Dear Friends,
I have been thinking a lot, during these weeks in Szczecin, Poland, about the power woven into our sense of “Home”. It is such a primal human need, to belong deeply both within a Tribe and within a specific Place and Landscape. What does it mean to have that sense of belonging? And what does it mean to have that taken away, as the Ukrainian refugees here are experiencing now?
Yesterday I was working on a renovation project at the Kana Theatre with two Ukrainian sisters who are currently sheltering there. They are facing, in the most horrifying ways, exactly that loss of homeland. Their husbands are still in their home village, risking their lives, as we speak, to beat back an attack by Russian forces.
During a coffee break, with my friend Janek Turkowski serving as my Russian interpreter, they gave voice to their fear and rage and helplessness within this impossible situation. One of them fixed her gaze on me and asked, “Would you fight for your homeland?”
In the context of this conversation, it was a potent question. I would normally have to think about my answer, given the fractured nature of American culture right now, and the ways in which so many of my countrymen have weaponized “patriotism” as a tool for undermining the very values of a democratic society that I most deeply cherish. But the genocide unfolding in Ukraine right now has come to feel closer to home through the lens of my time with these refugees here in Poland. Democracy is under siege not just in Ukraine, but around the globe. Ukraine’s fight for survival is now our collective fight for survival, in a way that has not been so broadly felt since WWII. And in this fight, America has shown that it is not exempt, internally, from launching devastating attacks on its own government. I hardly hesitated in answering, “Yes, I would.”
Later in the day, Janek took me to another shelter to spend time with some Ukrainian children. His job is to help create human connections and activities with these refugee families, to bring a kind of immediate presence and solace within very abnormal circumstances. He has been my primary guide and mentor here, by bringing me into these encounters whenever he can.
I brought my guitar and taught some simple songs to these grade school-aged children, which they gamely endeavored to learn. Then their teacher led them in singing some Ukrainian folk songs to me. When they got to the Ukrainian national anthem, their teacher broke down crying. Patriotism is not an abstract thing when we are in the process of losing the land we love.
Patriotism is obviously a two-edged sword. It can lead people, out of a professed love for country, to engage in acts of unspeakable violence and xenophobia, as Russia is currently displaying to the world, and as some among the American Right continue to openly endorse. But that deep bond with the land of our birth is also one of our most primal human needs. If nurtured intelligently and humanely, it can be a source of deep connection between people as well.
Janek on a recent trip to deliver a Ukrainian family to a village south of Szczecin.
As I have been privileged to experience here in an unusually visceral way, Poland is a place not only of deeply textured history and cultural richness, but also a landscape of incredible natural beauty. The spirit of patriotism and pride in homeland is palpable here, especially with its close proximity to the invasion of Ukraine, and its recent history, so directly shared with Ukraine, of.life under repressive Russian hegemony. Polish flags are flying everywhere in the city, and unlike at home, I feel uplifted by that, and by the sense of camaraderie Poles now have with their Ukrainian neighbors, rooted as it is in that very real history of political repression.
So who am I to say that, in similar circumstances, I would not fight for the land I love? Who would I be if I could not feel, with my new Polish and Ukrainian friends, that necessary bond with one’s homeland that goes so deep in our human psyche? Part of any silver lining connected with this tragedy in Ukraine has to be the way it has revivified our global appreciation for the fragility of that bond, and for the way its varied expressions around the world actually bind us together as a human family, rather than having to tear us apart in such destructive ways. We are gifted with richly varied expressions of the same miracle of belonging to each other, through our mutual belonging to the earthly bounty and beauty that not only sustains us, but which gave birth to our species in the first place.
I was listening to an interview this morning between Krista Tippet from On Being, and the late Irish poet/philosopher John O’Donohue, recorded in 2012 just before his death. In that interview O’Donohue spoke about the spiritual necessity of this primal connection to the landscapes of home. He said,
“It makes a huge difference in the morning, when you wake and come out of your house, whether you believe you are walking into a dead geographical location which is used to get to a destination, or whether you’re emerging out into a landscape that is just as much, if not more, alive as you, but in a totally different form. And if you go towards it with an open heart, and a real, watchful reverence, that you will be absolutely amazed at what it will reveal to you.”
It is that deepest aliveness in the place that gave me birth that I am willing to fight for, and that in my own way I have been fighting for all my life. And it is that deep bond with place, I believe, that lies beneath any specific manifestation of patriotism worth the name. Let us use this moment in our shared history that is so fraught with danger and vulnerability, to renew our love affair with Home, which is our shared life on this precious earth, which is the only home we will ever have.
Sending lots of love,
Kurt