Stories in Times of War

The Relationship Between Art and Democracy

I found out about Iran while on the phone with my friend Lilli this Saturday. She lived through one of the wars in Lebanon and has taught me a lot about what people in many other countries experience firsthand. She reminded me that while bombs fall, people continue to live. In my naive mind, people living through war huddle in shelters, terrified, unspeaking, until they either die or the fighting passes.

This isn't the whole reality. During war, people also date and sleep and bicker and take walks and pet cats and watch each other's kids and eat soup and blow out birthday candles. They accept that they can't control the bombs; they simply keep on with their lives the best they can.

"So what am I supposed to do," I asked her, "Say, 'Oh, the US bombed Iran, oh well,' and go back to my weaving?"

"Actually, yes," she said.

I'm coming to understand that participating in art, in storytelling, is something particularly important right now. Because that kind of freedom is an act of resistance.

Yes, it's critical that we all take action against what the administration is doing in the United States. I'm definitely not advocating for denying or ignoring. Extremely serious things are happening in large part because so much of the population is checked out and inactive. But often, like this weekend after I found out about Iran, we mistaken doomscrolling or news binging for action. It's definitely not the same.

Action is reading reliable news sources (preferably with a timer set), calling our reps, signing petitions, showing up for protests, joining a local political organization, writing letters to our local papers, and donating money to nonprofits that are defending democracy.

What we focus on expands, so once we've taken action, it's important that we embody liberal democracy in our everyday lives. One of the most powerful ways to do that is to engage with art.

Why is creativity such an important part of freedom? Art is the ultimate act of free expression. Storytelling points us to truths that are so much harder to access in the stale narratives of the "real" world. Stories move us, shepherd us into unfamiliar realms that reconnect us with lost parts of ourselves. Stories recharge us spiritually, something essential in working for democracy while it's being threatened. Stories remind us of the best we can be and offer us hope that we can get back to that place. Stories are a gathering place for our questions, a playground for inquiry. Stories are a safe space because our imaginations cannot be taken from us. And imagination is the engine for creativity, a quality that will help us with every challenge we meet-even the challenge of fascism.

As a kid growing up in a very scary home, stories were my lifeline. Through books, I learned that there were loving, sane, and ethical ways of being in the world, ways I had no experience with. Yes, stories were an escape, but they also offered hope that something better existed. I lived in fear for 17 years and came out the other side in large part because of the authors whose words sustained me.

This film I'm in, "Unsung," is a beautiful piece of storytelling. It's free to watch, and I don't make any money from it, so please know that my recommendation is not self-serving. I'm hoping it will help you integrate art into your everyday life. I'm hoping it will help be an instrument in the struggle for democracy. But the main reason you should watch it is because it will make you smile as you remember the delicious and tender aspects of human nature, something so easy to forget during moments like these.

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Join the producers, Kimberly Warner and Troy Ford, and us four cast members, for the “Unsung” premiere on

Sunday, June 29th, from 2-3:00 p.m. ET

If you want to stay past the one-hour mark, we'll have a Q&A after from 3-4:00.

Here is the link: https://open.substack.com/live-stream/35170?utm_source=post-publish

That link will schedule the event right into your calendar and provide a join URL for the event.