The Strength of the Ancestors

As they whisper into our souls.

I sensed a gentle voice as I came out of a meditation. It said, “Draw upon the strength of the ancestors.” I thought it was a lovely sentiment, then as I reflected further I realized it was more than lovely. To “draw upon the strength of the ancestors” would mean to draw on all that they left behind - their ideas, yes, but also their courage and their love. That which is fundamentally true remains in the ethers and doesn’t die when the body dies. The genius of the founders. The courage of Martin. Even the power of Moses. Life is a much bigger field to play on than just the drama of one lifetime. Our ancestors aren’t here, but what they left is with is still ours to embrace, to gain strength from, and ultimately to add to.

Woa, there’s a lot there for us to look at now. Like a child who wishes their deceased parent was still alive -“If Daddy were here, he would know what to do” - it’s tempting to think how great it would be if only Lincoln, or Roosevelt, or Martin could help us steer our ship as we head through the turbulent waters of today. They, like we, lived through difficult times - in a way even more dangerous than ours - yet they had the genius to persevere “with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,” as Lincoln put it in his Second Inaugural.

ArtMarie

The zeitgeist of this moment is not so much about the brilliance of any one individual, though certainly our times do not lack for geniuses. It’s more about the strength and power of the group and the genius that emerges from our collective wisdom. This isn’t an age of the soloist but an age of the choir. Soloists have their part to play, yes, but the song belongs to the choir itself.

America’s song isn’t better or worse than any other nation’s, but like every nations’s song it is unique to us. It has been accompanied throughout our history by the pain-filled cries of oppressed peoples, from Africans to the indigenous - their history, their struggles, their triumphs and their tears. America’s song is Springsteen rather than Bach, Dylan rather than Beethoven, and Prince rather than an Italian opera. The most important part of it is the note that every one of us sings.

Our ancestors are singing in our ears as we do. Things have occurred in the world that are unspeakable to even think of now, yet people persevered. Challenges presented themselves that were beyond what anyone thought they could meet, yet people somehow met them. Times of suffering have come upon the world in ways we can hardly imagine now, yet people rose up and went on.

And we will endure, rise up and triumph too. Somehow we will find a way to make the world a better place. We will repair the earth and learn how to tend to it lovingly. We will put down our arms and find a way to make peace. We will heal ourselves, and heal the earth, and heal each other. We will learn how to live in another kind of way.

And when it’s hard, when it’s really really hard, if we close our eyes and think about it deeply we can breathe in the spirit of those who came before us. There are subtle forms of guidance available to all of us, some of it coming through memories of those who shared our ethnicity, or shared our history, or shared some other kind of bond of the soul. They might not be here but in a way they are. Those who ever lived, in our hearts they live now. They cannot take our hands, or whisper into our ears, but they can whisper into our souls. When they are most needed, they are here.

And that would be now…