Journaling the Many Horses of 2025

July 18 is Unlearning Day

People riding horses. Very old public domain photo, digitally altered by me.

An insight that spoke to me: It’s from E.R. Anderson, executive director of Charis Circle, which does programming for Charis Books, a feminist bookstore. It was shared in today’s email newsletter.

About half the U.S. population “believes things so abhorrent and dehumanizing about pretty much all that I hold dear,” E.R. wrote.

Many others don’t believe those terrible things yet are comfortable with “the status quo.” They’re “the ‘white moderates’ Dr. King spoke of.” Whenever you hear criticism of the so-called “left,” quite likely the narrative is “catering to and satisfying these folks.” Though their political ideas have “failed” and “no amount of education will pacify” their fears, the dominant narratives continue to center their demands.

Yet others, with “a big heart,” do want “real, serious change and something to plug into, hope for, believe in, and fight for.” If and when they have to, they are “unlearning” old ideas.

Especially if you’re in that last group, you may feel that “this is not the mission we signed up for,” E.R. says. It’s something like the feeling of many military veterans who have sensed that “what they were called to do in service was so great as to be emotionally and spiritually disfiguring.” This pain is called moral…