Louder Please

My solitary fitness walks have become not only a necessary part of my life for wellness but the past decade it has allowed me the peace and calm I find from seeing "my tree".  It majestically owns a mountain ridge, beaming its rounded crested image through every season and welcomes me with my silent prayers of peace, hope, and tears of fear. Those who know me also know of my tree as it lays witness to all who drive into our community. Some have asked since they know I talk to my tree, does it talk to you? My response is always the same..."no, it does not talk to me but it whispers to my heart"...

As the most trying times of my life in America continue to show themselves to me every single day I find I have to actually talk myself out of frustration, out of anger, out of anxiousness and into remembering who I am, how I struggled to be here and what I value; and, still I want to rage! Rage against what I see happening in this country and to its people.  

The citizens of this country, for centuries, have been left to believe that our leaders were doing a wonderful thing in taking over territories. From the American Revolution, through the Civil War, the World Wars and all the wars since, America has bloated itself to believe it could take and do what it wanted, often times in the name of protecting others. I have read that when the U.S. Military arrived at the death camps in Germany during the second world war they liberated the Polish, French, Communist and other political prisoners wearing red triangles, the Jews wearing yellow triangles, the disabled and the socially unfit wearing black triangles but not those they saw wearing the pink triangles sewn on filthy black and white striped shirts marking them as homosexuals.  American troops gave these people no assistance...there was little to no media coverage except for our trusted newspapers and local radio stations.  Americans and the world just didn't know the entire backstories of how or why, did not have access to seeing or hearing "real time" actions and did not reflect on moral consequences. What we do have are accurate written historical accounts of government decisions made based on power, greed, racism, and bigotry. This country took land from our Native American tribes, took the Polynesian peoples' homelands of Hawaii and bought the Russian territories in Alaska. America bullied its way on.  Knowing these historical facts leaves me with no reason to be shocked that our present political leadership is trying to take Greenland or Venezuela as well as insert its will into other countries in the world and in doing so to once again get more of whatever it believes is worth taking.  Their breathes a continued sense that American dominance is the Holy Grail, the Golden Dome, the top of the heap and has a rationalized reason for doing so. This bullying trait of entitlement has existed since the beginning and America's current political posture of arrogance, audacity and dominance continues.  The astronomical chip on the political shoulder of this country is demolishing our America, our republic of the people.  America continues to take whatever it wants, any way it wants with no regard and seemingly no consequences whatsoever. The foresight of our early American leaders created the constitution so that this exact thing would not happen. I have heard so many people ask "How did we get into all this"... my thoughts are that this is nothing new but what is new is that now we have elected people to Congress and to the Senate  (Republicans and Democrats) with no term limits, who have lost their personal integrity and reason as to why they wanted to help guide our American way of life. Quid pro quo seems to be the code of conduct and what we the people want is no longer the driving force behind political decisions made and actions taken. 

We are now inundated with phones, videos, immediate news and social media all of which leaves us challenged to dig for what is real, what is truth . There was a time when news and photos were pretty much believed and trusted and what came from D.C. and our local pulpits were relatively unquestioned. Human fracking is a result of the manipulation of information that is seen on our device screens. We can no longer accept what we see or hear as true. We must be curious enough, patient enough, caring enough and skilled enough to know how to chew through, dig after, check the sources and form our own beliefs based on facts. Facts, not made up versions of what is or what was. Science, based on facts is now considered by some as untruths, not real. From climate change, the dismantling of schools and universities, to immunizations, the American people are up to their necks trying to wade through facts or fiction. Is it because we do not trust our present leaders or is it that we do not trust ourselves?

My life experience tells me that once a trust is broken it never completely comes back to maturity or to a wholeness and consequently this is how we in America live today. We are a fractured nation.  It happened before when the North and the South fought each other.  Families split, blood spilled to grant freedom to an enslaved people. It took generations to acquire a degree of healing and still to this day the ghost of that Civil War appears. Today's leaders are banking on fiction and the factions cutting through America.  They want this country to be made up of those who blindly give their allegiance, to the we and to the they.  The larger the divide the more successful their campaign will be or so they believe.

We are but one speck of humanity but I have learned that we specks have power. We all enter the world through the womb and upon arrival we announce our presence with a thundering wail! We were heard and seen and in time words would be the conveyor used to express who we grew to be and what we valued. Words lay the pavement of our language and allow us to communicate, convey and express . Words are the transmitters of our characters and our deeds. Words have halted conflicts as well as birthed them. They, along with gestures, paint a fairly accurate portrait of the person speaking them and oftentimes the cloaked meanings intended by them. 

 We are sick and tired of hearing about this American mess but please do not let it stop you from thinking about what you can do about it. In order for this to stop, to change, it will take each and every one of us to do our part... to write to your representatives in the House and the Senate; speak your truth to your circle of family/friends; quell the hate heard in your workplace and any and all places where people gather. It is time to let people know where you stand. Our voices have power...Louder please.