Elder to elder
a "love letter" to the president
If you read this newsletter, or know me personally, you undoubtedly know the legend of Louise Dunlap, my dear neighbor, friend, and mentor. Louise is the author of Inherited Silence: Listening to the Land, Healing the Colonizer Mind (2022) and an earlier book, Undoing the Silence: Six Tools for Social Change Writing, 2008, both available from New Village Press.
I’ve learned a tremendous amount from her over the years and mentioned as much often. She’s taught me about gardening, climate change, California history, critical family stories, the Feldenkrais Method, showing up with clarity and grace in community, and little things like evolving one’s consciousness eternally.
I was very moved by this letter that she recently shared with our cohousing community and imagined you all might be to…
Dear President Biden,
I am well into in my 80s and, like you, live an engaged life contributing to the public good with skills developed over a lifetime. My active elder friends and I often talk about how hard it is to adjust to our changing health and energy levels, how to bring our best energy to these later stages of our life's work, and how to best assure that younger folks are able to bring their own strengths and insights into the work we've been doing in a world that's getting harder and harder to live in.
I think I was just your age when the pandemic hit, and my neighbors had to argue and cajole me to ASK them for help with grocery shopping and other things I was trying to soldier through and continue to do on my own. There was so much loving wisdom in what they said, and I realized I was clinging to some misleading norms about strength and self-reliance that I'd inherited from our culture. I learned from this experience what I'd always believed in theory-- that collective strength and solidarity are more reliable than one person going it alone. I began to understand that sharing responsibilities is not defeat but a new level of growth and maturity.
If I could give some heartfelt advice to a person who has taken on the world's hardest job and given a lot to us all, I would counsel that the best way to support our continued democracy now is to turn the choice back to the people. Last week I heard James Zogby of the Democratic National Committee describe his plan for an energizing DNC and convention process that sounded very much like the ones you and I observed when we were young people coming up, a process where everyone had a voice and we could go into the election with joy and conviction and unanimity as a force for justice, equity, and a safer planet.
That is what I (and my family, neighbors and friends) would like to see as your legacy to our country. A wise and honorable choice that would be celebrated by future generations.
Respectfully,
Louise Dunlap
Louise, wanted me to let you all know that you, too, can write a letter:
There are a lot of other things I could have put in that letter. I feel a lot of pain and grief over this president's support of war and weapons of war. But I was trying to write what we call in my Buddhist practice a “love letter,” a letter that stems from understanding and compassion for the one you’re writing to.
Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh taught that, “Compassion is the only energy that can help us connect with another person.” He encouraged us to rewrite letters like this over and over until we could understand the suffering in the other person. At that point, he told us, “compassion will arise in you, and the language you use will have the power of healing.”
Looking back on the letter I sent and my teacher’s words, I think I could have done a few more drafts, but I'm glad I sent it and can share it with you.
My younger relative had suggested others might write letters to decision makers in the Democratic Party as she has done. Please feel free to echo anything in my letter if you want. Massive letter writing campaigns have changed the course of public policy in my lifetime--and can again.
Prof. Taeku Lee’s book on letters changing presidential policy is here.
The inspiring and energizing James Zogby interview is here.
You can contact the White House here.
You can learn more about the “love letter,” and Thich Nhat Hanh's letter to a former US President here.
More on Louise & me:
Let me say that I am a big fan of yours, Courtney. Currently reading "Learning in Public." Louise's letter is compassionate and thought provoking. The President's debate performance has sure brought an avalanche of reaction. What concerns me more than anything is the total lack of focus on Donald Trump. He offered up a multiplicity of lies every time it was his turn to speak. We know he stands for rancor, divisiveness, vengeance, petulance, and deceit. He embodies the shadow side of American individualism. Is any of that addressed? focused on with laser-like precision? No, he's getting an Amen from his own supporters and a pass from the media and some Democrats, who are ready to jettison their own democratic process for electing their presidential nominee. Might a (Buddhist) response be to allow the time honored process to unfold and accept the consequences of that? There is much I dislike about our political system (money, two party system denying any avenue for independent voices, zero sum game, and an obsession with power ...) This time, the choice is Biden or Trump. There is really no question about whom I'm going to support.
I think she means an open convention, I.e. revisiting the decision ‘the people’ made during the presidential preference primary.
The closest historical precedents for that, IMO, point to disaster. But the NYT’s crusade on this issue has certainly spooked a sector of Democrats. I can’t help but notice that Black Democrats, the base of our party, aren’t joining in this, ahem, debate. They are rolling up their sleeves and getting to work.