“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.” — Pema Chödrön, Buddhist Teacher
Today I invite us to meditate on a delicate question—one that I am still sorting within myself and invite our shared discernment. It’s a question that asks for presence, honesty, and some tenderness. It’s this:
Can we meet this moment of cultural collapse with kindness, creativity, and fierce love—without pretending we’re above the mess of it all? Can we stay grounded in the humility that we are not saviors, even as we long to heal what’s breaking?
It’s not a rhetorical question. I don’t yet know the answer, if there is one. But I feel in my bones that we must begin here, with the willingness to ask it.
We all sense that are living in a moment of profound unraveling. All around us, the shadow of our collective story is revealing itself. Under the name of American exceptionalism, we are witnessing harm and dehumanization dressed up as virtue: brown-skinned people vilified, LGBTQ communities attacked, women subjugated, Black lives threatened, institutions dismantled, war promoted under the banner of peace. As I so often say: this isn’t just political. It’s ontological. It shakes the very ground of what we thought reality was.
Perhaps that is the source of our deepest suffering: not just the horrors themselves, but the shattering of the story we told ourselves—that we were better than this. That we had evolved beyond the brutality of our past. That we had healed. That we were, finally, just.
But what if the grief we feel is not evidence of failure, but an invitation to become honest?
What if our psychic anguish is the natural response to a myth collapsing?
The truth is: we are not innocent. We are not separate from the systems we oppose. We are not untouched by the patterns we condemn. We are not either/or—we are both/and. We are love and cruelty. Hope and fear. Awake and still sleepwalking. To be human is to be entangled in contradiction.
To pretend otherwise—to purify ourselves too quickly—is to stay trapped in the very illusions that got us here.1 But when we allow ourselves to acknowledge the mess, without collapsing into guilt or retreating into righteousness, something sacred happens: we become metabolizers of truth. We become capable of the kind of peace that doesn’t require denial.
I’ve learned in my mediation work that peace is not the absence of conflict. Peace is the capacity to stay with the conflict. To let it rise. To face it. To compost it into something more whole. Peace isn’t pretty—but it is honest. And it is fierce. It is rooted in love that refuses to look away.
So no—I am not saying we should stop resisting harm. We must keep showing up, keep fighting injustice, keep protecting the vulnerable. But we must also let go of the idea that we are separate from the violence we resist. That story only keeps us fragile, defensive, and afraid of complexity.2
Instead, we can learn to grieve: to grieve not just what is happening now, but what has always been happening. To grieve the gap between our ideals and our history. To grieve the myths we believed about who we were.
And in that grief, we can grow something else.
We can act—not from urgency alone—but from devotion. Not from purity, but from presence. Not because we are certain, but because we are willing.
So today, let’s take a breath. Let’s allow ourselves to be honest. Let’s stop trying to be the “good ones,” and start becoming the real ones—the ones who can hold contradiction, stay with discomfort, and let love, fierce and imperfect, animate our justice.
We cannot hold all of this alone. But we can hold it together, if we are brave enough to stay in the mess and humble enough to listen.
May this moment not harden us, but humble us. May it break us open, not apart.
What are your thoughts?
We are in this together,
Cameron
Reflection Questions
Where in me do I cling to the story that “I am better than this” in order to avoid feeling what is true?
What parts of me have I exiled in order to maintain a purified sense of goodness?
What becomes possible in my activism, my leadership, my relationships… when I act not from certainty, but from surrendered presence?
A Prayer for the Day
A Prayer for the Humbling
Holy Presence, Let me not turn away from what is breaking. Let me not harden in the face of harm, Nor cling to the comfort of believing I am innocent. Soften me with truth. Unmake me where I’ve become rigid. Let my grief be real, but not paralyzing. Let my rage be holy, not consuming. Teach me to move from love, Fierce and trembling as it may be. May I fight for justice without exiling compassion. May I tell the truth without feeding the fire of division. May I remember that I, too, am a mess of contradictions— And that even still, I am worthy of healing, and capable of repair. May this collapse become compost. May I become part of the soil. Amen.
Spiritual Practice
The Three-Breath Reckoning
A simple daily ritual for metabolizing what’s too much, too painful, too complex.
You can do this in the morning, before a hard conversation, after reading the news, or any time you feel disoriented or reactive.
1. Breath One – Revealing - Inhale and name, silently or aloud, what is being revealed in this moment—inside you or around you.
“I see the harm.”
“I feel the dissonance.”
“I name the discomfort.”
2. Breath Two – Remembering - Exhale and remember your entanglement. Let go of purity. Remember you are part of the field.
“This lives in me too.”
“I am not separate.”
“I am human, and humans are messy.”
3. Breath Three – Reorienting - Breathe in again, this time inviting the next small, love-rooted action.
“Let me act from humility.”
“Let my presence be medicine.”
“I offer what I can, without needing to fix everything.”
Return to your day—not as savior, not as judge, but as a presence in process.
Upcoming Events That Might Be of Interest…
September 4, 5:30pm ET - I will be collaborating with the Anderson Forum for Progressive Theology to host a conversation with Thomas Jay Oord on Open and Relational theology. It’s a FREE event. Register here.
October 18, 2025 - No Kings 2.0 Protest - Scholars of authoritarianism teach us that we need 3.5% of the population rising up to disrupt the rise of authoritarians. The last protest had over 6 million people in the streets in the US (more around the world) which was one of the largest protest in US history. We need to double that number. So here we go again. The movement builds. See you on the streets.
October 23, 30, November 13, 20 2025, 7pm ET - In Search of a New Story: Reimagining What Comes Next, A 4-Part Online Series with Dr. Matthew Fox, Cameron Trimble, Ilia Delio, Diana Butler Bass, Caroline Myss and Luther Smith. We are living through the unraveling of many old stories—about who we are, why we’re here, and how we are meant to live together on this Earth. As these inherited narratives collapse under the weight of climate crisis, social fragmentation, and spiritual disconnection, the question becomes clear: What story will guide us now? REGISTRATION NOW OPEN!
I drafted a Strategic Framework for Congregations as we move into the coming years of increased authoritarianism around the world. If interested, you can download it here.
If you are a leader or member of a congregation looking for consulting support in visioning, planning, hiring or staffing, please consider Convergence.
I owe an endless debt to Margaret Wheatley for teaching me this over and over again. Read this article, “Who Do We Choose to Be?” for an introduction to Meg’s work. Then buy all of her books.
I am hoping to write more about the teachings of the mystics in future posts, but I want to draw our attention to the teachings of Julian of Norwich here. Julian of Norwich lived approximately from 1342 to 1416 CE. She lived through a plague, political instability, and the collapse of shared cultural meaning. And yet—she offered not blind optimism, but radical trust. You may remember her for saying:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Not because things looked well, but because she saw something beneath the chaos: a divine presence/pattern in the heart of paradox. She taught that sin and suffering are necessary wounds through which we come to embody love—not avoid them, not transcend them, but pass through them. She said, “First there is the fall, and then we recover from the fall. Both are the mercy of God.” All of it is grace. Read more: https://cac.org/daily-meditations/julian-of-norwich-part-i-the-mystic-in-the-anchor-hold-2015-07-20/
I am so thankful for your words and each day they give me much to consider. It is difficult to rid oneself of a dualistic way of thinking but so necessary during this interim time.
As usual, your commentary today hits home with me. I know I am a part of Nature, but sometimes I forget I am a part of all humanity -- and that all the parts of humanity are a part of me. Grief is hard, especially if I have to acknowledge my participation in the wrongdoing. I like to think of myself as a savior -- I so appreciate your kind reminder to just be present with love.