"Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see." –Mark Twain
Dear Friend,
I know this election has done something strange to the emotional atmosphere of our country and the world. I feel it too. I feel like we're more divided than we've been in a very long time. Longer than you or I have even been alive to see. People are jumping on one side of the fence or the other, we're even pushing people to one side or another if they refuse to choose. It's not fair and it's certainly not doing anything to help settle this tension that we all feel.
Maybe we voted for the same person, maybe we didn't. Maybe you've been celebrating or maybe you're in mourning. When it comes down to it though, I don't care which side of the fence you are on as long as you are there with a passion to make the world better. I hear you when you say that you voted for someone who promised to bring jobs back to our country because the factory that laid you off moved to Mexico. I hear you when you say that you are afraid that you will no longer have health care. I know you're afraid that your guns will be taken from you, leaving you vulnerable and unable to protect your home and family the best way you know how. Not everyone who owns a gun plans to use it to intentionally harm or control another human being. I know you're afraid that your rights over your own body will be taken from you, I know that doesn't make you a baby killer, it makes you a human, a human who wants to control the one thing we are able to control and that's our bodies. I am right there with you, I tell my kids that they are the only person who is in charge of their own body, that they have the right to say yes or no to anything that has to do with their own body. Stop already with the "baby killer" labels. I know women who have chosen to have abortions but I don't know anyone who has wanted to murder a baby. The only body that you can control is your own. Stop trying to control everyone else. You'll be much happier and less stressed when you let go of that. I know it's easier said than done, I'm practicing this too. You don't have to agree with every one's choices but everyone should have a right to choose how they live their life.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have all the answers. I don't even have some of the answers. I'm just as confused and afraid as you. I don't like change. I don't like not being in control or knowing what is going to happen next. I hate feeling helpless. What I do know is that hate isn't the answer. Holding other people back from living happy and healthy lives is not the answer. Trying to control other people is not the answer. Kindness is the answer. Compassion, understanding, love, peacefully protests to feel seen and heard, debating issues that you are passionate about as long as you're open to listening to the other side and learning as much as you teach. I am a parent, I've had to learn that no matter what you think, you are never in control of another human being. I know that leading by example can work. No one is perfect, no one. I don't expect perfection and I hope you love me even though I am so freaking flawed. I'm trying though. Trying to be the best me that I can be. Trying to keep an open mind and heart.
I need your help, and because we're friends I know that you will want to help me. Let's stop throwing the people we know into categories. Help me remember that people are complicated and diverse and no one person will ever fit into one single category. Help me remember that we live in a free country where everyone is entitled to their own opinions and beliefs and how beautiful that is. Remind me that just because your cousin's wife's friend is a basket weaving, X voting, nature loving, bug hating, occasional religious interpretive dancer who worships koala bears, that they are just like me, a flawed human who's trying their best to make it through this crazy life. If I start to judge a book by its cover remind me to either put it back on the shelf and forget about it or pull it out and read it because we live in a free world and I can choose which books I want to read and which ones I don't. Please tell me I'm being judgmental and insensitive if I start to criticize some one's choices and beliefs. Tell me I am wrong to worry about what everyone else is doing and that I need to focus more on what I am doing. Put me in my place if I start trying to push my own beliefs on someone else. And for the love of the USA please do not let me bully someone for looking different, dressing different, speaking different, believing something I don't and eating more or less cake than me. But if you have cake, you better share because I will be mad at you if you don't.
Just like you, I've reached a place in my life where I'm tired of conflict that doesn't bring a positive change. I'm exhausted by all the cruel words and accusations people are throwing around. I've also reached a place where I can't tolerate people who can't try to see the positive side of things, people who bully and hurt other people because they are hurting. I'm tired of hate and judgment. One of my heroes, Anne Lamott, has said "Sometimes this human stuff is slimy and pathetic.... but better to feel it and talk about it and walk through it than to spend a lifetime being silently poisoned." Talk to me about it, I love a good story. Let's walk through this together instead of on opposite sides of the street. Let's talk more about the books we are reading and the tv shows we are binge watching and less about religion and politics.
No comments:
Post a Comment