The Problem
Following the 2024 election, many people felt surprised, lost, perhaps even frightened. The very worst fears of those defending the traditional form of American democracy had materialized and the increasing wealth, privilege and power of a terrifying, authoritarian minority became the new reality. The rule of law- forgotten and the whims of angry, hateful men and women the new standard.
The Abbot found himself in the huddle of voters who felt an encroaching despair. The rights of millions were at stake with the implementation of Project 2025. A project that Trump disavowed but then immediately began to implement going to far as to appoint the architects of the plan to his cabinet. However, within this uncertainty and abandonment of reason, the Abbey found itself a firm foundation.
The politics of the last decade were increasingly nasty in tone. Rather than focus on real policy and facts, real facts, we began slinging wild and in many cases baseless personal attacks at one another. “Deplorable” or “Nasty Women” or “Marxist” and on and on. These tactics were not new to our politics. The 1950s saw the Red Scare. The 1960s found people scared of hippies, Black Panthers, feminists and the emergence of LGBTQ folks from their closets. Rather than embrace these movements for exactly what they were – liberty- they were vilified and in that aftermath emerged men like Nixon and Reagan. The wealthy and privileged had found a way to distract the greater mass of people in a more personal and dehumanizing way that allowed them to grow increasingly wealthy and powerful while the rest of us fought about whether consenting adult men were allowed to have sex in the privacy of their own home. We ceded significant personal liberty for the sake of our own unfounded fear of the “other.”
The advent of social media only made the name-calling, and fear mongering easier as it removed accountability. Our increasing fascination with what everyone else was doing or saying intensified to out right bullying propagated by the weak leadership of Donald Trump and the cancel culture embraced by both the right and the left. After all of the name-calling, yelling, screaming, protecting, lying, cheating, violence, fake news, alternative facts, indictments and bizarre toddler-like finger pointing, our country found itself worse rather than better off. Most of us were exhausted. If we were gripped in a battle for the soul of the nation – the left was losing. It seemed that no matter what was done, despite the common sense of supporting normal democratic elections or supporting equality for marginalized and vulnerable people, the left continued to lose ground.
The Solution
If outward attacks and arguments were not working, the Abbot felt that perhaps inward was a new path forward to reclaim the soul of the nation one person at a time. Silence in a world obsessed with the sound of its own voice. Silence is the counter of all counter cultures. In silence and within ourselves is the last true realm of liberty. It is within ourselves that we can recultivate the fields of hope, civility, and basic love for our fellow Americans. The Abbot found himself seeking humanity in the very same people who had voted for a regime bent on suppressing and in many cases annihilating those who through no fault of their own are different. He found in them the same inexplicable divine spark that he saw in his friends and family. He also saw the same fears, the same concern and the same dreams. All people, no matter their persuasion desire the same thing – to be happy.
When we give ourselves space within ourselves- through silence, reflection and self-care- we open a crevice just large enough to engage one another in a different way. Approaching hatred, or untenable fear with a question rather than an accusation. We cannot succeed as a nation as all liberal or all conservative but a balance of both and of those in-between. The battle for the soul of the United States begins with each human heart and recognizing in a deeply personal and honest way that we each bear the same fears, the same faults, the same flaws and have made many of the same mistakes as virtually every other person we see on the street. We are all suffering and rather than try to ease that suffering for one another, we only seek to intensify it. Making others hurt worse will never make one feel better.
We must allow ourselves the luxury of silence, and reflection. But we must make use of this time in constructive ways and really look in a mirror. We use the mirror that we all have and it is one none of us like to look in. The present state of affairs is proof of that. When a Christian bishop can be labeled a socialist or leftist while quite literally quoting the words of Christ Himself, we are looking in a distorted mirror indeed.
The Purpose
The purpose of the Abbey is not only to offer a refuge to all people, but also to aid this nation in its search for its soul and heart again. You do not need to be religious, or even spiritual to participate. Anyone, regardless of their religion, race, gender, country of origin, sexuality, taste in music, taste in beer, or politics- is welcome here. We all want to be happy and returning to that common sense of universal happiness and the unalienable right to pursue that happiness is the end goal of this Abbey- one beautiful person at a time.
