i blogged a story yesterday, The Broken Urn, reflecting my sorrow after a contentious county Democratic meeting. And I was answered by others who reminded me that there was truth on both sides. This is my attempt to walk in the shoes of those on the other side.
The Others were sad and angry. They saw distance forces rending the fabric of their hope and future. Education was almost unattainable and other roads to a good life looked narrow and hard to traverse. Large powers, corporations and immensely wealthy individuals, rose as Shadow giants threatening dreams and blocking vision. To lose a future was terrible, but to lose the sense of volition, of acting with power within one’s own life was worse.
And the Others, sensing their strength, hit at these Shadow giants — striking out for themselves and all others who suffered. They struck out in anger, but also in hope, that they could change something. That they could make a difference. But the Shadows were insubstantial. Like fog that your hand cuts through with no effect, but that blinds you and leads you in circles, and may destroy your life. The shadow giants were thus unknowable but powerful. Distant but engulfing. And the Others grew sadder and angrier.
And the Others heard other voices that called on them to stand tall, to push back — but where to push? How to feel that sense of power, that sense of self?
And then Others saw something that looked real. An urn, shining bright. It was a vessel for all of the People’s ideas of how to make a better world, of how to defeat the shadow. The Others saw first the urn, then the People gathered around it. The Others at first looked at the People with hope. Were they there with the same hopes, the same fears, the same anger? Were they guarding the urn from the Shadow?
Or were they guarding the urn from the Others?
The Others approached, and the People shuffled around the urn, uncertain. The Others determined that they would no longer feel that loss of future, that loss of self. They made themselves as big as they could. They called out, “We have things to put in the urn. We have good ideas to make our world better.”
And the People reached out. And the People said, “Our urn is almost full, but you can add one good idea, one way to make the world better.”
And the Others saw again the dark shadow. And the Others remembered how through all of life the shadow had teased them on, promised them good, and then left them with nothing — not even their sense of power. Was this the last chance? Was this urn the only way that the Others could reclaim life, for themselves and others like them? Would the Others falter and fail in this attempt?
And the Others grabbed for the urn. And the People grabbed back. The urn fell. It broke. Whose fault it was is hard to say. And the Others said, “You might have liked my ideas. Together we have broken the urn that let us move on. But I feel stronger than before. I do not regret that.”
And they looked at each other over the broken urn, the good ideas, the way to make the world better flowing away. And all pointed, and gestured, and puffed up, and cried inside.