mirage

I’d like to think we’re better than this. I’d like to think that we have finer minds and loftier purposes inhabiting ‘leadership’ positions.

I’d like to think our representation is actually representing us, the best and highest values in ‘we, the people’ – not the carefully nurtured fear caricatures taking space from better selves.

Today, as the bizarre Supreme Court wrangling plays out, it appears that there is no longer any attempt being made at even a pretense of worthy leadership or representation.

I’d like to think it’s not a mirage – the entity that all these years of my life touted freedom and democracy and justice and equality, standing for what’s right.

“With liberty and justice for all….” I learned those words as a little one, and have seen so many who put their lives on the line for that idea.

Now, these many years later, I sadly see too much. And not enough.

I am ashamed. I am ashamed because in some way I, we, must be part in the malfeasance. Maybe it’s tax dollars. Maybe it’s those places of yielding to norm and conformity. Maybe it’s a vote. Maybe it’s choosing where there are no real choices.  Whatever form it takes, I am connected even in disagreement.

I am also, I remind myself, connected to the goodness in it. Even if it is increasingly muffled, shouted down, voted over, arrested, denied, ignored, shamed – there is goodness in it. I’ll stand by that. I’ll search that out.

Because I cannot stand by the cruelty of war, of imprisoned, kidnapped children, of institutionalized racism, inequality, injustice, division, discrimination, surveillance, regulation, and suppression – all always coming back to the godless goals of money and power.

We can do better than this. There is better within us. The system strives to make us less of who and what we really are – feeling, caring, compassionate, creatively and uniquely inspired humans. Let’s be more of that.

Despite our screen-driven lives, we are meant to look into eyes, notice gestures and postures, see the feelings there and recognize them in ourselves. Let’s honor that. Let’s make that the code, the test to which we put ‘leadership’ and ourselves.

Life is a mystery, but of one thing I am sure. I was not put here to underwrite a petty agenda of hate, cruelty, divisiveness, pain, or wealth at someone else’s expense and suffering. No, the mission is love, respect, peace. And I am on it.