Eyes on the Tiger

A tiger is an apex predator. In the wild, they are mostly found in Asia. If you are a deer, aging and having trouble keeping up with the herd, or just an ordinary ungulate, you are always scanning for tigers. They use the woods as camouflage, then quietly stalk and ambush prey. You don’t know where they will appear next.

This past year has felt like one in which one must keep one’s eyes open for trouble. In ordinary years, you might take your eyes off the political ball for weeks at a time, as our three-pronged government, president, congress and court system, go about their business. Not this year. This year, the tiger stalks, and everyone consumes more media than they want to, fearful of what might happen if they don’t keep up.

Having lived with Don, who makes media, and who has pointed out that “nothing in a rectangle is true,” I am able to take media with a grain of salt. By design, it is conflict-driven, colorful and looking for action. Experiencing things in two dimensions, that is, on screens, can never be the whole truth. We must triangulate, from several sources, to get truth, and sometimes it doesn’t emerge until it is given time.

Minnesota, however, has raised the ire of those in the White House, and has viscerally had to deal with that anger. They deal, on a daily basis, with a confused mob of “law enforcers” who are conflict-driven, exactly what you don’t want stalking your streets.

My brother describes the defensive mechanisms groups have put in place to deal with this reality. In his small city, there are “observers” who film the conflicts and report them. Another group drives kids at risk to school. These people cannot be “observers” because ICE has surveillance everywhere and tracks people’s cars. My brother is in a “helper” group, who may be called upon to drive someone to the bank or the hospital. All of this is in addition to constant strikes and demonstrations, calling for ICE and border patrols to stand down.

My Minnesota sister knits red hats with tassels, which were used by Norwegians as a protest against Nazi occupiers during the 1940’s. It is the traditional headgear of the nisse, the gnomes who lived in barns and could be helpful or mischievous, depending on how you treated them. My nephew, a pre-school teacher in Minneapolis, protests by walking around the block where a citizen was killed, in sub-zero weather.

The stress of all of this must be obvious to all. From the people who are directly affected by ICE, who work in our fields, in our hospitals, cleaning and caretaking, all the way through to the citizens at the edge of the herd, too compromised to be out on the barricades, we are exhibiting the flight, fight or freeze characteristics of a stressed people. This is not calculated for us “to live long and prosper.” 

Not content with creating chaos at home, our current president has taken the great power and goodwill of the American people and used it to create uncertainty in the rest of the world. “Are they for us or against us?” other nations ask. We have become the tiger others fear.

But then there are the 19 monks walking from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., through snow and ice storms with a stray dog named Aloka. Almost barefoot, with warm saffron robes, they are a great contrast to the grifters in the White House. They have nothing and they want nothing. They will accept flowers and give you a peace bracelet or a blessing. They do not speak as they walk, but will talk with the crowds of people who turn out to watch them in the evenings. They expect to reach Washington early this month. 

Regardless of what happens when the monks arrive in Washington, watching them does temper our compulsive attention to what is going on there. We hope for the best for all of us. And, while we must accept responsibility for the present moment in our country, we must also continue to agitate for reason and humanity in how our government conducts itself. And it does involve scrolling.