Dear Billy,
I can’t believe Trump is president again. Is he the living evil? He seems to want to hurt people. I read that millions of South Africans are without their HIV medicine. They are locked out of their clinics because he’s mad about something and cut off an aid program. How would someone want that to happen?

—MAYA

Dear Maya,
Many of us share your disbelief. Part of his evil is that it stuns us into standing still. He freezes us. Our perspective is stuck; we just can’t believe it. When we are unable to move and groove, then we are a sitting duck for his lying ass. Here’s one lie: He wants us to believe that he is one man with one idea. Actually, if we tear our eyes off of him, start whirling around and go back into the world… we quickly see that there are a thousand Donald Trumps. And you know what? We have got a job to do here, for each other, to help and to heal. We have to live in a neighborhood that refuses to die, that comes back to life!

Maybe someday we will give and give until we live in a nation of neighborhoods that refuse to die. Right now, we don’t have to guess at the big vision. Samuel R. Delany says that if you walk by the same person three times, on the third time, stop and offer your name. The morning after Trump’s election, a very tired looking AOC urged us to go back to our neighborhood, our family, our loved ones, our pod — and be sure those intimate relationships are strong. Right now, we are mesmerized by this one man — but to get back to our own good work, we have to be in motion. In fact, we need to dance and laugh, and when we do this with abandon, we suddenly see that we are not alone; our loves are laughing in motion too. How would our perspective shift if we looked away from him and took in the world with new eyes, eyes that come from looking out at the world with our loved ones looking with us? Then we see beyond this one damaged soul, and we notice that the air itself is harmed. The environment of our culture is going insane, in scary unity with the environment of the Earth.

The space between the murderers is the air that we are forced to breathe, and it is the space where we learn to believe. We must help each other continue our breathing and singing and stay in motion. We need to stay in action together in this poisoned public landscape that is now breaking into fire and flood — we need to stay as active as the Earth is active. We have the Earth and its current, sometimes violent dance as our teacher. And we emerge from the rubble of the latest disaster with our radical giving. The Earth is creating gift economies with Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles fires. Our disregard for the lives of others produced the hate of Trump. But we don’t have to continue with this distancing. It’s back to the love that started it all. Can I help you? Do you have bandages? I have an extra blanket…

The air we breathe can have our attention as we move through it and pledge that we will be radical enough to protect it, to keep it breathable.

Maya, did you follow that? Your name, it says here, comes from Sanskrit and it means “illusion” and “magic.” We have to look away from the evil and start anew. At first it will seem like dreaming, but if we do it together, it will become dancing. I wish the best for you. We all have such work to do. Earthalujah!

— REV

REVEREND BILLY TALEN IS THE PASTOR OF THE CHURCH OF STOP SHOPPING. HAVE A QUESTION FOR THE REVEREND? EMAIL REVBILLY@REVBILLY.COM AND UNBURDEN YOUR SOUL.