What.Is.Happening?

Raw.  That’s me today. I feel like my heart is mourning, aching, fractured, and burdened.  I am burdened for my friend who posted she’s struggling this week.  I am burdened for another having to deal with a hurting child.  I am reading “Stamped from the beginning,” and it has me angry and frustrated by the untruth published for political and monetary gain in the 1400’s and 1500’s that led to slaves being justified and even presented to nations as having a life that’s better than what they had in Africa.  “They even lacked bread and wine.”  OMG.  I am so sad for the young man today who was shot in OKC for having a pipe in his hand when approached on his porch by police.  He didn’t put it down, backup was called, and while one officer tasered him, the other fatally shot him.  They were there to question his father who was involved in a hit and run accident.  The son was DEAF.  He did not know what they wanted.  He is dead.  My God, it makes me cry, and I haven’t been able to keep my tears at bay.  They pour.  They stop.  They creep up threatening to take over.  Sometimes I let them- whether for a half a minute or 20.  I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO.  

I cannot change beliefs.  I cannot change hundreds of years of racism.  I cannot make people stop calling each other names.  “Snowflake.”  “Liberal.”  “Trump Supporter.”  Placing a label on someone just puts them in a box.  Need to reference a ______,  then open the box and see _____ in there.  When done, close it and put away until later.  One person could potentially be 100 different boxes or more, but a person has decided to put them in ONE box.  I see people labeling others simply to dismiss them.  When the label is not one you own, I’m assuming it’s easier to dismiss those to which it applies.  I feel like what I read on social media is so 2 dimensional.  People cannot see others as multifaceted, complex beings.  It’s “You’re a _____” and BAM!  Door shut; don’t have to hear from you.  People are NOT listening.  People are not asking questions.  Are they afraid of change?  Whether it be themselves or their environment/world?  

I am not the same person I was when I was 18.  I am also not the same person I was a year ago.  I’m sure I could come up with ways I’ve changed in the past two months.  Change is good, right?  The more people I talk with and interact with in my life, the more I see other perspectives which can change my own.  The change doesn’t have to be drastic, but it’s there.  If not for my own beliefs or practices, new information and perspectives may change my reaction to them.

I cannot stand who I am when I’m driving.  I get frustrated with drivers being selfish.  They block traffic at a stop light because they wanted to get through their green light, but they got stuck in the middle of the intersection.  I can feel hate start to boil in my stomach.  I call them names both in my head and aloud.  I start to label them and see them as just someone who is selfish.  I don’t see anything else.  Knowing that this is not who I want to be, I get frustrated with myself, and then, I’m just a big, boiling ball of anger.  Ew.  That feeling does not dissipate quickly.  It takes A LOT of effort to make it go away compared to the 10 seconds it took to create that churning volcano of hate.  So, I get it.  I get how feeling defensive can cause someone to start name calling.  However, I want people and myself to at least TRY to not do it.  We are greater than our 7-year-old selves, and we don’t have to call people names and metaphorically run away.  

In Christianity, children are often taught the 10 commandments.  As people get older and are taught about Jesus’ teachings, they learn that he boiled 10 down to 2.  #1. Love God.  #2. Love others.  When we lie, we are not loving someone enough to give them the truth.  When we talk about others, we are not loving them.  It all boils down to LOVE.  So, name calling is not loving.  Love is pure and honest and without strings attached.  There are not degrees to which we are to love.  Just love.  All equally.  Not based on their political preferences.  Not based on skin color or sexual orientation.  Those unlike ourselves don’t get less love than those in our tribe.  I don’t think God’s really happy with us “kind of” loving someone, and wouldn’t be great if we weren’t either?  

So, I look at what’s happening in the world, and I’m overwhelmed by the hate.  Overwhelmed by “My way is right.”  Overwhelmed by “That doesn’t affect me, so it’s not important/necessary/worthy for attention.”  Confused that people are so upset by how anyone reacts to the “Star Spangled Banner” instead of why police are shooting instead of tasing or talking.  You know, I saw my friend at Costco last week.  Her husband died of cancer on my birthday this year.  (He was awesome.)  She said, “One thing cancer teaches you is that a lot of the little stuff doesn’t matter.”  It’s a comfortable place to be in mentally, I can imagine, looking at a bad grade from a child or a minor problem in your day, and seeing those things in a way that doesn’t magnify them but shrinks them.  How lovely life would be if we could do that more with each other.  Like, see the plank in your eye vs. the speck in another’s.  What if we didn’t blow ourselves up to be all knowing and all important but took a more humble approach?  Could that be the best way to change?  

I am sad.  I want the world to be better, but I feel like the chasm is growing deeper, separating more.  So, I cry.