of politics, persimmons, and the death of the universe

I am seated on my bed, which is presently a mattress on the floor of a large room. I am surrounded by piles of books. This is the center of my life right now; every one of these books needs to be read through, with notes made in the margins and neat lists compiled of each main argument. The mattress faces a window that takes up nearly a full wall: outside is spring, and a mockingbird, and a neglected garden. Here in the center of my life, surrounded by concentric rings of need and obligation, I think I want to write an essay about politics.

It begins with a story that was related to me recently: Gandhi had organized a very large march, and thousands of people came. After a while he noticed that it had the potential to become violent, so he gathered the people together and told them that he was calling the march off. There was anger; many people had sacrificed a great deal to be there. Gandhi addressed them: " I am human, and I make mistakes. Therefore my commitment must be to truth and not to consistency."

Upon hearing this story I realized how much of what I did as a political witness had simply become routine, how little room I'd left for questioning. Every label that I'd originally applied to myself under the influence of real inspiration had stayed there, unquestioned, long after the inspiration had gone. Somehow this had resulted in a sort of spiritual gumming-up, a stagnancy due to the fact that there was no square of open skin left for divine winds to blow across. Gandhi's words reminded me that I need to make room in the process for questioning, for the evolution and change of truth.

Recently the famed astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell came to speak at my college. She spoke about the fate of the universe, how all discoveries are now showing that either the universe will continue expanding and cooling or will eventually collapse back in on itself. Either way, all life is going to end. This tiny window of consciousness and experience we are dwelling in is very rare, almost accidental.

Her talk was not well attended. This, however, is neither rare nor accidental--a combination of stress and apathy keeps our student body at the edge of catatonia. In the case of Jocelyn's talk this saddened me more than usual, for I found my own apathy addressed and to some extent eradicated by her words. The idea that there is not a universal promise for life, that this chance at consciousness is so minute, woke two things in me: a sense of cheerful futility and a strengthened resolve to make of this life as beautiful a thing as possible. When there can be no endpoint, no goal, the hierarchy of achievement falls to pieces and we are left to enjoy the struggle. All of us are here together in this tiny space of living, and our strongest responsibilities must be to be fully conscious and to make room for others to be fully conscious as well. If there is just this one space and time for the rue anemone to experience life, I will try not to step on the rue anemones as I walk to class.

Sometimes, if only to make my daily behaviors feel less inane, I try to look at myself as a microcosm. One thing that keeps standing out is a tendency to put off the way I really want to live until outer circumstances are perfect: I won't put too much energy into gardening until I have my own homestead, I won't start eating well until I'm out of school, I'll start using all these wildcrafted medicines when I stop drinking coffee--otherwise what's the use? Suddenly all of this became clear: there is never going to be the perfect time. If the universe is tumbling in on itself the day will not come when we can put down our pens and carabiners and monkey wrenches and get down to the real joy of living. Somehow the struggle has to be for the struggle itself, and our politics have to fit within our real lives.

The other half of Jocelyn's talk was about her Quakerism, how she maintains her faith in the face of all she knows about the death of the universe. She said that the Quaker belief in continuing revelation had trained her mind for a changing universe: Quakers believe that truth evolves, and no spirit-spoken truth of two hundred years ago has any more bearing than what spirit speaks now. So many of the wisdom traditions speak of spirit breaking off from spirit so that it can know itself: the key to life is experience. My friend Anna sees it as her personal responsibility to look as happy as possible whenever she's biking, so that those driving past will begin to see biking as a joy and not a sacrifice. So just her experience of biking, her joy in it, becomes political. Can all experience be this way?

There is a story in Quaker legend about William Penn, a titled nobleman who wanted to become a Quaker. In those days noblemen wore swords as a symbol of their societal status. William Penn knew that Quakers are pacifists and object to arms of any sort. He went to George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, to ask him what he should do about his sword. Fox said: wear it as long as you can.

Wear it until suddenly consistency isn't enough anymore and truth breaks through; use this truth that is given you until a new one replaces it.

There are beautiful meadows that surround my college, relics of a time when this spitball of strip malls was rolling crop land. They are going wilder now; the narrow creeks are lined with small cypress and sycamores, the best bird watching spot for miles around. Last year my friend Jenna and I turned in a proposal for this land to become a permaculture farm, site of a sustainability program, community center, and forest regeneration work. We had worked on it so hard and for so long that when the administration bypassed our proposal for that of a new entrance road and soccer fields, we couldn't fight back. We were worn out and bitter, and did not do anything to oppose the plans.

That's one sword I can't wear anymore. If the universe is ending, I'd prefer persimmon trees to asphalt for as long as it lasts, and there's not much time to waste. Right now we're organizing mediated meetings, writing letters and pulling protests together, painting beautiful signs. The energy of those involved is joyful. Recently a group of us went out into the meadows and planted persimmon seeds between the survey stakes, rested in the sun, listened to the first breeding songs of the birds. Maybe this time our administrators will let go of consistency in favor of truth. I'll let you know how it goes.

Lissa Carter picks up new skills at about the same rate she forgets old ones, but suspects there's a better way of doing things. She's presently embroiled in a very frustrating college experience which she hopes will turn out to be invaluable, as such things invariably do.