Stepping on the faces of politicians gave me hope
Could restoring our brains help restore the world?
Ok, so my actual foot hasn’t touched any actual faces lately (or ever?), but I did spend time earlier this month laying newspaper on the ground for walkways at a local garden. Stacks of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and local publications like The Voices (my town), and the Newtown Bee had been stored away in a barn, and saved through the winter for this very day.
The garden is called The Giving Garden, and for my Connecticut pals it’s located in Brookfield. The garden donates hundreds of pounds of fresh produce every year to shelters and food pantries, which is a mission I’m happy to get behind (especially in a state where the income inequality gap is one of largest in our nation).
Our group of volunteers created a system of wetting the papers in a bucket, laying them down where the walkways will be, then stepping on them to keep the pages from blowing away in the wind. Familiar faces looked up at us from the dirt floor - republicans, democrats, both local and national representatives, celebrities and influencers too. As our fingers turned black from the ink, and our sleeves wet from splashing water, someone said out loud what I suspect many of us were thinking: “It’s cathartic stepping on some of these faces.” Laughter and nods of agreement rose up, as we left more muddy boot prints behind.
Just to be clear, I don’t support violence towards our elected officials (or any other human being for that matter). I had to agree with my fellow gardener though. The repetitive task of opening newspapers, noticing a familiar face, or luxury brand, or inflammatory headline, and leaving my mark on it felt pretty good.
If only stomping out greed, war, racism, and hatred for our fellow humans was as easy as pressing printed publications into the dirt.
The symbolism has stuck with me though. Images of leaders, and billionaires, alongside ads for greedy corporations, were given an essential job that day - blocking weeds so vegetables and flowers can thrive - and that brought me some much-needed hope. In a small way it felt like restoration - injustice turned into fertile sandy loam.
Loam created from damp images and words of fear, enmeshed with native soil, one day bringing forth life, and food, and flora.
Loam that suppresses weeds, so the hungry won’t need to suppress their appetites.
Loam that serves the ones Jesus called us to serve too, loving them with just-picked-fruit in the peak of summer, full of nutrients they may not get elsewhere.
I savored Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass earlier this year, and one of the final chapters was about restoring ecosystems from wastelands. She told the story of Honeywell Inc. (and its various predecessor companies) and Onondaga Lake, in upstate New York. Since the late 1880s, hazardous waste material, including mercury, was dumped directly into the lake, destroying the land and its natural resources. Agreements were made in 2005 for a partial cleanup by Honeywell, and again in 2018.
From what I understand some progress has been made to heal the land, and the plants and wildlife impacted by decades of destruction. Even better, more than 1,000 acres of land have been returned to Onondaga Nation to be healed, protected, and restored.
Kimmerer says that “restoration is a powerful antidote to despair” and I’ve held onto a glimmer of that since the day I helped plant the Giving Garden. What would the world look like if we took that seriously? What if our tiny attempts to fix the broken parts of our world weren’t so tiny after all? What if our despair could be remedied through the good and beautiful work of restoration?
The day I helped plant this garden was also the day I left social media for a planned three month break. I’m almost a month in to my summer ‘experiment’, and not to get too much into the weeds about it (because I know these types of reflections are written ad nauseam), but my brain is noticeably changing in a very positive way. It’s calm. I’m more present, and focused - still informed about the happenings in our world - but not processing every hot take, opinion, or stupid ad the algorithm wants me to see. I’d even say my brain is on its way to being restored. It’s a feeling I’ve craved, and I’ve known what I needed to do to get here for a while. I finally did it and haven’t regretted it for a second (even if I’ve had some fomo along the way).1
Perhaps restoring our own brains could help restore the despair we see in the world too? What if more of us were regulated, calm, focused, and present? Could this lead to healing broken relationships with others, and ourselves? What if empathy could grow where it’s been called toxic? And what about the dreams we’ve never allowed ourselves to indulge in because our brains simple don’t have the capacity in these crazy days? I wonder how many artists are out there not making art - not creating hope - and how many of us are missing out on it. If only…
I’m also thinking about grief, which is something that comes easy to me, and maybe it does for you too (or maybe it doesn’t at all). I do think before we can be restored in our brains, and bodies, and communities, we need to count our losses. We won’t appreciate the fullness of restoration until we notice, and lament, the ways our lives have and haven’t gone, and the ways we’ve hoped, and have been disappointed, or gotten sick, or been left to bleed alone. We also need to remember the ways we’ve left others in a wake of our own failings, noticing where we have responsibility to restore. Making a list helps, I’ve found.
“If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again” - Robin Wall Kimmerer.
I do think there’s something to this - healing our brains being a catalyst to healing in the world we inhabit. Newspapers and social media will never lack the fear, it’s literally always there waiting for us. Some will never weep (choosing to celebrate instead), but many of us will welcome the tears, or at least silently allow them.
Weeping is important, but weeping alone isn’t the answer. It’s the act of restoration that may bring some healing - building a garden pathway, sending a text to check in, or making a decision to let your brain rest from the noise. Choosing to restore in love may end up being a lifesaving source of hope for others, and maybe even your own soul too.
My scrolling habits were decently under control before June 1st, and yet I still notice a big difference. Forgive me, I’m about to use one of my least favorite words, but maybe you should try it too? I hear it only gets better, especially after the three month mark. I can’t wait.