was no longer the teacher, I was the student. I won’t bore you with the mundane details, but the next two years felt like a curse with lying mortgage bankers and unethical realtors, crooked contractors, and an assortment of villains, all intent on destroying my good nature.

In the end, it turned out ok, but the road wasn't straight or smooth and the journey was not pleasant. Five years later, I feel a strange kinship with Frances Mayes in the novel, Under the Tuscan Sun. My wishes were all granted, but not in the "package" I'd originally envisioned and not in the exact order.

The lessons we learn in the midst of crisis are priceless. Disasters become blessings and blessings become disasters. Life always gives us what we need, not what we want, nor what we deserve. That realization comes to us afterward; after we’ve survived the storm. There's nothing comfortable about walking through fire. You’re not thinking; you just keep moving.

Everyone should read the works and words of Pema Chodron. She was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown, a product of the prestigious Miss Porter’s school. She was born to privilege, destined to take her place among society’s elite and then life intervened. I recall a passage from one of her books:

“We think the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.”

After reading her words I realized this: If life is too glorious, we become arrogant and full of ourselves. We become lazy and complacent; fooling ourselves, believing the magic will go on forever. This happens to everyone without exception. We need the wretchedness to bring us back down to earth, to keep us grounded. It's the teeter-totter principle, the scales of justice, the balance beam, the clock pendulum. All of it applies to life and politics.

Up and down, down and up. As we mature, we revel in our good fortunes, but we know a "dip" is coming. It's like those dime-store snow globes purchased at Christmas. We shake it and the glimmering pieces swirl in every direction, slowly drifting downward, eventually settling on the bottom. The flakes are motionless for now, until it's shaken again. After awhile, we expect it; we plan for it.

Pema Chodron’s life was shaken. My life is full of being shaken and yours too, I suppose. But the nice thing about maturity and experience is the assurance that the pieces will eventually fall into place and be quiet again. At least for a while…

The cruel irony is just when we "get" that rhythm, when we become accustomed to the dips and the climbs and begin to lean into it and actually enjoy the ride then....bam! We're gone and on to the next existence...

And what does all of this have to do with politics?

It has to do with perspective, hindsight, and our distinct position on life’s black conveyor belt. In the heat of the moment, a person or policy appears to be a disaster of immense proportions which, magically, with time and experience, comes to be regarded as a good thing. We just didn’t realize it at the time.

Just like people must grow into a career, new policies and procedures must grow on us. Part of our resistance is fear of the unknown and untested, but, just like the snow globe flakes, the fear subsides, life goes on and a temporary tranquility takes its place.

In his day, FDR was vilified; the very social programs we depend on today were considered as America’s slow slide to “red” by his contemporaries. We are just now realizing that Eisenhower, who was considered in the 50’s as a do-nothing, golf-playing president, was a pretty good executive. With hindsight and reflection, Reagan, who was on the fast track to canonization in the 80’s, is now being viewed as what he really was: An actor playing the lead role of the elder statesman in a movie entitled America the Beautiful. His administration was the petri dish that cultivated the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld. We’re just beginning to realize the carefully concealed darkness of his eight years in office.

It took us twenty years to realize President Clinton screwed us all by repealing Glass-Stegall, eight years to realize that electing George W. Bush was a disastrous mistake, and ten years to realize we’d been hoodwinked on Iraq.

Time changes everything and we learn constructive lessons from both the glorious and the wretched.

It was pretty gratifying to see Conservatives and Liberals unified in their collective “NO” to war in Syria and I predict in time and hindsight that Americans will realize it took far too long to pass ACA. Occasionally, America learns from its past mistakes.

Just as Ms. Chodron said, we need both gloriousness and wretchedness. Occasionally, we need to be shaken up, to drift perilously without direction, and to find inner peace again.

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Carol Morgan is a career counselor, writer, speaker, former Democratic candidate for the Texas House and the award-winning author of Of Tapestry, Time and Tears, a historical fiction about the 1947 Partition of India. Follow her on Twitter @CounselorCarol1, on Facebook: CarolMorgan1 and her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org

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