Untamed

Good art originates not from the desire to show off but from the desire to show yourself. Good art always comes from our desperate desire to breathe, to be seen, to be loved. In everyday life, we are used to seeing only the shiny outer layer of folks. Art makes us less lonely because it always comes from the desperate center of the artist—and each of our centers is desperate. That’s why good art is such a relief.

People often tell me that my writing feels like a relief. What they feel next is a desire to respond to my offering by telling me their story. For many years I’d stay for hours after my speaking events while one woman after another touched my arm, saying, “I just need to tell you this…”

Eventually I opened a post office box and promised people that if they wrote down their stories, I’d read them all. Each week, letters pour in. Boxes of letters are piled up in my bedroom and office. I imagine I’ll be reading them until I’m ninety. A few times a week I put down my phone and turn off the news, snuggle up in bed, and read letters. It is always such a relief. Ah, yes. This is what people are like. We are all so fucked up and so magical. Life is so brutal and beautiful. Life is brutiful. For all of us. I remember now. If you want to get jaded and numb, watch the news. If you want to stay human, read letters. When trying to understand humanity, seek out firsthand accounts.

One night, surrounded by letters that my sister and I had been reading for hours, we looked at the pile and thought: Many of these people have more than enough. Many don’t have enough. All of these people are hungry for purpose and connection. Let’s be the bridge between them. We decided to start Together Rising. That’s how I became what they call a philanthropist.

Since Together Rising was founded eight years ago, our five-woman board and fierce volunteers have spent day and night frantically and relentlessly connecting suffering people with every resource within our grasp: money, service, sisterhood, hope. Since we connect with every person we serve, we’ve learned firsthand that folks are generally doing the best they can. Yet so many still can’t put food on the table or get medical care for their sick mothers or keep the heat on or secure a safe space to raise their children. Every night we’d go to bed wondering: Why? Why are all of these people who are trying so hard—still hurting so badly?

And then one day, I read this:

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.

—Archbishop Desmond Tutu

When I started looking upstream, I learned that where there is great suffering, there is often great profit. Now when I encounter someone who is struggling to stay afloat, I know to first ask, “How can I help you right now?” Then, when she is safe and dry, to ask, “What institution or person is benefiting from your suffering?”

Every philanthropist, if she is paying attention, eventually becomes an activist. If we do not, we risk becoming codependent with power—saving the system’s victims while the system collects the profits, then pats us on the head for our service. We become injustice’s foot soldiers.

In order to avoid being complicit with those upstream, we must become the people of And/Both. We must commit to pulling our brothers and sisters out of the river and also commit to going upstream to identify, confront, and hold accountable those who are pushing them in.

We help parents bury their babies who were victims of gun violence. And we go upstream to fight the gun manufacturers and politicians who profit from their children’s deaths.

We step into the gap to sustain moms who are raising families with imprisoned dads. And we go upstream to dismantle the injustice of mass incarceration.

We fund recovery programs for those suffering from opioid addiction. And we go upstream to rail against the system that enables Big Pharma and corrupt doctors to get richer every time another kid gets hooked.

We provide shelter and mentoring for LGBTQ homeless kids. And we go upstream to renounce the religious-based bigotry, family rejection, and homophobic policies that make LGBTQ kids more than twice as likely as their straight or cisgender peers to experience homelessness.

We help struggling veterans get the PTSD treatment they need and deserve, and we go upstream to confront the military-industrial complex, which is so zealous to send our soldiers to war and so willing to abandon them when they return.

If we are to create a truer, more beautiful world, we must be the people of And/Both. Let’s keep pulling folks out of the river forever. And every single day, let’s look upstream and give living hell to the ones pushing them in.