What would it take to open the blinds?

Engagement is everywhere

This past few weeks I’ve been studying the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Amos. Unfamiliar with these guys? Yeah, most people are. And I’m going to be wild and claim it’s because they were artists. They were there making sure the people felt something, and I think since 2026 began, we have all realized that feeling things is a lot to ask of a people. These days even reading the headlines is enough to render one incapacitated- how are we meant to continue to “hustle” and “win” and “optimize” under these circumstances?? Surprise!! We’re not. We’re human. We can’t keep moving at machine pace. I mean it, we mentally can’t. We physically can’t. Kate Bowler wrote the past week, “It feels impossible to live with a heart cracked wide open in a world that rewards speed and numbness and dissociation. And yet we must.”

But what then?? Staying on the treadmill of societal norms is simpler, it has boundaries that we believe in, edges we can see. We work harder, we disengage from distractions (such as keeping up with the atrocities on planet earth or the atrocities happening in our American neighborhoods). We tell ourselves that we can’t fix anything, so we allow ourselves to do nothing. We keep walking on that treadmill and the speed keeps going up and up -and things get more expensive and healthcare becomes out of reach and, and, and… Paul Krugman wrote last week about people being guided more by their grocery prices than by their ideologies, and who can blame them really? It’s hard to make the choice to prioritize health of body or planet when you literally can’t afford it!

I’m reading and writing multiple papers per week right now- the grad school pace is no joke! I’m definitely becoming the stereotype; caffeinated, broke and unable to hold a conversation unless it’s about evangelical nationalism or Sufjan Stevens. I’ve missed the last few protests in my town because I was in class. I still haven’t switched off Spotify, because I still haven’t gotten around to it, I still use Apple and Google and still talk to my dad via an Amazon video box that beams me into his living room, because otherwise he doesn’t answer and I really need to know he’s still alive.

We can not do EVERYTHING. It’s ok!! We just have to do something.

Small engagements have to be the way forward, because most of us are still trying to get dinner on the table or pay the mortgage. This administration wants you to be overwhelmed, it is a flattening strategy-because when you feel something you are empowered! When you sing in a group of protesters you are participating in community building and it actually releases chemicals in your brain that lift your spirits!

I am willing to say that even opening the blinds is engagement. Do one thing today that reminds you that you live in community with your neighbors and your planet. Do one again tomorrow. Make art, call your senators, sign petitions, march in the street, make a protest zine, choose the human checkout at the grocery store and ask them how they’re doing, wear an “ice out” button or go for a walk and smile at one single person. Any one of these things is “doing something.” Even if it’s just opening the blinds today, if you can do so safety, let some light in as a protest to say you will not be afraid, you will not cower. If we can keep our heads above water, by reminding each other that we are still alive then we can make it through this.

I’ll leave you with another gem from Dr Bowler, “fear does not get to decide what makes us human.” Maybe write it down somewhere where you can read it a few times this week.

love you, if you need a new sweatshirt I made some!

Ro

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