“Looking down on empty streets
All she can see
Are the dreams all made solid
And the dreams made real
All of the buildings, all of the cars
Were once just a dream, in somebody’s head.”
-Peter Gabriel, Mercy Street
I look out my window and I can see Seattle’s downtown skyline. I live in Capitol Hill, which is a hip, offbeat neighborhood in the first ring outside of downtown. Good fortunate put me toward the top of the hill, the view is fantastic. My schedule this winter permits me to spend my mornings in my apartment. With the recent acquisition of a couch, this means observing the coming of day very comfortably, and very peacefully. My cats like this too.
I see buildings, cars, roads, trees and clouds. The sun is behind the clouds. This is normal for Seattle. Though, today they appear to stretch to eternity. The angle and the layering drew my eyes past what is easy to see in the foreground. There is something beyond, they seem to say. This picture, the attempt of technology to capture the wonder, does not do it justice.
The world seems so big. As a student of sociology, studying the structures in societies does not shrink it at all. Being a Unitarian Universalist, thinking of the importance of all the people in it, all the ideas surrounding its meaning and creation, the necessity of improving it, enhances a human tendency to experience awe at the beauty in front of me. Feeling small is a predictable after-effect of the awe and wonder which comes from a beautiful scene. Feeling powerless is another consequence. Here before me stands creation. Here within me my limits lay, sleeping peacefully, only to awake when I attempt to strive beyond them. That is when I learn where they are. Hidden, unlike the potential of the world surrounding me, all these forces of nature shining bright with the morning sun.
*sips coffee*
My father-in-law gave me a little notebook that has dahlias on the cover (a flower of great importance to me) and text which says “You are a force of nature”. Nature is out my window, but I forget that I am part of this nature. We, American society, have constructed a divide between what is “natural” and what is “artificial”. The environment in my foreground is the constructed environment of Seattle. The sky has an environment that we venture to, but have not “tamed”. We say “tamed” as if our relationship to the earth was an “us versus them” battle. Certainly, there is good reason to feel this way. We build shelters and cultivate food because otherwise we would die of exposure and hunger. Our relationship with the earth is akin to our relationship to the pieces of it we claim as property. It is the place we live, not always noting that we are also part of the place.
Unitarian Universalists have a principle, “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” A little reminder that we are part of the world. Christianity’s creation story has humanity created as part of the rest of the Earth. It would seem that humanity is a force of nature. Therefore, the cities, the societies, all of the social forces of injustices and prejudice and family are forces of nature. I would posit that there is an “old nature” and a “new nature” – the new being that we create, but the old nature is certainly not obsolete. It is not absent. It is different and with different forces.
We change nature, by virtue of being a part of it. We built cities, we fight each other, and it is all in the attempt to maintain existence on this planet. What a sense of awe and wonder I have, to think of all the systems in play on Earth. Social systems, meteorology, and some would argue God is in charge. I think God comes into play when one considers how big and how much power there is. You can be tossed among the waves easily, but there is also a potential for one’s agency, moving in it all.
Social justice advocacy is a force of nature. You are a force of nature. You are subject to the constraints of other forces ranging from institutional racism to snow. What are you going to do about it?
I thought of this, after finding myself existentially lonely, feeling too small in a world too big.
that my brother had given me. It’s not vegan friendly… at all… but I have found it to be super useful for inspiration. There was a recipe for butternut squash soup that used cream cheese. Yeah. I don’t do cream cheese. But I do like fat, and remembered that we had a 
laying around, one of the last remnants of our move from Buffalo.
is the best)