Excerpt
A Rebellion of Care
An Introduction Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. —Leonard Cohen
At the beginning of 2021, in a short fit of unmerited confidence, I began posting my poetry to Instagram with no great purpose or clear plan. I had decided to share a poem once a week for a year, regardless of how the pieces were received. A creative discipline. Zero expectations, just creating and sharing. Committing to such an intentional schedule of sharing your art is a commendable decision—but then you have to actually write the things.
Over that year, my poems scanned an array of recurring themes— friendship, stumbling faith, the rage & sorrow that comes with witnessing systemic racism and police violence, the dehumanizing effects of modern life, mental health, the physical body, and how to be kinder human beings in online spaces. My writing shifted between the physical, the metaphysical, and the supernatural, always colored by a political and spiritual undertone, even when those elements weren’t explicit. It was a haphazard, scattergun, wing-it-every-week start to sharing online. Yet at the end of that year, as I stood back and examined these pieces as a body of work, one theme tied it all together: that the most important thing for us is to care for the world, ourselves, and each other. And more, to do so is a radical position, inherently undermining the status quo of twenty-first-century capitalism. I leaned in. I began to call it “A Rebellion of Care.”
Though it may not feel like it, most of us already live radical lives—it is just not for anything we truly believe in. If you find it impossible to go to Target without spending $200 on stuff you had no intention of buying, you are already radicalized. Or if the only political options you can imagine are either old men in red ties or old men in blue ones. Or if the Amazon truck visits you every day. Or if you give 10 percent of your income to a church that spends only a fraction of that on helping the poor. Or if you bust your butt working as hard as you can at a career you don’t enjoy, for a company that doesn’t care about you, with the hope your body will last for more than five years of retirement. You are radicalized. These are extreme behaviors; we just call them normal.
I am interested in radicalizing us into a different kind of life—the kind of life you actually value most—a life of unrelenting care. I want to radicalize us into a life of self-acceptance that leads to otheracceptance. Into a life of nurturing what is unique about yourself so that you would nurture others in the same way. A determined life of tenderness toward bodies, spirits, minds, hearts—and the earth on which they live. A life of deep friendships that violate social orders of class, caste, individualism, and isolationism.
Many people have a dream of leaving society, going off-grid, leaving behind the digital age. There is a magnetic draw to a simpler life. Yet to create that life you have to rely on oil companies, Amazon, and tutorials from YouTube to even get started. That’s not even mentioning the money required to begin and how you might go about acquiring those funds. True divestment from modern life is not a genuine possibility for most people. We remain complicit.
While you cannot break a system on your own, you can certainly weaken it. You can pull at its seams. Growing your own food, repairing your clothes, giving to mutual-aid funds all help achieve this. We have to build a new world while the old one decays—catching whoever we can and sparing as much of the earth as we are able. Not in an attempt to create some kind of impossible utopia, but for the objective goodness of the task and the fate of the human soul.
A rebellion of care lies on the far side of cynicism. It is not before it—that is innocence. It is also not above it—that is naïveté. Instead, it is for those who know the patterns of cynicism because that is what the truth demands. It is for those who know the world is going to be cruel and that power inevitably corrupts all who possess it. A rebellion of care has been through a dark night of the soul.
If you probe the most cynical people, you will often find they are the most caring and empathetic. It is just that this world is so harsh, it feels like we have to encase ourselves in mistrust in order to survive. But we cannot stay in that shell indefinitely. It is a husk where souls wither and die. We have to break through the cynicism to exist in a second state of tenderness in the world. To be just as alive as when we were children.
That is not easily done, as very little in our world seems right these days. I know every generation thinks that, but we have more cause than most.
The rise of Christofascism, the corruption of our political parties by corporations and the ultra-rich donor class, the unfolding climate catastrophe, state-sponsored genocide, an oil-dependent food chain, AI devouring energy resources & creative jobs, monstrous rental costs, homeownership being a fantasy for most people, microplastics in everybody, greed under the veil of inflation while companies announce record profits.
The way our society is constructed is simply not good for us. It is not good for our bodies, nor our minds, nor our hearts. So what possible chance do our souls have?
I have voted “correctly” in every national and local election I was allowed to participate in. And still, things get worse.
I have prayed the right prayers with as much intensity as a human being can muster and given myself totally to religious practices. And still, things get worse.
I have protested at city halls and plazas, held signs and chanted under a punishing summer sun. And still, things get worse.
I have loved my family faithfully and fully and well. And still, things get worse.
Often I can feel myself inching closer to the lip of despair. Maybe you can too? But I’m not ready to give up just yet. I still want all of this life.
A hummingbird song. Blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries. Michelin stars and Taco Bell. Tattoos on my body where the skin will wrinkle as I age. I still want it all.
I want to listen to the rain while everyone else sleeps. I want to perfect a recipe. Make bad puns. Avoid the main story line with side quests. Sing three-part harmonies. Watch one more episode.
But I cannot positive-mental-attitude myself into a more equitable society.
I cannot keep practicing wellness in a hellscape.
I certainly can’t stand opposed to the total power of corrupt corporations and a failing state on my lonesome.
Something has to change for all of us.
Something has to break.
As I am writing this, in October 2024, the city I live in—Asheville, North Carolina—has just been hit by Hurricane Helene. The floods, mudslides, and landslides have washed away entire neighborhoods. I am witnessing firsthand what a mass rebellion of care could look like. People are sharing and serving without hoarding or second-guessing themselves. Crisis brings focus. Our little fiefdoms mean nothing if our neighbor is dying. While the authorities may be here, doing what they are instructed to do, they are slow and inadequate. A trilliondollar-a-year military is less effective than the organized, compassionate, and willing locals. Everything I see here tells me that a different way of living is not just possible; it is right under the surface of our society, ready to come alive.
We cannot rely on those in power to help us and we are going to have to make our own way. Of course good things can still be achieved by political and religious institutions, but we can’t depend on them or place our hope in them to do what is necessary. They will never sacrifice themselves. We have to find other sources of power to help us. We have to bring that energy for each other.
We know what is true and we know what we must do.
The mystery of life is not “what is this all about?” The real mystery is “how do we forget?” The beginning & end of it all is that we must take care of each other. Anyone on their deathbed can tell you that & certainly every child feels it too. To say that “this life is beautiful” or that “love is the answer” is not in the least bit original, but it is the truth. I believe that truth still hums with possibility. And saying something true in a world awash with lies is the first act of rebellion.
