The weeks after the solstice has seen slowly growing light returning, even as the coldness of winter has continued. Just before Christmas, a heavy snow fell, providing us with a beautiful White Christmas, much to the delight of my wife and our family. Though limited by the pandemic and the snowfall, my wife and I were able to celebrate Christmas with my stepdaughter’s family, including the delightful granddaughter who relished opening her presents and put on, one after another, several layers of clothes she had received as gifts.

In the natural world around us, the wintry season has made food and warmth scarce for animals like us. Many birds and squirrels come to our feeder each day, seeking to satisfy their hunger in the cold, decaying Earth. On the ground lay fallen leaves, plant stems and some branches, the cold and wet winter eating away at their forms until they are transformed into rich soil. In the destruction of wintry death, the basis of life—the Earth—is replenished, receiving back the nutrients it has given the plants over the summer months with more added back by the plants. As the Earth and the plants give, so they each return back in turn. In the death of cold winter lies the renewal of Earthly life. The bleak midwinter is approaching, while the Earth’s trees and plants are dormant and animals like us face scarcity and death, the sleeping Earth renews itself while in the embrace of death. Like the son/sun of agrarian human mythos, the Earth resurrects through its own, sacred spirit.

On New Year’s Day, celebrating the promise of renewal in the cold darkness of winter, we had a traditional German meal for good luck in the emerging year. The traditional meal contains vegetarian sausage in homemade garlic-caraway sauerkraut, lima beans and baked potatoes given to us by a local grower. Added to the traditional meal was a Greek Salad with local greens and local Feta Cheese and our “Viking Winter” Maple Porter, brewed on last year’s solstice. To our delight, our two-year-old granddaughter was with us, eating crackers and cheese with some vegetables while wandering about, too old for her highchair.

In the larger human world, particularly our own country, we are witnessing evil consuming itself, as my wife taught me decades ago was the fate of those who harm needlessly. In this case, the question of whether the consumption will absorb more than the Trump family, and to what degree the family will rebound, is yet to be told. Yet the fall from power-over-others seems remarkably quick compared to the threat that Trump held over others a very short time ago.

In a blog piece at the beginning of the pandemic shutdowns, I referenced the hierarchy of power-over that Trump led and wrote:

“Hierarchies like these dominate the societies of most nations, living out the same story retold over the millennia of patriarchies: They ruthlessly gain power-over others, bring about suffering and injustice while ignoring real challenges until a crisis cause them to fall unexpectedly. It is a story of the larger human world that is witnessed, recounted, ignored and witnessed again.”

The problem is not that evil does not consume itself—the eventual fall of individuals and families who live out of line with the Earthly river of life is a predictable inevitability. However, the problem of history is not that evil does not collapse into its own hollow core of injustice; the problem is that below the towers of power-over are eager also-rans, seeking to practice the Covenant of Bad Works—evil—in the misguided hope that their heart-rendering “righteous” rage will escape the inevitable sowing what we reap.

Mahatma Gandhi is quoted as saying, ““An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.” So it is with the quest to use power-over-others to attain something better. Power-over corrupts the hearts of those who have it, despite their own better selves. This was also true for Mahatma Gandhi, a man without possessions or office, but who received power-over simply by his status. It is true for all of us, living our small lives and our own potential to be corrupted by our power-over in our personal web of life.

In my own, face to face community, there are numerous people whose comfortable lives contain grievous injustices—there are men who are serial date rapists, a man who cheated on his wife so extensively that she took her own life, landlords who charge exorbitant rents while letting the housing stock they own decline, along with those like me who have plenty of failings of our own—damaging the integrity of our families and community.

As a result of the commonplace corruption of power-over in our communities, on the wreckage of collapsing towers of injustice will arise new towers of injustice, seeking to right the wrongs of others while ignoring our own failings. The death of human towers of power-over do not truly replenish the small human communities that serve as their foundation. Rather they absorb the communities’ good works and lives and exhaust them in sometimes lethal assaults on their opponents.

The seeking of a better way of life is in taking part in the Earthly river of life by supporting family and community around us while working to lessen the harm we do, both in our face-to-face personal world and the larger outside world. In a quick correspondence with a friend with very different political views, I found the same kernel of seeking good works as my own:

“Like most people, I'm very saddened by the state of the world, especially the United States. I feel like the turmoil, in general and recently, is really an issue of heart and not of politics. Of course, my perspective comes my Christianity. Christianity is about loving people the way Christ loves us. There is such a huge lack of love in the world today and I'm not really sure how we recover from that. I disagree with a lot things political leaders do, in both parties. However, the biggest problem, to me, is that people seem to have forgotten how to love the people they disagree with, which is really important…. To limit my sadness, I just try to focus on loving the people in my own circle the best I can, hoping they will do the same and it will continue to grow.”

This perspective, so close to mine, is the essence of the teaching to conscientiously follow the Earthly river of life’s practice of good works, seeking to bring forth life and love while the larger human world is absorbed by the death and rebirth of towers of corrupt power-over-others. The question—so crucially important—is twofold: how do I act more lovingly in my family and community and, simultaneously, reach out with firm resolve mixed with forgiveness towards those who threaten the well-being of those I love? For me and most men I know, this question begins through examining our conscience in our own families. It is our own homes that common men like me have been given power-over-others by patriarchy and it is in that center that we can best make fertile the foundation of our lives.