“Resistance is everywhere you look”

Here is a short excerpt from a fine column in the Washington Post by the novelist Anne Lamott:

      I think we need and are taking a good, long rest. Along with half of America, I have been feeling doomed, exhausted and quiet. A few of us, approximately 75 million people, see the future as a desert of harshness. The new land looks inhospitable. But if we stay alert, we’ll notice that the stark desert is dotted with growing things. In the pitiless heat and scarcity, we also see shrubs and conviction. . . .

      Lacking obvious flash and vigor might make it seem as if there is no resistance. But it is everywhere you look….It is in the bags of groceries we keep taking to food pantries. It looks like generosity, like compassion. It looks like the profound caring for victims of the fires, and providing refuge for immigrants and resisting the idea that they are dangerous or unwanted, and reaching out to queer nieces, siblings and strangers and helping resist the notion that their identities are unworthy, let alone illegal.

      It is in our volunteer support for public schools and libraries, because we know the new president holds them in contempt and fear. Teachers and librarians are allies for souls who have been dismissed as hopeless. These unabashed do-gooders will definitely get the best seats in heaven, nearest the dessert table. What they have to offer — patience, companionship, poetry — is about to be defunded by the new administration, but not by us. Resistance may depend on federal district court judges, but it will look like bake sales. . . .