More than likely, you, my dear reader, found me, my writing, and this blog, through my Facebook profile. (Praise be, I doth do declare!) As some of you may have noticed, I wield a dramatic flair for utilizing my status updates as a means to extoll my hard-earned philosophic meanderings as well as my nascent political hankerings. The damn thing is like an American Idol microphone in my hands, as I belt out the bluesy news of the day or my unrequitted longing for a just future.
Last week, my physical being was assaulted by the sickening jargon of Bill O'Reilly as his hate-speak poured from the television in another room and into my vulnerable body. I closed the door in an attempt to protect my withering self. Nonetheless, I was dismayed and disappointed to note that the divisive fear of yesteryear was once again upon us, the American public. The following day, I tuned in to my Facebook Homepage to discover that my like-mided peers had been posting links of photographs of uneducated U.S. citizens holding up badly misspelled placards that simply perpetuated the propaganda of the day. (Something about Healthcare and Socialism.)
I was excited to report upon an ironic synchronicity that I discovered in a Tarot book. As an artist, a large part of what I do is pay attention to story - the stories that have been told for milennia (such as astronomy, religion, & etc) and those that continue to be told today (of both woman and Earth as object, for example). A boyfriend from my middle school days responded to my posting with an erratic missive. It was as though those third-person postings that my peers had been virtually plugging into leaped into my real world, with full force. How should I respond? How could I respond? Initially, my defenses flared and I wanted to bite back with poisonous venom. Instead, however, I breathed in, and chose my words carefully (for they are, after all, a tool and they can be a weapon).
A few days after this encounter, I noticed that it was this same man's birthday. I chose to wish him another happy trip around the sun. He responded by writing that he had never thought of life in this way before. "Keep wonderin', my man. Keep wonderin'," was all I could encourage.
Here is to more honest American discourse. May we passionately debate our beliefs while respectfully agreeing to disagree. May we not fling mud, sticks or stones - especially when the privilege of education has only been granted to some. May we quit with the guns, bombs, and wars and choose to meet in the middle - with an open heart, a soft hand, and a warm touch.
