I’m speaking a lot to Jimena Pareja lately; I feel like I am putting her on the spot: Just tell us what to do and we’ll do it! That’s some of the local tone, though not all of it. There may be people out there who’re glad that ICE agents raided a restaurant in nearby Amherst and took 5 people away. Jimena heard about it from a friend who worked there, too, but her shift ended a half hour earlier, so she missed the raid. At this point, I know nothing more about what happened to them.

During the first Trump administration, Jimena long ago told me, people got into trouble because they were caught by State Police for driving to work without a license, imprisoned in the local jail and then deported. Since then, Massachusetts voters voted in a referendum to give undocumented immigrants drivers licenses provided they pass the tests. Proud of us for doing that.

As you can imagine, this was a big deal and Jimena and her sons have been busy during weekends helping folks pass the written test, taking them for road tests, etc. (her third job on weekends). Tomorrow, I will bring her $625 to cover fees for road tests, driving them to road tests, etc. Also, drivers’ ed.  But now we have raids on restaurants.

Information packets have been widely distributed about people’s rights if agents knock on the door. The local schools are getting affidavits signed by parents about what to do if parents are deported and, too, are helping the children obtain passports.

“There is terrible fear,” she tells me. People are afraid to go to work and to send their children to school in case they get separated during the day. “We may need help for them for life expenses if they don’t work because then there will be no money coming in, like the time of the pandemic, remember?”

How can I forget? That was five years ago, when I first began asking for funds to help these families because there was no work anywhere and no money coming in. She, Byron and I agreed to meet for breakfast next Sunday to talk more. By then, she’ll have more details.

It’s hard to stay focused nowadays. In a recent interview of Steve Bannon, the eminence grise of American populism, he explained why Trump and his cohort are taking so many actions at muzzle velocity, in Bannon’s words: “The opposition party is the media. And the media can only, because they’re dumb and they’re lazy, they can only focus on one thing at a time.” I like listening to Bannon because he holds nothing back.

The Trump administration is doing a blitzkrieg to catch the media and any opposition unawares, to throw so much out there as to sow confusion and defeatism. Chaos mixed with stupidity, a heady mix.

Most of the time, I don’t let myself get distracted by it. Before opening up a newspaper online, I take a deep breath and remind myself that I will be reading about destruction ad nauseum: Get ready to see those catastrophic headlines.

During the day I do three things. I still sit back to study and learn about how people who’re different from me experience this country. I lean forward to work to help terrorized families. And then—first thing in the morning and almost last thing at night—I sit up straight to do meditation practice, “Live from the inside out,” as poet David Whyte defined intimacy.

I won’t give in to hateful labels. For me it’s still too early for a verdict on whether or not we’re on the road to fascism or the Apocalypse, so I take deep exception to the rage I see on social media and the epithets thrown around even by people I know and respect. I want to tell them: We did this before the election, remember? It didn’t get us anywhere. Who does it help now?

It’s hard to stay still and stable in the middle of a maelstrom, but it’s doable—with practice. I, too, fall off the wagon, especially as I hear stories like I did from Jimena yesterday, and before that from a family member about friends losing their job in Washington DC with no notice and a week’s severance. After that week, no income, no work, no medical insurance.

What do I summon to be my lodestar now? Something positive, constructive, caring, and, as much as possible, unifying.

Albert Camus wrote: “Our task as [humans] is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman is the term for tasks [we] take a long time to accomplish, that’s all.”

He added: “[L]et no one forget strength of character. I don’t mean the theatrical kind on political platforms, complete with frowns and threatening gestures. But the kind that through the virtue of its purity and its sap, stands up to all the winds that blow in from the sea. Such is the strength of character that in the winter of the world will prepare the fruit.”

(I am indebted to Maria Popova’s terrific blog, The Marginalian, for this quotation. She reads all the books that I haven’t read or have forgotten.)

After feeling torn yesterday, I got up this morning with a smile at the new snow that fell overnight and at the prospect of temperatures approaching 40 this afternoon. I lit a stick of incense to plant in front of a Buddha with many arms, a little like the Kwan-yin buried in snow in back, only to find the small, ornatel statue gone. It’s very delicate, Bernie often warned. It had fallen off its tall pedestal which sits atop an elephant.

Not you too, I thought to myself, my spirit drooping for a moment. I will restore it to its rightful place later today—it takes meticulous care—but I lit incense anyway. Who’s left when the Buddha’s toppled? You and me. It’s up to us now.

Please, if you’re so inclined, donate to our fund for immigrant families by using the button below. We have some $2,500 in it now, we’ll need more as these months progress. I will keep you informed.

May we all use these times well.