A few months back, at the same exact time that this pandemic was revving up in China, my beloved rudraksha bracelet from the Hindu monastery on Kaua’i busted apart and I wrote about it here. Highlighting the themes of destruction and revelation that are found in the story of Hindu god Shiva, I saw that busted bracelet as a sign of something that I couldn’t yet put my finger on. It’s just a thing, silly. I told myself that over and over again. But I just couldn’t throw those beads away. My friend and coworker gave me rudraksha bracelets she had gotten on a trip to Tibet to help me fill the hole. I wore one of those bracelets practically every day until a sudden dramatic teaching gesture with my hand sent about 15 of the magical seeds flying all over my classroom. The kids sat there stunned, not knowing what had happened. I stood there thinking Oh, Shiva. WHAT are you trying to tell me now?? Exactly one month later school was shut down for the foreseeable future. Coincidence? Maybe.
I know that you’re thinking I’m a bit of a wackadoo for believing in the magical properties of an object. I assure you, I’m a very rational person and my awareness of the level of wackadooery I exhibit is key to my staying off the “not to be trusted” wackadoo list. That being said, over the past two weeks, I have carefully restrung three of those bracelets in the hopes that, somehow, it would help fix this gargantuan tear in the universe that we have found ourselves in. Don’t judge; we’ve all got our superstitions.
Based on the events of the past couple weeks, I don’t think my bracelet did any mending at all. This country has reached the boiling point. We have a gasoline plus match combo with the recent murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd thrown atop a pandemic that is disproportionately affecting communities of color. Do I condone violence, looting, and lighting things ablaze as a form of protest? Of course not. But when the peaceful kneeling of a football player is met with an overwhelmingly white tantrum, how then does one demand liberty and justice in a country that promises both? How do those demands get made when that country is already in a crisis?
We are witnessing what happens when anger has been disallowed and silenced for too long and, yes, some buildings are getting torched as a result.Maybe this is the wackadoo in me talking but, in my humblest of opinions, Shiva was just getting warmed up by tossing a pandemic our way and his destruction is revealing quite a bit about who we are and, more importantly, who we should try to be. Time to talk about what we are going to do with all this revelation—that means sleeves need to get rolled up and uncomfortable conversations should follow.
Just like I fixed my bracelet, we can fix this too but it’s going to take focus and patience. We, the beads, are all scattered about this country. We just have to take hold of our common thread of humanity and pull ourselves together, one by one. I’m willing to be part of that patient restringing and I can’t do it alone. If you want to keep screaming that all lives matter, go right ahead. The thing that really matters right now is your ability to shut up, listen, and participate in the painful process of ensuring liberty and justice for all of those lives.
This may very well be wackadooery, but kindly re-string your beads in a different order. Because - clearly - everything is out of order.