I’m exhausted with fury right now. We’re drowning in headlines, each one doubling down on the horror of the one before it. Even more troubling is the steady sewage of commentary from “fine people” as they’ve been described, getting behind 45 in his defense of domestic terrorists known as White Nationalists, Nazis, and/or Alt-Right. Some of these fine people are relatives and old school mates.
All I see is a 3,000 mile wide mosh pit unfolding before my eyes. How naive was I to think everyone would be reasonable and denounce 45 for letting his own unconscious racism come spilling out at a time when we need the strong, soothing guidance of a true elder.
45 is finally up to his neck in quicksand but it’s not happening quick enough. Let’s call it slow sand. How ironic that the man who once took out a front page ad calling for the death penalty of 5 innocent teenagers (The Central Park 5), and who built a campaign on the backs of people’s fears and prejudices, would sink his own ship over a historically monumental failure in leadership as our nation comes to grips with its glaring racial shadow.
Our reckoning has finally come. No more sweeping our racist history under the rug. No more obscuring it in dubious legislation. No more masking it in abusive criminal justice measures, gerrymandering, and institutional racism. One has to wonder how these hate mongers have gotten so bold. We can look at that as a sign of progress, though. The cover’s been pulled off. We’re at that point in the family therapy session where the big, 8-generation-long family secret comes spilling out. We’re going to get this done now so we can heal, or go down in flames. South Africa had their Truth & Reconciliation Commission. Now it’s our turn. How we manage this will determine if America will ever actually become great, or if we settle for mediocre.
What’s happening right now in America is what happens when a culture loses respect for ritualized rites of passage. When people have strong energies flowing and don’t have a ritual container within which to express it, they lash out and burn the town to ashes. It is a sign of a culture that’s lost touch with its soul. America is an adolescent trying to grow up without an elder in its life, with nobody to guide it through this painful passage. People are creating their own ritual space where all bets are off and anything goes. Social Media is that space right now. An adolescent with no elder to guide the process is a dangerous person. That’s a recipe for an unfocused mayhem.
I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how wrong it is that people are rioting, pulling down statues (“destroying history”). “It’s scary”, they say. Yes. Rites of passage are supposed to be scary to the initiate. Initiation is messy business. There will be some cutting off aspects that no longer serve us. Indeed, there will be a death involved: the shedding of an immature skin which allows an expansion into a deeper, greater way of being. Elders are necessary to guide this process.
I don’t know where our elders are right now. Perhaps the whole thing is also an initiation into elderhood, so those of us who’ve come of age may need to step up and let this unfolding initiate us. Because the one who should be guiding us clearly doesn’t’ have the capacity to stand in that space. As such, we’re flailing about hurting ourselves.
An initiated person can be identified by how deeply he’s dived into himself. In the eyes of any initiated man or woman, it’s obvious 45 is not even ready to be an initiate. In our culture, boys can skip over that essential ritual and just declare themselves to be men by way of privilege, size, or money. It is one of our greatest failings. In traditional societies, an initiate becomes ready by way of his age or where s/he’s at developmentally. Often life calls forth an initiation, such as a wedding, the birth of a child, or a brush with death. In such rites, something must be cast off, or integrated, in order to make way for a greater, deeper way of being. At the very least it requires a willingness to submit to the wisdom of the community. There’s a humbling inherent in that, for at the end of the day, rites of passage are conducted in service to the community as much as they are to the individual. Each initiation forces the individual to dive within and examine who he is and how he’s limited himself, for each limitation robs the community. In particular, rites that help a person shift from boy to man/girl to woman are necessary in order to channel chaotic energies toward a service-oriented way of being. If not, it’s been said a million times over, the energies of adolescence will spill out and destroy the community. In communities where there are no such rites for adolescent boys, we see boys creating their own rituals. As such, they become disruptive and dangerous. If we don’t quickly agree on a national strategy for coming to terms with who we are, and healing this ugly racial shadow, our shadow will eat us while we sleep. Men and women will continue taking to the streets and re-enacting “Fight Club” in the absence of a structured process.
This is what is happening now in the developmental cycle of America. And it’s about time. The origins of this country, from Christopher Columbus through the transatlantic slave trade right up to the present version of Jim Crow, have been shameful. One doesn’t have to abandon love for the country just to acknowledge that. But America doesn’t get to go from “good” to “great” by sweeping shameful things under the rug. America doesn’t grow up and become a noble elder by pretending ugly things aren’t happening. We don’t become great by kneeling on the backs of those less privileged. America grows up by being willing to endure this Rite of Passage, diving into itself with humility, honesty, and sincerity. We need our elders to stand up and guide this conversation. Who are they? Where are they? Please stand up.
The time is now.
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Well done, Greg! “Who are they? Where are they?” It may be you, my man!
Right on, brother!