I wish to scream out loud now.........................scream at injustice and the people who perpetuate it...scream at the seemingly inpenetrable minds of people who continue to cling to the status quo, as though it really works....
The health care bill..................Why are so many people afraid? and what are they afraid of? How can any one of us NOT want equality of health care for all of our citizens? (and that is still not going to happen)........I just do NOT get it. I cannot wrap my head around it. and I guess, in some way, I want some non rude person, someone who is not so terrified that they feel they have to terrorize me to explain to me how you get there from here.....
Social injustice. This is nothing new.....The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and speaking as an intelligent but poor woman, it is maddening. I wonder, and wonder often, how some people with such a seemingly small mind have managed to climb their way (no doubt on the backs of the oppressed) to such privelege.....or so , it seems. As though they are better than others, more important than others, and that others somehow deserve less.
Let me say one thing: No one deserves one thing better than another....NOT ONE PERSON is better than another.
I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe He is the model that we should follow...We should live as He lived, we should love as He loved.....Last night I heard on the news of people (conservative Republicans) who were phoning in death threats to elected officials, cutting gas lines, using coarse and vulgar language, and even referring to our president as a "n_ _ _ _ _" (I cannot even write it, it is so disturbing. And what do they hope to achieve? What kind of image does this send to anyone?
When I hear of these things, I want to run in the opposite direction....I am guessing that these conservatives want all of us to come around to their opinions, but my God, do they really believe that this sort of behavior is going to win them the approval and admiration of the masses?
I want justice. I want my children and my childrens' children, and their children after them to live in a world where ALL citizens are valued and cared for. I never want another child to go without proper dental care, another expectant mother to do without prenatal care....I want our aged citizens to feel love, valued, and revered, and I never want one more old man or woman to have to choose between their medicine and their meals.
I want an entire generation of people in this country to stand for and believe in equality. Some of us sing well, some of us draw well,...................there are those of us who dig ditches best, and those of us who design houses. People who teach children, and people who write computer code. Is it wrong to want to live in a land where all of these people, and all of their talents are recognized as necessary and valuable?
So maybe our jobs are different, some require more skill, some more education......but our souls? our spirits? Aren't they all worth the same, and shouldn't we all be guaranteed that we have quality of life and quality of health care?
I am afraid. I am afraid to speak my mind in a nation of people who think it is alright to yell obscenities at the president, to hurl insults at others simply because their viewpoint is different from your own. I want to understand your world,.....just as I want you to understand mine....
This goes deeper than health care,...........at least for me......this is about human beings loving each other, respecting each other, and caring for each other. We go through our lives with our hands out, our backs turned and our haughty noses in the air. Where did we learn that this was the way of success? where did we learn that by being apart from others we were better than others? Why do we feel we have to claim our value by devaluing others?
Nope. "You can call me a dreamer...................but I'm not the only one....I hope one day you'll join me, and the world will live as one...."
I make mistakes, too. My husband tells me that I can be critical, judge too easily,......he tells me that I am too partisan...maybe I am....or maybe,........................maybe I am just tired.
Tired of using someone else's yardstick to measure my own success in life......tired of teaching my children kindness and patience and tolerance, when people can be so intolerant of them..and of me, and,...................yes, intolerant of you. I am tired of working hard and getting nowhere, and still people say, "Why should I work hard to pay for someone else's healthcare when they won't get off their butts and go to work themselves?" I work hard and pay for my own healthcare and am STILL WILLING to help pay for the healthcare of others.......because it is that important.
A short story. Once there was a girl who was bright, ..........very bright, in fact....She loved to draw and to write. She had big ideas, and big dreams. She planned for a brilliant career, and she had the choice of several colleges. The girl met a boy, a bright one......one who thought outside the box, who could turn words into pictures and dreams into reality. The girl fell in love and chose to build a family with the boy. They would love each other, love their children, and by doing so spread love in the world. They worked hard, this boy and this girl, but after a time, they felt overwhelmed.....they were young and inexperienced.....they didn't have the tools for the job.
The years passed....they made tough choices. Caring for their family came before caring for themselves......groceries and electricity and medical care were in short supply, while judgement and criticism was plentiful. After a time the boy and the girl grew apart. The "doing without" came between them, and they went their separate ways. The judgement of society and of each other increased until the only thing left was bitterness and hurt.
One day,the young girl swooped down to pick up her rowdy toddler and kiss him, and he came running exuberantly toward her. He threw himself into her waiting arms and his hard toddler head came crashing into her face. There was a pop and a crack, and when the young mother looked down, her two front teeth were lying before her on the floor.
She gathered them up, and put them in a baggie.....Silent tears fell down her cheeks as the shame surrounded her.
In a few weeks, she saved enough money for the dentist. He just looked at her sadly, and shook his head. It seemed her teeth were hollow, from the inside out....The three babies....three pregnancies, three nursed children had taken their toll on the girl.....and the poverty had taken the worse toll. The dentist told her that the calcium had been robbed from her body for the babies and that a healthy diet would have protected her.
The girl left the dentist, disappointed but determined.......this would not happen again, not to her, not to her children.
The girl got a job.....She worked and she worked. People around her talked around her, over her, and occasionally, even TO her, though usually loudly and slowly, as though she were dull-witted or deaf. Sometimes, they talked about her, as though she were not even there. She was pitied and patronized and once a man even asked her if she was available to come to his home and clean windows. Mostly she was invisible. Overlooked as disposable, without worth or value.....
You see, once we are judged as the poor and the downtrodden, we cease to exist as people of integrity, people with something to offer....people of intelligence and of heart. People with hopes and dreams and aspirations....We become what the achievers believe to be the "lazy indolent lower class who doesn't work and feels entitled for us to support them" No matter that the girl worked, and worked hard. No matter that the girl had done without food and health care......No matter that the girl never had food stamps, public assistance. She was marked.
It took many years for the girl to climb out. She endured the shame of the dentist blaming her for her poor nutrition and the loss of her teeth. She endured the haughty stares of the stay at home moms when she dropped her children off at school while she went off to earn their living....She endured countless acts of thoughtlessness, and even downright rudeness because she was a single mother of meager means....She endured, and she survived....
And she promised herself she would never allow herself to be small and mean spirited to those around her in need. She would never presume to make assumptions about the level of intelligence anyone had, especially those around her working the thankless jobs. and she would ALWAYS do everything in her power for the support of basic human rights for the under-served in her community and in her world.
That girl was me.
So when you ask me how I can vote so liberally for healthcare, so conservatively for war and violence, how I can stand up and fight back so hard for women's rights and expensive nutrition programs for women and children......how I can support more tax dollars for education funding and higher education, you know the answer.
I lived in that world, I suffered the indignity and the shame, and the cold ugly stares,.........and for what? Poor judgement perhaps.....I was too young to get married, too young to play house. But I had all the right intentions, and I worked hard...........I raised (and continue to raise ) 6 kind and honest children with superb intelligence who contribute to the community around them. So now, I have arrived........back from the shadows of poverty. Am I any smarter, any funnier, any different than I was then?.....Is my worth any different?
When you see me I am worth a lot. I am a wife, a mother, and an artist. I teach, and I learn and I show kindness to the world around me, but I am the same invisible girl.....and oh yes, I do have teeth now.....but it's my guess that the teeth have nothing to do with me or my worth as a person, just in the average person's ability to see it..
So, as I see it,
I traveled the road to get here, and until you make the trip, don't judge the people who pave the road.........
