Given the events recently, from Baghdad to Beirut to Paris, I have been sitting with and processing intense emotions that intimately remind me of my activist roots (organizing, protesting, and resisting a blood-thirsty US government and population just after the events of 9/11 in New York, 2001).
I know folks who have lost family members in Paris. There are no words. For anyone reading this, I hope you and your loved ones are safe.
For now, I am simply going to repost something that I hope speaks to folks. Beth’s words say it all.
My deepest gratitude to Beth O’Rourke and Jeff Den Broeder who dare so greatly and with such tremendous heart.
May our healing be swift and may a compassionate hope be the seed we tend.
***
Reposting: “Waves of Disruption, Times of Disruption” by Beth O’Rourke–
Yesterday, November 13, almost at the very moment Jeff den Broeder and I released our latest feature in our “Saltwater Daughters” series entitled, “Waves of Disruption: The Cori Schumacher Story”, a nightmare began. The Paris news broke…and so did our hearts. We wondered what to do: Should we take it down as a show of deference? Preface our posts with our feelings of utter sadness and loss for our brothers and sisters in Paris? To be honest, we were so bereft we could not act on anything. We could only try to parse together the unfolding tragedy while utterly aghast at the extreme barbarism.
When Cori posted the film on her own Facebook page, she wrote powerful words that artfully connected her ethics and ideals that she practices in her daily life with the rampant chaos of Paris. In that moment I knew that leaving “Waves of Disruption” live was not the worst choice.
“Watching the story in Paris unfold… the horror, the violence, and feeling caught in a whirlwind of emotion. My thoughts are there, but I am also challenging myself to think about the extremes that drive… us.
And into the midst of this, not knowing that these events were going to unfold, SeaLevel.tv‘s Beth O’Rourke and Jeff Den Broeder, have released an intimate story from my own past, of the fundamentalism that I emerged from and am still impacted by. I am so deeply grateful to Beth and Jeff for their care, their openness, and for creating a space to explore and share this story.
I believe in the importance of radically committing to something deeper in these exact moments, a commitment to being radically human in the midst of the most turbulent, chaotic, frightening truths about our world and ourselves. To feel through these moments, let them sink in, and then challenge ourselves to “Being Human” differently.
What does being Radically Human mean to you right now?”
— Cori Schumacher
I’ll just leave it at that for now, with Cori’s question. If you dare to be radically human, we give special thanks to you.
***
(Clicking the picture will take you offsite to Vimeo where you can watch the short film)
Leave a Reply