Love letter to you, dear readers
We live in a time when people make a lot of money scaring and angering others and encouraging them to think a whole segment of society is out to get them.
So as 2025 comes to an end, I’d like to focus on our shared humanity.
My favorite sign at a protest this year: We all belong.
Albert Einstein wrote:
“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”
I’ve previously shared with you the guidance of the late Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn:
In a question and answer session, a young man said he’s very protective of people he’s close to. He said he knows the Buddhist way is to be compassionate to all people, but he has a harder time forgiving someone who’s done something harmful to one of his family members or friends.
Thich Nhat Hanh said compassion is a kind of protection. If you don’t have compassion when fear and anger are expressed, it draws danger to you, makes the person afraid of you and they’ll attack you. Aggressive people suffer and make other people suffer. When we understand that, compassion can arise. We want to help them suffer less. If we know how to generate compassion and joy, we can help them, and if they’re joyful it’s the best way to protect ourselves. Compassion is the way to true security.
A video of this begins at minute 38:42 here.
By the way, Thich Nhat Hanh didn’t have the luxury of this view because he was safely secluded in a monastery. He was a social activist in Vietnam who was exiled for calling for peace during the Vietnam War.
I’ve also previously mentioned Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who works with gang members in Los Angeles.
My two favorite books of his are “Tattoos on the Heart” and “The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness.”
His approach: “You stand [in compassion and kinship] with the belligerent, the surly, and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear.”
Among the stories Boyle tells in “Whole Language”: Saul was horrifically abused (I’ll leave out the details) by his stepfather and other family members. At 13, he killed his stepfather. He spent thirteen years in Youth Authority and then graduated to prison for another ten years.
Boyle says: “Saul’s history was a life-denying landscape filled with shame, a sense of unworthiness and self-hatred. He now opens to life without his previous armoring.”
Saul eventually said, “I’ve decided to grow up to be somebody I always needed as a child.” He went on to show tenderness to emotionally wounded young men, treating them as his sons and helping them to recover.
Boyle’s examples of recovery are so helpful to me as I practice living in our shared, healing humanity rather than in fear of the behavior of the wounded.
Citizen Cartwright was shorter than usual on Friday because of the day I had experiencing shared humanity on Thursday.
I took the subway to downtown D.C. to pick up new glasses. The subway stop was the one where the two National Guardsmen were shot the day before Thanksgiving.
There were guardsmen at the subway station, and I was grateful for the opportunity to tell a young guy from Indiana that I was sorry about what had happened.
I like to walk as fast as possible everywhere I go as exercise, but that apparently was a mistake after I’d picked up my first-ever progressive glasses. I tripped on an uneven concrete paver and hit my head on the cement.
A young couple helped me up. The young woman was so kind to say that she’d tripped over those pavers, too.
When I called my doctor’s office, they said it was important to get my head scanned, so my husband took me to Sibley Hospital. I’d been told Sibley has the best emergency room in D.C. (it’s owned by the Johns Hopkins Health System).
Everyone was so kind, from the security guard who sped me through because my head was bleeding, to the intake person, to the triage nurse, to the person who stitched up my forehead.
The information sheet I filled out asked for my religion. The Dalai Lama frequently says: “My religion is kindness.” I wrote that.
I told my husband as our ER adventure ended that I’d had a beautiful day. I spent so much of the day flooded with feelings of connection and gratitude.
This holiday season and always, if you’re suffering in any way, my support is with you. I celebrate your goodness. I send you love.
Note to readers
I’ll be back on Monday, Jan. 5.
In the news
U.S., U.K., European intelligence continue to warn that Putin wants all of Ukraine, former parts of Soviet empire
EU agrees to provide new $106 billion, interest-free loan to Ukraine
Jordan says its air force joined U.S. strikes on the Islamic State in Syria
U.S. is pursuing a third oil tanker near Venezuela, officials say
Trump is removing nearly 30 career diplomats from ambassadorial positions
Trump suspends green card lottery program after Brown University, MIT shootings
Supreme Court sides with immigration judges in free speech case for now, rebuffing Trump administration
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche defends partial release of Epstein files as Democrats cry foul
ProPublica: Todd Blanche shut down enforcement against crypto firms while holding more than $150,000 in crypto investments
New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik drops her campaign for New York governor, won’t seek reelection to House
Justice Department sues 3 states and D.C. for voter data
National Guard troops from 10 states remain in D.C. as troop surge enters fifth month
Kennedy Center adds Trump’s name to D.C. performing arts memorial that Congress created for JFK
AP: Vance refuses to set red lines over bigotry amid conservative feud at Turning Point conference
Heather Cox Richardson: Vance ’trying to rewrite American history’ at Turning Point
Margaret Sullivan: Amid media’s failures and flaws, 5 things to celebrate
KFF: Judge in nursing home bankruptcy case involving private equity gives families fresh hope of compensation for injuries, deaths
KFF: Systemic failures are turning state mental hospitals into prisons
WSJ: Toxic fumes on planes blamed for deaths of pilots, crew