Lurking Under the Leaves – Photo: L. Weikel

Creature Feelings 

I have so many thoughts and feeling coursing through me.

On the one hand, I feel tremendous despair over the state of our country at the moment – actually, the state of our world at the moment. The fear. The hatred of the ‘other.’ I despair that so many feel such profound helplessness – and the rage over feeling helpless – in a country of purported opportunity. I am sickened by the blame being deliberately stoked by those who hold the greatest power – and privilege.

On the other hand, I sense a sea change. I know, I know: it’s been thought before, especially when innocents, little kids, were slaughtered at Sandy Hook. Or when high schoolers were mowed down in Parkland and their surviving classmates passionately and eloquently demanded change.

Something Feels Different This Time

But this time, perhaps because the racism in the White House, as it’s being leveled against duly elected Congressional Representatives and so blatantly being trumpeted against entire American cities and their inhabitants, is so obvious that the hearts of so many of us are saying, “Enough.”

I don’t know what feels different this time, but something does.

The insanity has reached a tipping point. The old ways simply must be shed.

Good people – who I truly believe are the vast majority of our country – are waking up to the horror and banding together. We are beginning to realize that it really does start with each and every one of us taking stock of our truth, taking stock of our lives and saying, “If I don’t call it out, who will?”

If I Don’t Call It Out, Who Will?

All viewpoints do not demand nor deserve equal time. All arguments do not demand nor deserve to be accorded respect. Vapid talking points need to be treated as such. Idiotic assertions need to be dismissed for their utter lack of merit. Immoral, hateful rhetoric needs to be deemed utterly unacceptable. Cruelty needs to be shut down.

And we don’t need to use cruelty to fight cruelty, either. But we do need to stand firm. We need to stop attempting to persuade when there is an utter lack of shared facts, when there is a refusal to acknowledge even the most basic tenets of a shared reality.

 

We can be kind; but we must say no. And we must disarm the desperate.

We Know the Facts

There is incontrovertible evidence that weapons of war – automatic and semi-automatic guns with high capacity magazines – mow people down. The only use these weapons have is hunting humans.

We must stop pandering to those who would argue that the sun revolves around the Earth – and would cite a conspiracy theory to make their case that it is so. For they are shameless. They will argue anything to confuse, to obfuscate, to claim victimhood. They are the same people who argue that “guns do not kill” (as if anyone is saying that guns shoot themselves) in order to thwart any meaningful regulation. It’s specious and astoundingly tone deaf, and blind, and disrespectful to all those who’ve suffered loss as a result of these insane attacks.

We Must Take Our Cue From the Caterpillars

It’s time for us to take our cue from the caterpillars. We need to utterly and completely transform. We must go within, engage in collective self-reflection, and transform. We need to realize our systemic racism, the lies we’ve been telling ourselves as a society since our nation was first formed.

And we need to have the courage to just face it. We must acknowledge the depth of our shame in treating other human beings as ‘less than.’ And that starts with admitting the systemic obliteration of the people who lived on this land for thousands of years before Europeans even arrived or Africans were forced to relocate to these shores.

NO ONE wants to be exploited. NO ONE wants to be judged by superficial standards (the color of our eyes, the shade of our skin, the accent of our first language). NO ONE (except for perhaps the most damaged among us) wants to succeed simply to screw someone else over.

We must drop the fear. We must drop the rage. We absolutely must LEARN TO LISTEN to the feelings of others – and cultivate compassion and empathy for ourselves and each other.

We can do this. The vast majority of us already know this is possible in our hearts.

If we don’t say it, who will?

Let us transform.

(T-844)