Planting Gardens We'll Never See

"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit." ~ Greek Proverb

I'm currently sitting in my hotel room on the Grassmarket in Edinburgh while on vacation. I promised myself I would disengage from the drama unfolding back home in the US, to fully enjoy my first time in the UK, and I've been somewhat good about that. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a tumble this morning and am resting my foot. Idle hands are the Devil's tools, etc etc, and I found myself back on the socials.

As I'm writing this, the GOP in the US House are preparing to pass the Senate version of the MAGA budget bill. This bill is an assault on American progress for the middle- and working-class, the poor, the elderly, the disabled, anyone who gets sick, minority communities, and those who do not adhere to a far-right Dominionist interpretation of Christianity.

Within the first six months of the second Trump administration, MAGA has functionally rolled back LBJ's Great Society and FDR's New Deal. The DOJ and MAGA appointees on SCOTUS have gone even further, reinterpreting the Reconstruction Amendments into perversions of themselves that uphold white supremacy and ethnonationalism. Each move further cedes power to the executive branch and establishes a more consolidated police state via Trump's personal army, aka ICE.

We knew most of this was going to happen. Millions of us knocked on doors, had conversations in our communities, and screamed into the gibbering void that is social media to prevent this. Admittedly, we underestimated the scope and speed. Even with them publishing their Project 2025 handbook well in advance, we naively hoped at least a dozen GOP elected officials had something resembling a spine or a conscience. That's on us.

And here we come to this budget bill. From the outset there was no realistic way to prevent the passage of an absolutely garbage bill. In both the Senate and the House the GOP/MAGA have the slimmest majority, and their hivemind-like commitment to maximum cruelty assured enough votes in both chambers. The work of activists and everyday citizens was to minimize the harm as much as possible. That work, plus the blessed intervention of the only person in the Senate to still believe in rules, the Senate Parliamentarian, managed to get a decent amount of devastating provisions removed.

Let me be clear: I am no Pollyanna about what this bill is or what is about to happen. Millions are going to lose access to healthcare. Millions more will lose access as rural hospitals and health centers close due to lack of funding. STEM in the United States is going to suffer and we'll lose our competitive advantage as we prioritize ideology over reality.

The list goes on, but that isn't what I want to talk about.

I opened this post with a Greek proverb about planting trees whose shade you will never benefit from. This speaks to the idea of investing in the long term and not just prioritizing personal short term interest to the detriment of your community. This is absolutely counter to the modern American fixation on immediate gratification, hyper-individualism, greed as a virtue, and - if you're a far-right Evangelical - the need to even plan for a future because you hope the world ends in your lifetime.

I also think about this proverb in the context of an ancestor veneration practice. We are sitting under the trees our ancestors planted specifically for us. I think about my LGBTQ+ ancestors and the work they did around queer liberation. They did this work knowing they may not live to see a more equal world, especially during the heigh of the HIV/AIDS crisis when so many died so young but continued to fight so hard.

Part of a healthy ancestor veneration practice is the recognition that we are currently "ancestors-in-training". It can be wild or uncomfortable to think about, after all, most folks don't like to acknowledge their own mortality. But we are all of us mortal beings, and one day we shall pass on to the next great adventure, and while some of us may view our progeny as our legacy, our actions are just as important. What we do now will ripple down through generations. We may not divert a raging river, but in the act of moving a few stones we make it easier for those that come after to get closer to that goal by building on our work.

I hope understanding this fills you with hope. It does for me. We are admittedly living through some dark and scary times and, not to minimize this, dark and scary times also occurred before us. They were different, to be sure, but they were also similar. We can learn from our ancestors how to resist, but we can also learn from them how to build for the future.

We can learn from them how to sow the seeds for gardens we ourselves may never see bloom, and how that act can bring us strength, hope, and resilience.