4 Questions for Facing Catastrophe: The Wednesday 1-2-3


Happy Wednesday Reader!

This week, I’ve been really challenged by a question from Dr. Cornel West, and I’d like to pass the question on to you:

What does it mean to live in the midst of the catastrophic?

For me, especially this past month, the word “catastrophic” brings to mind one place in particular: Gaza.

When I try to process what’s happening in Gaza, I find my chest tightening and my stomach twisting. My thoughts become jumbled and I feel like I’m sinking into a deep, vacuous pit of sadness. Images of fire and children and bombed out hospitals and schools and U.S.-manufactured bombs and utter hopelessness fill my mind.

Dr. West says “It’s hard to bear reality; sometimes it’s just too much.” And, to be honest, I don’t quite know how to bear this reality, and my contribution to it through my tax dollars and my voting record, other than to cry and to curse.

I wonder if you’re familiar with the feeling.

For those of us with so much distance – physically, culturally, politically – from what’s happening on the ground, it can be hard to know what we can do. How do we keep our eyes on Rafah, on Gaza, on Israel, while metabolizing the movements of our inner life into actions of solidarity and justice and healing?

How do we live and move and breathe and act in the midst of the catastrophic?

In 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois, reflecting on the terrors of white supremacy in the United States, raised four fundamental questions for living in a violent and catastrophe-filled society.

4 Questions from W.E.B. Du Bois

As you read these, I invite you to add the word “my” and “our” after the word “shall” in order to make these more personal and practical for you and your communities.

  1. How shall integrity face oppression?
  2. What shall honesty do in the face of deception?
  3. What shall decency do in the face of insult?
  4. What shall virtue do to meet brute force?

These questions don’t offer us the softness of soothing comfort or the answer of “what to do now.” But I hope they might help you discern your next steps, not toward apathy or inaction, but toward healing, in whatever ways, large or small, they might be.

❓ Questions

  1. What does your body experience when you center on the catastrophic in our world?
  2. How are the ways you relate to your personal catastrophes similar or different to the catastrophes of the world?

🧰 Resources


⏪ If you missed last week's email:

I shared a framework for how to face and deal with problems.


Hope all is well-enough with you,

Andrew

IG: @andrewglang

The Gentle Change Newsletter

Weekly frameworks and practices to help you take meaningful action in impactful and sustainable ways.

Read more from The Gentle Change Newsletter

Hey Reader, A quick request: as we come to the close of the year, I have a reader survey for you! It’ll only take a couple minutes and will help inform what The Wednesday 1-2-3 looks like going forward. 📝 Please complete this short 2024 Reader Survey (And in case it helps: there's a cute tardigrade gif at the end of the survey 😂) Last week I was talking with a friend about burnout – specifically “activist burnout.” He mentioned how folks who engage in activism often go full-speed ahead until...

Hey Reader, At the bottom of today’s email is a free 25-minute mini-workshop I recorded for you. It’s all about how we hold the charge of this moment – the heaviness, fear, unease, and discomfort of it all – in a gentle and intentional way. Just wanted to make sure you saw it 🙂 Alright – onward to today’s prompt: A couple weeks ago, I wrote that we are collectively living in the midst of a disillusioning moment. I defined this experience as: A moment when the illusion of “how the world works”...

Hey Reader, With Thanksgiving Day tomorrow for those of us in the United States, I thought it would be a good time to bring back the Consent/Closeness Matrix, which I first shared about a year ago. Designed by my colleague Catherine Quiring, the Consent/Closeness Matrix is a tool for helping us understand the stories we carry within us and their origins. (If you can't see the image above, you can view it here.) As you look at the matrix, you’ll notice two axes: Low consent - high consent...