Oh Facebook, you broke my heart this week. This reaction to the election went so much deeper than whose team lost. I've endured that. (Remember I'm from Ohio not Chicago). This is not about poor sportsmanship. This is about poor people - on both sides of this election result.
The difference is in who they hope will pull them out of the quicksand. But when I dared to ask the question and really listen to the answer, my heart broke.
I got a private message from a friend I have long admired for her kind heart, wisdom and creativity. She messaged me privately for fear of backlash. She lives in an area hit hard by outsourcing and regulation. She has decades of experience but can't find full time work because it's cheaper for companies to hire part time employees. Coal mines have been shut down and the area has been hit hard by the deeds of desperate people, many of them are displaced, undocumented immigrants. It's easy to fear them all if the only ones you know wish to harm you.
My friends are being ridiculed for being honest about who they are. They have lived examined lives and discovered a lifestyle and a tribe which represents their conviction and gives them freedom to express their soul without harming another. But they are frightened about what this election will do to their hard won gains or the lives of the people they love. My LGBT friends are hearing people of faith reduce their whole lives to a verse or two from a book, a love letter from God, which condemns and dismisses them.
It's easy to fear and loathe someone if you don't really know them. It's easy to detest people of faith if the only ones you know are trying to harm you.
This fear cuts both ways. Noone won this election.
In the expression of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; we suddenly see an opposition - I can't have mine if you get yours. The resources are not finite. In most cases, people are just fighting for the right to exist. But we've been manipulated into thinking it's either/or.
People of color are tired of reliving the same horror from the same battles fought for generations. America is the only home they've ever known. Must they always feel unwelcome? Will they ever get to take off their coat and stay a while?
No matter who you voted for, life goes on. One of my nearest and dearest is about to be homeless. Her beloved pets will be surrendered. One of you is in the hospital praying, thankfully, that the freak accident which changed your young son's life didn't end his life; but uncertain what "new normal" will be. One of you is at the hospital with both parents and a best friend; praying the strongest pillars of your sense of security will remain when the doctors do all they can. Some of you are still grieving a family member lost in the war. Many of you are facing health issues and battling cancer. And this is just the microcosm of a week in the lives of MY America; my friends.
People who struggle with mental illness are finally on a level playing field. This world that doesn't seem to make sense, doesn't make sense for any of us. The young people, instead of being idealists, are angry and scared. The old people, instead of having an influence, are just helplessly watching the show. The folks in the middle are working too hard to take much time to look directly at it.
And then there's me. Some of you are angry at me for how I handled my confusion and sadness over the way my best friends and family voted and reacted to the results. I'm not defending those actions. We've all just been doing what we do under stress and uncertainty. I go for the middle. I make peace. Sometimes prematurely.
I have felt ashamed, angry, defensive, thankful, humbled. I have felt like an ignorant white girl.
As I drove around my incredibly diverse SF Bay Area, I've started to see the human trees for the forest. I have grown use to seeing people from all over the world, all genders, ages, stages and manifestation of personhood. That's "allowed" here. I learned shortly after moving here from the Midwest, it's impossible to "size a person up" when you meet them. I learned to evaluate security or threat from individual words and actions. But not this week.
This week I saw them all as their type. I saw the Muslim woman on the corner of the intersection and she seemed so vulnerable. I wondered what went through her mind as she got dressed that morning. Just a change of outfit would have insured her security. What faith she must have to dress in a way that identifies her as "other".
I appreciated every kindness from every African American I encountered. My friends on Facebook are so damn tired of still being "other" in a world of others. I wondered if I would even bother being kind in a world that kept telling me I was still not enough.
I had a white woman flip me off and scream at me for a perceived traffic mistake. (It wasn't one, I swear). Her contorted face matched the ugly, angry tone of the horn. (I may have responded by matching the tone of both; but I'm not confirming that rumor). I wondered what her life is like to make her so angry. I've thought a lot this week about the men who abused me in my past. I've felt frustrated that some of the men in my life still don't know what the "big deal" is.
I thought about all my friends of faith. It's a weary, risky business to profess an unpopular, misunderstood position. During worship service, I wondered if someone might come in and gun us down. I'm up front. I wondered if I would physically be able to duck and cover or if I would step in front of someone's bullet. My son wasn't there this week. But I know the answer if the bullet was coming for him. (To be fair, this is not a new thought to me. But this week it seemed more plausible).
I wonder, if this is how I processed my world of diversity - as parts, not in whole - it's no wonder the mean spirited or cruelly unstable among us are noticing and deciding who is "other" and unleashing their venom on them.
No one feels at home right now. I pray it's temporary. But it struck deep. I live in a house divided. I was wounded by my nearest and dearest, and I assume these wounds were inflicted by those who felt wounded by me; disappointed in me. Betrayed.
America needs a hero and it doesn't seem likely to be anyone elected - past or present. I think, therefore, we need to step up and be the hero. We need to form a militia of kindness.
If anything good came from this week, it's that we are really talking about that which we are passionate. Maybe we will also really start listening. Maybe we will begin to parcel out baby from bath water. I've been so thankful for acts of everyday kindness which I used to take for granted. I have no idea how these kind people voted; but their kindness has been clear and bipartisan.
I spent a lot of time with children this week. That gives me hope for the future. I spent a lot of time singing great music this week. That reminds me that we have survived the past. It grounds me in our rich heritage. Those long deceased composers lived in turbulent times, and their creations, expressions of hope that inspired their acts of love, have lived centuries beyond them.
I have had to dig deep to access the trust that above, within, and through us all is Love, Divinity, Light - God. I believe more than ever that the hurricane winds that scatter us don't endure. These are not the times that define us; they are the times that refine us. Unbreakable bonds won't be devastated by these times, but strengthened. Those bonds will reveal the gold standard for the forming of new bonds. And we will form new, stronger bonds. That's what we do. That's what Love does. #onlyloveisreal
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