i see
I see the overwhelming number of homeless people sleeping in all of my local libraries this winter.
I see the mother who’s of Latin heritage, her three children politely holding on to their grocery cart, with only three items at the checkout. She is the one who works harder than anyone I see for almost nothing, yet is targeted by our society as lazy.
I see young people showing up and waking their elders into participation.
I see my privileged friends trying to cross over to places where they can help people with less privilege.
I see my privileged friends who are paralyzed, some horrified of what has come up to the forefront in discussions on race, inequality and injustice in particular in the past two years.
I see how disconnected we all have been.
I see the power of seeing each other’s worlds.
I see my immigrant friends wanting to point fingers at ‘white’ people and blame everything on them.
I see other immigrant friends being a bridge and working hard to give insight, having done the work of citizenship and no longer swimming in blame.
I see my ‘white’ friends panicking and checking to see if they should have done more in the past.
I see some other ‘white’ people grieving as they think they’re ‘losing’ their country! This is deeply revealing. A people for so long thinking they are the center of the world. When they never have been, not even in America. They just have been in a small bubble.
I see so much micro ‘bad manners’ everywhere. Maybe we need miss manners in every classroom and every office!
I see so much blame.
Blame. As defined in the dictionary, it’s assigning responsibility for a fault or a wrong to another.
How easy it is to blame each other and not look at ourselves.
I see a country that loves to react and hates to look at itself.
I see all of us as the silent creators of a president that was given room to pave through our democracy and checks and balances because so many thoughtful people in his life were either afraid to speak up or thought it wasn’t any of their business. I see us creating a monster.
I saw many little future orange faced presidents in the school my children attended. As early as age 12 they were bossing their parents around or their parents wanted them to boss them around! The beginning of creating entitled children and then adults.
I see us rethinking our civic duties.
I see good, tolerance, kindness and cooperation everywhere.
I see every religious institution hijacked under a larger umbrela. I see many struggling to redefine who they are within their beloved faith. I see a huge conflict of interest between forcing one’s religious values into a democracy that holds people of many walks of life.
I see two year old girls forced to wear a scarf, described as hijab here in America, when no where in Islam is a little girl supposed to be oppressed so violently. I see this as a violent act against young women!
I see men and women of certain patriarchal societies wanting to use ancient practices in our free and democratic society and legitimizing their patriarchy by normalizing the shaming of girl’s bodies by covering it. I am not deceived as I saw this in another world thousands of miles away from here.
Ironically I see women who have all the freedom to find their voices use their bodies to sell themselves and think power is within body parts.
I see goodness, care, standards of excellence as a practice in values, not taught by any religion, rather by people who hold these values and most importantly practice it.
WHAT I DON’T SEE
I don’t see fierce moral and ethical stance in our leadership.
I don’t see enough people of faith standing up against a group that has hijacked their scriptures, their house of worship and their vlaues.
I don’t see people believing themselves when they see injustice.
I don’t see enough white women with powerful voices speaking up to all institutions, most often to the men.
I don’t see enough people of power showing up.
I don’t see enough young and older voices who are more courageous than any other group being respected.
WHAT I HOPE TO SEE
Showing up no matter how many times we neglected to show up in the past.
Less shame and more learning.
Shame sucks!! Shame was created by people who want to limit us. If you show up with an open heart, you will be valued even if you say the ‘wrong’ things. There is no right or wrong, there is learning from each other. Anyone who tries to shame you is not your friend.
I hope that people who have been oppressed show up to be teachers to people who’ve never experienced oppression. I hope they don’t blame others, rather show how wrong oppression is.
I hope we stand up against bigotry even if it’s from our parents, spouse, children or lifetime best friends. Learning to show each other our perspectives to create a kinder humanity. Most importantly the biggest work we all have is within our first and immediate circles.
I hope everyone participates in groups that stretches them beyond discomfort, the way we approach physical activity and athletics. You know that physical high we all crave, let’s practice that mental high of social learning! This means participating by ourselves in new groups, not showing up with people we know, rather by ourselves and the discomfort and thrilling aspects of meeting new people.
I hope we stand for truth, kindness, generosity for all. Knowing that no one ever has all the answers and there is no perfection. Anyone who thinks they’re perfect is a narcissist who hasn’t done any work and by definition has no humility to learn anything.
