TEND TO YOUR OWN PEACE
Mara Kronenfeld! David Gate! Fr. Richard Rohr! JP Saxe!
Hello Beloved,
How are you? Holy shit. The past week has felt like a year. Sending hugs and love to each one of you.
I’m sending this email to you at exactly 12:01pm EST. Why that time? Because one week ago today at 12:01pm EST, a lying, cheating rapist named Donald Trump became President of the United States…for the second time.
I won’t lie, things look incredibly bleak in Washington and around the world. Israel has broken the ceasefire multiple times already and they’ve increased killings and attacks in the West Bank. The California fires have devastated thousands of families and homes — including friends of mine who have lost everything. There was a school shooting in Nashville the other day and it lasted just a few minutes in the news cycle.
During Trump’s first week, he said he intends to ethnically cleanse (“We just clean out that whole thing”) the people of Palestine, he pardoned 1500 violent criminals, his appointee to become defense secretary—a known drunk, cheater, and sexual abuser—was confirmed as the new boss to an organization with 800,000 employees and a budget of $850,000,000,000 (what the actual fuck), he attempted to end birthright citizenship (a decision that was immediately rejected by 18 states), his co-President gave the Sieg Heil twice during a speech, he withdrew the US from the WHO and the Paris Climate Agreement, ICE raids have begun, he threw a tantrum when an actual Christian pleaded for him to have mercy on marginalized people, he renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America (what a fucking idiot), he eased restrictions on gas and oil, and he declared there are only two genders (can you guess which genders he chose?). I could go on but let’s stop here for the sake of respecting your time and my blood pressure.
Like I said, things look really fucking bleak.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve given yourself a few days to grieve, punch a wall, scream into the void, and maybe drink a bottle of wine or two. But I don’t want to stay in this emotional and mental state. We’ve got a lot of work to do and I want to prepare myself and help prepare others for what’s to come.
Let’s consider the poem pictured above from my friend, David Gate:
If you want to change the world
Make tending to your own peace
A sacred ritual
Create the space To heal and rest
Otherwise you become
Another squall inside the storm
If I know anything about the demographic of those receiving this email, it’s that you’re incredible activists, doers, movers, and shakers. And we’re going to need all of that in the coming days, weeks, months, and years. But if were going to be all those things and not burn out or become too disillusioned, we’re going to tend to our own peace.
I’m not talking about the TikTok, self-care movement that encourages people to take care of themselves by buying more iced coffee, getting a massage, or booking that dream trip to Spain.
(By the way, none of these things are bad. You should get a massage and go to Spain. Definitely.)
But the kind of tending to our own peace that I’m talking about involves slowing down, shutting up, and dealing with our shit. The tending to our own peace that I’m trying to pursue is quiet, it’s uncomfortable, it’s holy, it’s difficult, it’s easy, it’s healing.
How am I tending to my own peace right now? Thanks for asking. I’m tending to my own peace by being quiet more often (very hard for me), journaling, meditating, reading, praying, and conversing regularly about the aforementioned things with a small group of trusted friends.
As we enter this new kind of hell under the Trump administration:
❤️🩹 Are you tending to your own peace?
❤️🩹 If so, how?
❤️🩹 If not, will you try?
❤️🩹 How can I help you? Seriously. I want to know. Respond to this email and let me know.
As we move along, here are a few things I think you should read, watch, listen to, and consider as we head into the weekend:
🎧 LISTEN / WATCH
It’s Mara Kronenfeld week on the Let’s Give A Damn podcast!
As the Executive Director of UNRWA USA, Mara Kronenfeld leads the strategic vision, operations, and fundraising efforts of the nonprofit organization that supports the humanitarian and human development work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Middle East. With over 20 years of experience in international development, Mara is a Fulbright Scholar and an expert in designing, implementing, and leading public private partnerships supporting youth development programming in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
UNRWA USA supports the humanitarian work of UNRWA through fundraising, advocacy, and community engagement in the United States. UNRWA USA lifts up the voices, experiences, and humanity of Palestine refugees to secure American support for resources essential to every human being, for the promise of a better life.
✅ Download UNRWA USA’s digital advocacy toolkit
✅ Follow UNRWA USA on Instagram
✅ Follow Mara Kronenfeld on Instagram
✅ Click here to listen to our conversation on Apple Podcasts or click below to watch it on YouTube.
✅ Before we move on, click here to watch the first clip I shared on Instagram last week and click here to watch the second one I posted today. Please watch, like, and share!
🗞️ READ
Speaking of David Gate—my friend and the poet mentioned a couple of times in this email already—he has a Substack and I find it to be incredibly helpful. His most recent post is helping me in a variety of ways. It titled Hope & Rage Are Sisters and it begins like this:
Rage is rarely pure.
It is a cocktail of injury and idealism, shaken violently in the tumbler of circumstance. We rage because something has been broken—something sacred, or at least precious. A promise betrayed, a trust eroded, an injustice too glaring to ignore. Rage is the howl of the thwarted optimist, the idealist dragged through the muck of reality.
Read the full post here and subscribe today.
📺 WATCH
Over the weekend, my friend JP Saxe released his newest single, Safe. Earlier in the week, on Wednesday, he sang it in front of a sold out crowd here in NYC at a benefit concert he hosted to raise money for orgs helping with fire relief in LA. It was a magical show. Anyway, at that show, he shared why he wrote this song.
Now that you know why he wrote the song, watch and share!
🧠 PONDER
“Pain that is not transformed is transmitted.” — Fr. Richard Rohr
In other words, do you fall into the hurt people hurt people or the healed people heal people category?
Are you getting better or are you thrusting your pain and hurt and trauma onto others?
Let’s break cycles. Let’s heal. Let’s love.
👋🏽 GOODBYE!
That’s it for this week, Thank you for reading. I'm truly grateful. Consider forward this email to a friend? Or send them this link so they can sign up. And you can always email me about anything. I’ll be back soon with good news and steps we can take together to build intentional community and to make our world a much better place. We have a lot of work to do, y’all. Sending love.
Keep giving a damn,
NICK LAPARRA
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