The Opposite of a Profound Truth...

Father’s Day Musings After a WILD Week

Phew… Deep breath.
What. A. Wild. Week. It’s. Been.

From the uprisings in Los Angeles to the political assassinations and attempts in Minnesota; from Israel escalating war with Iran and Iran’s retaliation, to the Air India crash that killed 270 people; and from the embarrassing military parade in D.C. to the largest national mobilization in the U.S. in years—it has been a truly wild, wild week.

This morning, to close out the week, I joined Canticle Farm’s weekly liturgy — the weekly gathering hosted in the community where I live. Canticle’s co-founder Terry shared a quote from the theoretical physicist Niels Bohr:

“The opposite of a fact is a falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may well be another profound truth.”

I love this quote. It speaks to something I deeply believe: that two seemingly opposing truths can both be 100% true at the same time. Truth is not a simple equation that adds up neatly. It’s layered, paradoxical and infinitely complex.

As I sat in circle listening to people share, this idea kept echoing in my mind.

Several spoke from a place of deep grief — mourning the violence, the destruction, and the heartbreak specifically of the past week, and in general the state of our world. Someone asked aloud: How could a loving creator allow such devastation?

There was such resonance with that question. It landed with the weight of a profound truth: That we are living in devastating times of political violence, genocide, ecological collapse, mass deportations. The mourning and fear are real. That truth is real.

And as this grief was being named, I was sitting on the ground with my 13-month-old, who was joyfully yelping and playing with woodchips. Worried that she was distracting people, I started to get up to walk away. But someone gently stopped me and said her laughter was helpful—a sound of life in the midst of sorrow.

That truth, too, is real: The joy of a child does not negate the grief. It coexists with it.

Just moments earlier, another mom in the community was holding — and breastfeeding — both her child and mine at the same time. Ours are two of three babies born within six months of each other at Canticle who are now being raised together, in a shared village of care. Seeing my child breastfed by another mother is not an uncommon scene here. And it fills me with joy each time.

This, too, is the world we live in: villages of interdependence, where our children are everyone’s children, are reemerging.

So how do we develop the spiritual maturity to hold all of it? To hold the sorrow and the joy. The collapse and the emergence. The grief of what’s dying and the awe of what’s being born.

Yesterday, Donald Trump spent $45 million on a military parade to celebrate the Army’s 250th anniversary—and his own 79th birthday. As many have pointed out, this is the kind of display we expect from military dictators, not democratically elected presidents.

It is a profound truth that our country is barreling toward authoritarianism.

And.

It is also true that yesterday saw one of the largest coordinated mobilizations in recent U.S. history. The “No Kings” protests brought out an estimated 5 million people in over 2,000 locations—far outnumbering the parade in D.C. In fact, most estimates suggest the Los Angeles protest alone had twice as many participants as the D.C. parade.

According to the Crowd Counting Consortium and Waging Nonviolence, anti-Trump protests during this second term have far surpassed those of his first term. Even as things feel more dangerous and destructive, the resistance is larger, more coordinated, and more deeply rooted.

So—

Is the U.S. moving toward authoritarianism? Yes.
Are people rising up in unprecedented numbers to resist? Yes.

Should we be concerned? Absolutely.
Should we be inspired? Absolutely.

Is violence increasing in the Middle East? Sadly yes.
Is global solidarity also increasing? Thankfully, yes.

Are the institutions we have come to rely on in a state of collapse? Seemingly so.
Are we witnessing the birthing of countless learning pods, community schools, participatory budgeting councils, trauma-informed justice processes and life affirming villages? That too.

Is AI getting more integrated into our lives? Scary, but yes.
Are we learning/remembering to deepen in human connections through community? That has certainly been my experience.

Is the climate crisis escalating? It has been for a while.
Are we seeing thousands of small farms, urban gardens, Indigenous land restoration efforts, and community-led mutual aid projects expanding every day? Hell yeah!

All of it is true. And we have the ability to hold it all. To simply be with it.

We are living in a time of profound unraveling—and profound reweaving. Our task is not to choose one truth over the other. Our task is to build the capacity to hold both.

And from that holding, to act with fierce love, grounded clarity, and unwavering faith in the world we know is possible.

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