Joy in Rising Up

Tianamen Square

In law, willful ignorance is when a person seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally by covering everything under a blanket of ignorance and rage. Willful ignorance is when people make choices while looking the other way. Pretending everything is fine. Sometimes they block change because it’s diminishing their power. It’s a built-in excuse to act selfishly. Conservatives are the primary occupiers of that territory. Over the last few years, churches have lost thousands of young people who’ve been walking away. I sometimes feel as if I’m sitting on or close to earthquake country. It ain’t always easy being intuitive, but that ‘sensing’ helped me find great hiding spots and rapidly scale tall trees to avoid an extreme bi polar abusive mother.

Willful ignorance tends to live in the mine fields of ignorance, where rage and fear are have taken control. And yet, it’s when those spaces become so uncomfortable, unliveable that change shows up.

Tianamen Square happened while I was still living in San Francisco. We had a Chinese friend, a woman who, as a teen had undergone one of Mao’s culture camps. Who, in doing so, came close to ‘losing’ her artist father. We met, after she’d recovered from those years, but she continued to be active in San Francisco’s large Chinese community.

She and her father arrived in Northern California a decade before Tianamen Square, the rebellion that captured the minds and hearts of millions worldwide. The image of the lone young man standing in front of a line of armored tanks was breathtaking. One thin, ‘bag of bones’, contained by skin. A student whose courage took our breaths away. He was not carrying a gun.. He carried something much more powerful. An energy and intent that would haunt us for years to come.

We bore witness that day to extraordinary audacity. A boldness that spoke to his love for his country. Standing all alone, arms outstretched as the tank kept moving toward him ignited horror in the hearts and minds of those who were watching. New York Times journalist, Nicolas Kristoff was in Beijing, at Tiananmen Square that night. “I saw the PLA's massacre of Chinese civilians; they fired at the crowd I was in. Yes, there were students at the center of the square who were allowed to leave--that's what I reported and is cited misleadingly--but the massacre was real..”

I felt honored when Mai called and asked me to play a part of the pipeline of young men fleeing China. I immediately agreed.

I fed them as they paused to refuel on their journey to safer places that remained unknown to me. None of them spoke a single word of English and they were all chain smokers. As I stood watching them eat, refilled their plates and glasses, I couldn’t help wondering where they would end up. When they would be able, if ever to reunite with their familes. Even then, they were thousands of miles away from home.

I have a great love for the Chinese and their culture. And although I hated the violence, the death, energies that are part of deep change, I respected what Mao had done for his people. I respected the courage I was witnessing in my small dining room where sharp angles and corners disappeared in the clouds of smoke from the tenacious fear and intent of the circle of men. I didn’t admire everything about Mao, at that moment I remembered a I was at Tiananmen Square that night and I saw the PLA's massacre of Chinese civilians; they fired at the crowd Kristoff was in. ‘There were students at the center of the square who were allowed to leave--that's what I reported and is cited misleadingly--but the massacre was real but he had united them. Lifted them up. Infused them with a sense of possibilities that hadn’t been there before. I stood against the wall and watched as the men smoked and ate. Talked fast and furiously. I wondered where they would be in a year or so. Would they eventually find a way bring their loved ones out of China.

Living in San Francisco, and close to the Chinese in São Paulo, I witnessed their resilience. Experienced their loyalty. The China I knew was made up of individuals who when, they felt secure, opened their doors to friends. And once that happened they loyalty ran deep and long.

According to the I Ching, the ancient Chinese book of wisdom, change is the only constant in life.

Unfortunately, climate change is the arena where there are still too many of those wilfully ignorant make choices that considerable damage. But the grounds are shifting. And if you are a part time, or forever activist, it’s important to revel in moments of joy, like those young men at my dining table.

According to Rebecca Solnit, writer and activist, when you face a body of politics that aspire to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.

Avanti, my friends! Keep walking toward the light!