Okay, so we know we are in the “dark night of the soul,” that the world feels like it might fly apart, so how do we find joy and happiness within the dark?

First: recognize that things can’t actually fly apart. Gravity and dark matter keep that from happening. And in our bodies, there’s this thing called the interstitium that keeps us from flying apart.

Second: we can’t know the dark without also knowing the light. It’s just not possible. One cannot exist without the other.

One of the things that keeps us “in the dark” in our country is not dealing with inequality. We offer no quick fixes, no complete solutions, but we do offer that the first thing is just to acknowledge it is so. To get out of the dark night we have to first recognize that we’re in it. A way to deal with inequality is to accept that you most likely won't eradicate it, but to be silent in the face of it is to either deny it or enable it. The Talmud states, "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” Joy is found in the process, even if the process is not always joyful.

There’s not a universal approach to ending inequality, but there is a way that we can look up and observe what form it takes right around us. In that looking, we can learn and read and ask and then humbly act. Some part of this is an act of radical imagination, conceiving of a world where it doesn’t exist and then asking ourselves how do we, in our immediate surroundings, work to make it so? What is your dream and then the community’s dream for a different tomorrow?

The book mentioned, How Democracy Ends, by David Runciman, can be found HERE.