There is nothing more foolish than continuing to try to change the mind of a fool or the heart of a hater. Better to go ahead and change the world and let all benefit from it. The fools and haters will never thank you for it, but you won’t need their thanks. Heroes don’t need the praise of fools any more than the Sun needs the earth in order to shine its light. World-changers don’t need the haters to love them, any more than the weeds and stones need to love the Sun in order for it to warm them. As the Good Ones say, “The Sun shines on the good and the evil”. The Light illuminates The Path for those who will walk it and for those who will stand on the sidelines and look for any excuse to sit in the dark. Just as the Sun does, we must let the light of truth and the warmth of love touch all, even those who will continue to prefer darkness and coldness.
Let your light shine and let your love warm. Do not fight or worry about those who refuse to step into the light or embrace the warmth. World-changers don’t waste time trying to get fools and haters to believe that the world doesn’t revolve around them, any more than the Sun needs to convince us that She doesn’t revolve around the Earth. Each day, the Sun shines, whether a person believes in it or not.
The Sun will shine because it is created to shine. You are created to shine.
The Sun will warm because it is created to warm. You are created to warm.
And the Earth will continue to exist to revolve around the Light and Love of the Sun as long as there are Good people willing to keep their lamps full of the sacred oil of love and their lights burning bright, conspicuous and bold with the power of truth.
Be a Sun in the world today. Be the unsung, un-thanked Hero of this moment in the sun.
Be the light and even the fools will feel your power.
Be the warmth and you will find that even the haters will feel less cold.
Be the Light and do not let darkness delay you in your quest for a better world. And when you leave the fools and haters behind, you will find that there are many more heroes in our world than you ever dreamed there could be.
And the unsung heroes are the ones that will one day, receive the only thanks that truly matter in a better world where all will live in The Light of the Sun; the heroes of today will receive the thanks of the children of tomorrow.
Be of good cheer; have hope even in the darkness; shine your light; find joy in your journey; and rise to your very own task of being a light on The Way and a hero to others today – Jane (P.S. And remember that all real superheroes wear masks. 🙂 )
Now and then, I can embrace the coming full circle of this season of life. With the coming of the pandemic, there is not even any possibility of even trying to wage a battle against it. My lifetime of early mornings is no longer spent on long runs in the dark before the sun rises and hustling around getting ready for work, but on contemplation and learning and just “being here”. That is sometimes a little frightening — to accept the importance of those things without “guilt” at not doing, but rather acceptance that sometimes just being is enough and sometimes it is all. At other times it is revelatory and just so very, very “Good”, that I feel I finally understand the words: “And G-d said that it was good. And it was good.” It is one of the truly good and restorative things happening against my will but also changing my will to something else perhaps, as I sit with books and birds (and coffee of course). This morning, a special guest arrived for the free breakfast. And it was good.
I have an acquaintance who is all worked-up about America becoming Communist. I just don’t have enough hair left on my head to keep pulling it out trying to explain things to some people, but remaining silent is also not always an option for me, at least at a first go. I do not engage in fruitless argument, but neither will I engage in the mock-niceness of not saying anything. Not saying something to people is not only not nice, it is unkind. If people want to go out and play in the traffic, I at least have the responsibility as someone who has learned that playing in traffic is not only wrong-headed but dangerous to try to convince them they aren’t seeing things the right way. I have to at least try to be ethical and to warn them and tell them: “Hey, you know you don’t have to play in the traffic, you can play right here in my safe backyard with me. C’mon in”. I can’t force them to change their minds, but I also can not be silent while they play a game of chicken with speeding semitrucks. And no this is not about things that are truly open to one’s own opinion. For more on that you can see my post of July 6, 2020 (janetawel.com/2020/07/06/unapologetically-thoughtful-woman-seeks-thinking-humans/)
So, back to the person who lives in fear that the people who are protesting throughout America today are “commies”, and that all of the people who want real change in this country are “socialists” (a term some people erroneously associate with synonyms for “thieves” or God help us, with that frightening term “French People”) (and let’s just pause here for a moment of silence to let this settle in: this man and others are upset only about the Black Lives Matter protests – about the way Black People protest or the way we are protesting as white people for the long disenfranchised people in America. In the name of Saint Colin Kaepernick, isn’t it as clear as Black and White by now folks what the real issues are?!?!) This person and tragically too many like him actually believe that the federal government of America is right to send camouflaged troops into cities to protect property rather than allowing local governments to decide how to protect peacefully lawfully protesting people. I mean, can we get this straight – some people are still more upset about property destruction as a bad side effect of good people protesting long after they have forgotten what the protests are about – people!)
And when my friend brings up the cold, cold-war corpse of Communism as a specter, he is right (but oh so wrong because he doesn’t see it)– right in that it is always the abuse of power by those who lead that corrupt a system of government and thereby decay the moral integrity of the very foundations of a nation. This is absolutely true today, if we look only at nations and governments in which the philosophy of communism fell to the greed and power-mongering of the entitled, and this is true no matter what they may claim their governing philosophy is today. Of course, as Orwell predicted, our founding philosophy of American Democracy and the ideology of a “republic for all” has fallen just as low, if not lower than that of the original intent of Marx’ and Engel’s ideology. This is what we should be looking at – not where we might be headed as we change, but where we have sunk as we have changed.
And can we just actually look around at our nation with open eyes and ask, “is this really what we want to believe in?”. It may be what we “want” since we can be as self-centered and greedy as the next person, but is it what we want to believe in? Are we willing to follow along with the folks that have drunk the kool-aide and let ourselves think that a little more “communal-ism” would even be the worst thing that could happen to our self-centered nation?
(I refer you to a commercial break here so you can listen to that great prophet, Bob Dylan and one of his many protest songs: “Gotta Serve Somebody” https://youtu.be/wC10VWDTzmU )
People who think this way about what they fear happening in America don’t understand either America’s true system of current leadership which I would describe as “Oligarchical Unethical-Uber-Capitalism”; nor do they understand very much about the theory of Communism as a governing ideal rather than the way Communism has come to be used by history’s dictators and shysters.
So when this acquaintance of mine, who happens to claim Christianity as his religion, posted a scary meme about America becoming Communist, I responded thusly. (For those of you that don’t know much about Christianity, the cult of Jesus Christ was originally the most philosophically “Communist” religion since Abraham gave Lot the first choice in land ownership. It still has elements of the ideals of communism that can be found in many communities that practice Christianity including nuns, monks, the Amish, and the Bruderhoff communities.)
I told my friend, that in fact he was right – America’s Federal Government is behaving like a Cold-War-ish Communist regime, in a frightening way, perhaps not seen on a federal level since the civil rights movements of the 1960’s or the student riots which caused Neil Young to pen the words to the song “Ohio” in 1970 (https://youtu.be/xy7FgTKPaMc) . Change a few words and names in Young’s song, and we horrifically, sadly seem to be right back in those days of the American Federal Government abusing its power against its own peacefully protesting citizens. So, to my friend’s fallacious argument meme, this is what I said:
Why yes, my friend — the fact that you see freedom of speech as vandalism is exactly the point of propaganda such as regimes like Communism and Fascism have used in the past. Or Nixon’s “bums” at Kent State. Or Hitler’s Jewish enemies of the state that led to the Holocaust. It is called propaganda for a reason and the reason is to persuade people that lies are truth and truth is a lie and to create an alter-enemy narrative so that the people in charge can divert your attention away from the problems they are supposed to help solve. Read your Orwell. Read your history. Read news accounts of what is actually happening — your government employees lining their pockets by abusing their power (golf tournament in Scotland anyone? So worthy of a petty, greedy strongman like a Stalin or a Putin.) Your federal government acting against its own citizens let alone against immigrants and sojourners. Things allowed to happen because someone was “elected”, even though it is unconstitutional, breaking the laws and the rule of law of the Constitution, tear gassing innocent people, not “vandals”. Oh, you are quite correct — that is all something that communist countries do (see China vs. Hong Kong) or dictators (see history of Tienanmen Square, Arab Spring, just for a few in our lifetimes). Caring more about their economy numbers than the health of their citizens is indeed so worthy of a communist dictator — you could not be more right on this, if you are pointing the finger at our current federal government. And please, if those points of true history or current events don’t convince you, read the Bible for it’s great and God-origin calls to justice and sharing and equality and freedom and love — and then just picture Jesus (who was frankly nothing at all like an American capitalist) — imagine the Guy who people want to claim as their Savior, turning over the tables of the politically sponsored religious money making businesses, while he was being teargassed and hit with rubber bullets by Caesar’s camouflaged men while the religious leaders washed their dirty hands of it rather than washing the protesters’ and sinners’ dirty feet.
For me, a person who has long tried to figure out what that figure of Jesus Christ is supposed to mean to my very own life, has there ever been a better time in my own country – in my own community – in my own family – in my own soul– to serve and love others as He did? Do I, as Jesus did, fear G-d enough to stop fearing Caesar? As Martin Luther King and John Lewis did?
And even if you don’t believe in any god at all – is your life not worth more than letting your fears define you? Don’t you want to be defined by what you believe IN, not what you fear is OUT there?
So, I told this friend of mine, and I say it to us all:
Be careful what you are allowing yourself to fear because it will end up being what you are left to serve.
Honestly, I have never liked talking about politics. I don’t have a desire to spend my remaining time on earth to write about them or even think about all this stuff. After learning and thinking about all the issues currently swirling around in America today, I feel like I have just willingly put myself in the eye of a storm much too big for little ole’ me and I am watching the pressing needs and problems swirl around like a million Amazon packages in a Wicked Witch’s Tornado.
But I must. If I am forced to run into the oncoming traffic only because it might save somebody else, then run into the speeding cars I must. It is my time. It is The Time. As that great sage and prophet, J.R.R. Tolkien said in The Fellowship of the Ring: We must decide what we are called to do with the time we are given.
I am going to sound a bit too personal and probably a bit too irritable in this post, but I figured that someone out there in my audience-land may need to hear this today.
I am an unapologetically thinking, thought-full, thought-provoking woman. I am both an energetic teacher and a seeking life-learner. I am overly empathetic and feistily philosophical and I have a strong worldview that tries hard – really hard — to be ethical and moral, but also flexible and open-minded. I try to not close my mind by the continual process of opening my heart. I am equally passionate and limited, hard-working and lazy, and the yin and yang of that kind of energy keeps me humbled. I believe in the greatness of the human spirit, the fallenness and brokenness of each of us and our institutions, and that there is Someone, Something, that IS but Is Not Us, that moves throughout the cosmos with justice, wisdom, creativity, goodness and most of all, love.
And here is my getting irritable part of all this: I will do my very best, no matter when, what or to whom, to sincerely apologize when I am wrong. BUT I am sick to the point of anger and distraction of being asked to apologize for how it makes “you feel” when I am right.
There are some things that are not open to opinion. There are some things that are black or white, right or wrong. People really can be either thoughtful and intelligent and wise or unthinking, stupid, and foolish. As a matter of fact, we all are sometimes one or the other of these things, and to insist that we are never stupid or foolish or are never just plain, downright wrong, has opened the Pandora’s Box of Evils currently assailing the modern world. There is good. And there is evil. And there is just plain messing up, making mistakes, or being misguided or selfish. When I am any of those things, I, just like you do, try to hide behind denial, justification, falsehoods, or anger. But I also try to want to change that knee-jerk response, and realize sooner rather than later when I have been wrong or wronging and to course-correct when possible.
What I don’t want to change however, is thinking that it is somehow “ethical” to be “nice” to people who are wrong. I am not speaking here of being kind to all and loving our enemies – that is something completely different both philosophically and spiritually. I am talking about dialing back truth and allowing people to go on thinking they are “entitled to their opinions” when those opinions have ethical consequences both for them and for the world. And why, yes, there ARE times I am quite sure that I am right because the opposing idea is showing its ugly underbelly or the fungus of fallacious thinking and irrational arguments that grow out of someone’s defenses of the wrong side of something.
This is what having a valid, working worldview means. It means I have tools with which to examine ideas and actions – my own, and yes, others’. And if I am trying to have a growing, moral, ethical worldview, and not a completely self-centered, stagnant, directionless worldview, then – why yes, I will confidently say, “this is not an opinion, this is the right way to think / act / live”. In other words, there are times we need to say: “Let’s look at the current hypothesis and then apply our worldviews and see if the theory can stand up to the standard of Truth.”
So even if we do not have all the facts about something, we can still apply an ethical, right vs. wrong, good vs. evil worldview microscope / magnifying glass / telescope to what we can currently observe, know, and act upon.
So while I will always try to use my empathetic nature to understand anyone’s point of view, I won’t excuse it as a valid “opinion” if it is wrong. I am not able to kill the engine on my critical thinking skills nor will I accept as opinion, those things which grow out of falsehoods or broken, or sometimes hateful hearts. And if I am wrong, I will be, if not always the first, at least at the head of the line to own up to it.
I don’t want a world where everyone is like me – God forbid. I wish everyone would care about the things I am writing about here, but that is not the real intent of these thoughts on myself. I tell you some things about what I am like, to try to explain the following analysis of this post’s philosophical musings:
It matters to me– Who I Am, Who I Am Becoming, and (with a whole lot of help and faith and humility) Who I Can Be. I do not want to be content with the way things are, either for me or for the world. To riff on one of my favorite quotes by Tolkien, “I hate the times I have conflicts with people and the bad stuff that seems to be happening in my world today, but all we have to decide is what to do with the time and the character qualities that are given to us.”
I may be nothing in the scale of human achievement and I may be only a small bit of dust in a vast Eternal Cosmos, but all that matters to me right now, in this moment, is to believe that in some inexplicable way: I matter. And if I matter? Then You Matter.
Somehow, our very matter miraculously matters.
Who We Are + What We Do = Our True Purpose in Life
What I Do with Who I Am is what is called “Ethics”. Who I Try to Be, with Whatever is Done To or For Me, is called Courage. And when Who I Am and What I Do has both ethical intent and courageous truth-telling action, then I am that Imago Dei, that very singularly spiritually-distilled essence that I am created to be – the very only, unique version of a glorious, flawed, amazing human being that is heroically ….. Me.
A friend recently and kindly responded to a post of mine with this comment: “I agree with everything you said, except the part where you say ‘I’m sorry for writing this’ because I don’t think, Jane, that you are sorry. And you shouldn’t be sorry”. And she was right. And I was wrong. I am not sorry for when I am right and I will not apologize any more for the things I do and say that might make someone realize he or she is wrong. And the many times I am wrong, I will do my best to make it right. But, no I am not going to apologize any more for when I am in the right, even if someone doesn’t like it. Even if someone doesn’t like me. Because there is always a slight chance that someone will learn something they need to know, and that together, we can learn how to make the world a better, truer more right-eous place for everyone.
But no matter what, True Truth has a way of flinging itself upon the moorings of the world and shoring up all that is right with Her, despite us, and thankfully, sometimes, because of us.
While we, of course, may indeed have differing opinions on a host of things, when we begin to think everything is open to opinion, we lose the very strength and security of the foundations we need so desperately to stand on and the reality we need to exist in as sentient beings. Someone may knock me down with hurtful words or by taking a little angry stance on what they see as their “opinion”, but though I may be hurt or irritated or aghast, it is not about me. There is a reality to our existence that is true and good whether we are aware of it or not. It thankfully matters not if I am right, for being right does not make me who I am. But it matters a whole, whole lot if I can never admit I am wrong, because knowing I am wrong is the only thing that can change what I do and being able to change what I think and what I do is what makes me more than a mere animal. It makes me a human soul. We who believe that there is Some Thing, Some One more in the world that puts in all of us a desire for a better, more whole existence can hang on to this assurance: Right will always Rise to the Top. As Maya Angelou, preaches in a poem, that is about black women, but which I’d like to think can be about any Righteous Cause or True Truth:
“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.”
Unapologetically flawed but often entertaining, Thoughtful Woman—Seeks Those Who Want to RISE TOGETHER! Pet-opinions allowed only in open spaces. Willingness to admit being wrong is a must. Must also be willing to insist on being right. Desire others who are seeking-out truth and have a worldview open to learning and change. Hopefulness, not necessary, will be provided when together. Any race, age, gender, or social strata welcome. Contact if you are like me and looking for a “Good” Time.
(Fearless Girl????)
P.S. I liked so much some additional thoughts that I posted in a comment to my fellow blogger, lensdailydiary, that I wanted to add them as a postscript here.
lensdailydiary: Thank you so much for reading and the insightful comment — a lot to unpack in your comment but where I’d like to respond or “leave it” at least just for today is: you are exactly right about our need to evolve. And what you indicate both by your own musings and your example is that in many arenas there is an overlap or perhaps, I should say, a shifting understanding between what is an opinion and what is a more eternal or firm standard or “code” as you say that should be lived by.
My own example would be something more like telling lies. While we may have differing opinions about why or when a person might “shade” the truth (maybe to protect someone or they are afraid or they don’t stop to think about the consequences until it is too late, etc. etc.) when there is a consistent pattern of using falsehoods to manipulate people or lying in order to trick or “best” someone, or lying because one is greedy or selfish, then there should be no “opinion” about whether an accountability in the relationship and the ethical reverberations must be addressed. If the person who has lied is unwilling to admit they are wrong, that is, and unwilling to try to course-correct from the consequences of the misdeeds in the relationship. This would be true whether it is between two spouses, child and parent, or leader and citizens, etc. etc. When we constantly justify our behaviors with the excuse that it is only a matter of differing opinions, or worse yet, we blame what we think on a fallacy meant to put down the other person’s character, that is where we end up on the slippery slope of having no ethical standards to see a relationship / community / nation through the good and the bad.
Your other thoughtful idea here, is that whether some particular idea or point of view should be spoken of as right and wrong and not merely opinion has a lot to do with the relationship between people. Again, the onus of speaking truth to one’s own “people”, whether national or communal or familial, is different than that of speaking truth to those whose “shoes we do not walk in”. For example — for me personally to say something is wrong for people I am close to and am willing to support both financially, emotionally, spiritually, in other words give to them what they need to actually be ethical in a tough situation, or to those who claim to share a particular worldview with me, is a critically important and necessary thing, and we dishonor both those people and whatever grouped worldview we share when we do not speak true truth to the problems. But if I am trying to speak to people who live very differently than I do, then it may become an “opinion only” for me to address anything but the most fundamental issues of human morality.
I think what I like best about your comment, is that my own musings are not meant to make this whole thing seem easy (it certainly never has been for me) — and we should not always take the easy way out to avoid conflict by remaining silent or seeing everything as an opinion — your comment adds to this in a very perceptive way — as you always do! Thanks so much for “answering my ad” (haha) and being one of those thoughtful, thinking people I am privileged to try to figure this whole thing out with.
Wishing you courage and joy in the journey ~~ Jane
Fellow WordPress folks: Make sure you check out the blog posts on https://lensdiary.blog You will be glad you did!
Awkward Questions We Must Ask During This Pandemic —
Even if It Means Losing a Friend
By Jane Tawel
July 1, 2020
When I first became a mom and had my four wonderful children, now all grown and adulting, I loved being with them, caring for them, watching over them like a mother hen. And so most playdates included me. I was always a bit cautious about dropping my children off with other people, even if I knew them, was good friends with the parents, or possibly even was related to them. It wasn’t exactly that I didn’t trust them but….. I didn’t trust them. I mean I didn’t trust anyone but their loving dad, to truly love and watch-over and protect and care about my kids as much as I would. I never minded other parents dropping their kids at my house and was always a hawk on the sidelines trying to ensure safety to all the children, even the ones who were not mine. If I had to leave the swimming pool as a lifeguard, ALL the kids had to get out of the water (“But Mom we’re teenagers now”. “Too bad, out.”) The one time my kids were in a hot tub at a friend’s house, and I asked her to watch my kids while I went to breast-feed the baby, my daughter almost drowned right in front of my friend. Luckily her sister was there to save her. So, call me overprotective, call me a worry-wart, call me a helicopter mom — all true — if it was about safety and protection. I didn’t try to protect my kids from risk or failure, or learning or fighting their own relational battles — but physical safety — heck yeah! I believed that as long as I could, I would do my very, very best to protect them. Now, since they are young adults, the most I can do is caution and pray (and they will confirm I do plenty of both — still my job).
But then all the kids started getting old enough to want sleep-overs. It would have been rather weird for them if I had insisted that if they wanted to sleep over at a friend’s house, their mom — I — would have to sleep-over too. And of course, I didn’t do that. But I did often have to say no to sleep overs, especially if I didn’t know the family or other kids or parents that well. But even if I did know them fairly well, I would always have to ask this very awkward question: “Do you have guns in the house and if so, where and how to you store them?”
Asking someone if they keep guns at home is a bit like asking someone on a first date if that’s a pimple or a cold sore on their lip. Awkward! However, this thing about guns in this country is something people think very, very differently about, and so when you ask a very reasonable question, it feels intrusive because people see it as political. For me it had nothing to do with my view of guns or my view of my friends — it had to do with, “will my child be as safe as possible at your home, and do you consider this an important safety issue like I do?” This was something I had learned to ask as a careful, discerning parent, and yes, some people got offended, and yes, some people might have lied, and yes, some relationships fell apart even, but at the same time, asking might have made not only my kids safer but made those families safer too, if they found out they or their own friends were not treating gun ownership and storage with the seriousness it should be. I knew without a doubt, that even if it was an awkward conversation, I would rather my children and I be “safe and not sorry”. You see, my children’s lives are the most precious gifts I have ever, ever received and I wanted to treat them as such. I would never get another one of J, C, V, or G — my unique and oh, so special four children — and so I didn’t mind being considered a bit overprotective, even if it cost us a “fun time”; even if it cost us a friend.
Fast forward to 2020, and some of us who would rather be “safe than sorry” have got to start being “the careful parent” of our own lives and the lives of others. As Corona Virus continues to rampage through our nation, we may not be able to control other people’s foolishness or lack of care about their own or our safety — but we CAN control their access to us, do our best to not be unaware of or ignorant of their behaviors both in our presence and apart from us, and speak out when necessary. We do have the right, awkward as it may feel, and the responsibility to protect ourselves and our children, and our children’s children. We must truly take seriously any possible threat to our well-being, even if “those people” do not. But just like guns, some people see the safety precautions and their rights to do whatever they want with the weapons of this virus as a political issue. Don’t let them do that to you. It is not — any more than gun safety is a political issue. It is a life-issue and a safety-issue and an issue about how much we care about each other. And so it feels intrusive and awkward to bring the subject up, but if we start caring more about our health and safety and the health and safety of others, more than we care about our feelings or egos or politics, then we will make having these awkward conversations just one more part of the new normal. We will make asking the right questions of others a matter of caring about them, and we will willingly share with others what they need to know before they decide to meet with us. We will be honest, even with our most casual acquaintances and we will be truthful with ourselves when we ask, “is this event worth my giving up something in the future with people I love?” And dear, dear folks — we need to start having these conversations before we get together with other people.
And sometimes the hardest conversations are with the very people who are your best friends and your beloved family. Having to ask your parent or child, “by the way, before you come over, what have you done this week, how safe were your co-workers this week, and are you still wearing a mask and washing your hands like a surgeon”? Last week, when we were lulled into a sense of security (false as it turns out this week) that maybe we could have another couple over for a socially distanced, outdoors, bring your own food and utensils, keep it distanced and keep it short little get-together at our house, we made all the arrangements until I mentioned the time. Then my friend (who is 70 years old and has been quite careful about following all the protocols during the pandemic / quarantine) asked if we could make it later in the day since the day before we were to meet, they would be hosting a party for a friend’s son who was graduating high school and she would be hosting 30 -40 other people. Yep. True story. I was rather flabbergasted and yes, blindsided. So my hubby and I discussed it and I texted her a very kind, sweet text asking if we could delay the get-together and she was very kind and texted back, ‘of course we could’. But here’s the scary part — if she hadn’t mentioned it in passing, I would never have known how many other households I would be exposed to through her the very next day. I never would have known if she hadn’t let it slip that her “gun was loaded in an unlocked drawer” so to speak.
So here is the gist, the bottom line, the stern warning, the upshot, the please, please, please let’s all commit to doing this. We absolutely must start quizzing people about where they have been and with whom and for how long and what protections they used when they did it — BEFORE we get together with them. Remember that old adage that every one your mate has had sex with, you technically have also had sex with? Well, corona virus is like that, y’all, but the thing is — if you’re asymptomatic or have just recently been exposed — you don’t even know that you’ve “had sex” with the virus. So, abstinence is finally the right solution folks — and we do that by sacrificing pleasure for the long term health of all us, and by masking up, social distancing, washing like a surgeon, telling each other the truth, and making good (even when tough) decisions for those we love.
We can’t be embarrassed around each other or irritated if someone asks us about our exposure or if we have been following protocols with the Corona Virus — this is killing us folks! We certainly cannot keep being offended if someone asks us to follow the safety guidelines when we are with them and we must stand up to those who act offended by our desire to protect ourselves and our children from them — (do I need to say it again? THIS IS KILLING US.) Just like asking if someone’s guns are stored in a safe, locked lockbox, we have to start asking people if they have been “locking down” the threat of their corona virus possibilities. Just like I never believed (without proof) someone who would say, “oh don’t worry, I’ll watch your kids” or “how dare you ask, my kids would never do such and such” or “don’t worry I’m very careful with the gun I keep loaded in my bedside drawer” we can’t pretend that all of us don’t stretch the truth to protect ourselves from criticism or from having to change our behaviors. We can’t really keep expecting to believe that others are being careful to protect their own health or mine, unless we are willing to converse, and communicate, and dialogue. And we should not shy away from a little bit of questioning and a commitment to get some reasonable answers on the part of those we would like to be with.
I will promise to never be offended if family or friends quiz me about whether I am doing my part for their safety. I won’t get my hackles up even if my very own children say to me, “Mom, we can’t come over this Saturday because you went to such and such a place and were with such and such a group”. I know they are saying no to being with me in order to protect me and because they know how much I love them. They may understand my choices to do “such and such”, just like I might understand their choices or a friend’s choices and we may be perfectly fine, even in agreement with — even applaud — some of those choices to do things with other people or attend something that is important. BUT approval and agreement for each other’s choices as important enough to perhaps do something that risks our health, means that we will not be able to do “our things” together if it means we won’t be safe together — not until this horrible plague is over. And God willing, someday it will be over. Then — we can all literally and figuratively breathe easy, and “let the parties and concerts, and museum trips, and play dates and sleep overs begin!!
What it means to do the right thing right now by all that we have been entrusted with, is that we must be willing to be seen as overprotective if necessary, even if it costs us a “fun time”, even if we lose a friend, even if someone is offended. We just cannot risk the worst by hoping for the best. We absolutely must not send off our lives to a risky play-date situation or entrust our health to an unsafe sleep over. We must prove that we can trust each other, by honestly communicating with each other. And — If we haven’t already, we must begin to treat our health and well-being as the precious gifts they are. We won’t be getting any other lives with which to replace these very unique and special ones we have, and just like our children, our lives are counting on us to protect them.
The Problem with the Unpatriotic Use of Flags and Anthems
By Jane Tawel
June 25, 2020
So, here’s the thing about flags and anthems, folks. They aren’t meant for sporting events or openings to concerts or educational institutions in the first place. We have gotten so used to the unpatriotic use of flags, pledges and sung anthems, that we get quite confused when people choose not to abuse their use by not pledging, not singing, or goodness-sakes, protesting the abuses by people of what these symbolic gestures are meant to signify. A case can be made for flags and anthems at Olympic or International games or Patriotic events on national birthdays, or schools that train soldiers, but those are each a different kettle of fish. If we would rewind and get ourselves out of the silly place we’ve boxed ourselves into on this issue, maybe we could figure out how to actually honor our country and also figure out how to protest what is wrong with it.
Flags are for soldiers in battle and honored in death for those fallen in battle. Flags are for those who serve the public in the halls of congress, the courts of justice, and in the streets and byways where those who have taken an oath of service to community, state, and nation help us stay safe and protect us (ALL of us). I think it would be great if Congress, the Senate, The White House and all state and local governments had to begin every day gathering together (TOGETHER) to sing the national anthem and salute the flag. That is what these symbols are for, to remind our government officials that at least in America, we do not exist to serve them, but that they exist to serve us, and that they serve the ideals of the best of “us”.
Flags and national anthems are not for the beginning of a school day any more than they are for the beginning of a work day. That is for purely communist countries, where citizens work for the good of the nation, not the other way around. Not that these countries exist, but the false premises do. Jobs and education are what nations provide for the betterment of the citizens, who in turn, make the nation better because of their opportunities. Unlike in certain other countries, we are not meant to serve our nation when we are pursuing our dreams, our nation works to serve us and to provide viable employment and useful education for its citizens so that they may pursue life and happiness.
America is founded on the idea of liberty within reason. “Reason” meaning, we need educated, thinking, ethically-trained citizens. One of those liberties is the idea that we can worship in the way we believe it is right to worship, as long as it doesn’t harm another person, of course. This means if my religion or belief system teaches me that I do not “pledge allegiance” to anything or Anyone other than my God, I do not have to pledge allegiance to a flag unless I am fighting for my country against another country.
But true allegiance in belief-systems, religions and patriotism seems to be a lost virtue. Allegiance means that I can (and should) do a lot more than recite an empty pledge or hum a mumbled anthem to support and honor my country. I honor my religion, or my worldview or my nation by the way I live out its best beliefs and adhere to the ethical ideas of the best of the human beings who trod this mortal coil.
People who do not live according to a religious belief should not confuse patriotism for religion either. Whether we like it or not, no nation or empire or kingdom has ever been eternal and the planet will keep spinning (we hope) long after any nation has come and gone. Symbols are bigger though than any one belief-system or one place or one people. Symbols (such as flags) represent those “truths we hold self-evident” and true truths ARE meant to be eternal. This is what we praise when we raise a flag or sing an anthem — we praise the truths that we put our trust and hope in — hoping that those truths will last far longer, and far outlast any particular team or nation or any one person has come and gone.
Religions aren’t meant to have flags. Religions are meant to entice followers to true truths no matter where they are from, and to accept people based on their need, not on their team mentality. There is no such thing as a “Christian” flag or a Buddhist flag and so forth, and when nations combine religion with nationalism to make flags more important than ethics, or symbols more important than worldviews, they dishonor the whole shebang of their supposed beliefs – nation, God, and man.
There is such a thing as a religious symbol. In Christianity symbols include a cross and bread and wine. In Judaism symbols include things like a yarmulke or menorah. In Islam, all symbolism is considered as something akin to idol worship. And so forth and so on. Symbols are not religion, symbols are portals to seeking better understanding of deep ideas. This would be a good thing for us to consider when we raise a flag or sing with other citizens in praise of kin and country. When we share a symbol, we are recognizing our shared ideals and the daily struggle to make them a reality in the present of our very lives.
When we make symbols of patriotism hold religious status, we do a grave disservice not only to the idea of patriotism, but to the idea of religion. To think that someone is unethical because they do not sing an anthem but take a knee instead, to think someone is going against a belief of religious status because they do not pledge to a flag, is fallacious reasoning and harmful intention. More than that, in America, land of the free and the brave, the shining city on a hill, a democracy struggling for realization – forcing the worship of a symbol is downright unpatriotic.
Conversely, when we make our flag and our national anthem something we do at ballgames or musical concerts, we elevate entertainment and competition as the highest forms of our national ideals. No wonder we have slipped down the slippery slope we have.
There are such things as religious anthems and they are called things like hymns, or prayers, or chants. They are sung for certain reasons at appropriate times. And so should national anthems and flag pledging be. Religions are meant to uphold people spiritually, not patriotically. And patriotism is meant to make us feel that together we are one people and one nation and that for the good of “US”, we can conquer anything that threatens to undo the ideals and values that hold us together as “one nation”. Whether or not that is under God or not, is up to us.
This idea of patriotism has nothing to do with football or church, nothing to do with cheering or praying, nothing to do with self-centered pride or idol-worship as holiness, nothing to do with education or entertainment. Flag waving and national singing together is meant for celebration of the best of who we are, like the birth of a nation (July 4th) or the remembrance of a tragedy that threatened to undo the best of who we are (September 11th). And when and if we are not behaving as the best of who we were, who we are, and who we can be, then we demean and degrade the very ideals that are behind the reasons we have symbols in the first place.
A flag is a symbol, not an icon. It is meant to symbolize what a particular country stands for. A flag is meant to encourage those who are waving it to understand what needs defending, uplifting, or improving. A flag is not meant to be defended as worthy in its own right, but to remind us of what is worth defending as good and just and kind and true and honorable in our nation. The converse of that is also true.
A flag should make us feel shame and dishonor when what we do or say is not for the good of all of a nation’s citizens and it should make us feel energized to change things so that the least among us is proud to be a part of who we are becoming – not who we were – who we can be.
A flag is about sacrifice not selfishness. Singing an anthem is about community not competition. When we let our symbols decay under the weight of injustice, lies, greed, and power mongering, we do far worse to the ideals that The United States of America used to symbolize to the world, than a mere flag burning or knee taking or protest poster could ever do.
I do not have to pledge to a flag to prove I love my country. To prove I love my country, I need to stand up for the best ideals, work to change what is wrong, and live according the best lights of my nation’s best values. To prove I love my country, I do not need to sing a song (that is impossible for most of us to sing on key anyway), and I certainly am not meant to confuse patriotism with an entertainment event. To prove I love my country, my actions will always speak louder than words, and my heart of service to others and fight for the best ideals of this nation, will always sing more truly on-key than any anthem ever will. Our country is not meant to be upheld in its grand and good ideas for the sake of its entertainment. And even though we seem to have come to a place where we think this is what America stands for, it is not too late to start climbing back up the hill, to light the torches of truth, to join hands to pull-up the weakest of us to stand on equal footing with the strongest of us, and to be that place that “So proudly we hail” once more at the world’s “twilight’s last gleaming”.
On September 11, 2001, some people did a heinous thing against the nation that I am honored to be a citizen of. They could claim they did this in the name of nation or religion, but that would be a lie. They did it because they had allowed hatred and pride, selfishness and false beliefs, to take deep roots in their souls. Their horrific actions had nothing to do with true religion nor with true patriotism. If we have learned anything in this current living generation from the tragedy of September 11th, it should be that patriotism has nothing to do with flag waving or history-worshipping or cheers for our sports or political teams. People who are abusing and twisting the ideals of our nation and stoking the mock cheers for self-centered patriotism are lying to us. And their lies are dividing some of us, and killing others of us. Loving and honoring America is only as true and as good as the honor and love we give each other.
There are many peoples and nations who claim to do things in the service of all kinds of beliefs. History is a searchlight into our own hearts and minds we dare not turn away from if we do not want the darkness to finally and completely consume us. Nations have suffered from while propagating genocides, holocausts, terrorist attacks, enslavement, systemic racism, systemic misogyny, systemic impoverishment, dictatorships, and caste systems. Many of these peoples and nations claim they do it for love of a flag or a symbol. But this a lie. A flag that has ceased to be a symbol of morals and ethics, without honor and justice, without freedom and equality is not a symbol of anything worth honoring. It is a piece of cloth and certainly not worth our worship. It is barely worth our attention as entertainment.
A flag is only as good as the people it stands for. Perhaps that is the saddest thing of all about America thinking a flag or an anthem is worth nothing more than a place of honor at a competitive ballgame or the team-sport of a political rally. The saddest thing of all is that we no longer think we as a people are worth those noble ideals or ethical standards that caused some people to once pen these lines, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
If we want to truly honor the flag or our national anthem, it is way past time we started doing the things that honor not what America was, but what America can be. It is time to start forming a more perfect union, just as we were meant to. It is time to secure the blessings of this life for our posterity, just as our ancestors tried to do for us. Until then, maybe the most religious and the non-religious of us should start taking a knee and the most patriotic of us should start pledging to take care of each other.
And so, we watch. And listen. There is sometimes nothing more. And sometimes the least we can do, is the best we can do.
And so, as all things must end, we grasp the final straw of a moment, wishing we could start a new haystack, start all over again, building something permanent, not something so easily burnt-up, burnt-out, smoldering within the hazy, choking smoke of our agonizing defeats.
And we look away from the fires, and we do not reach out our hands. These fires do not warm us. We run to the water, knowing that nothing lasts but the ebb and flow of life and death, life and death, life and death… like waves coming to shore but leaving for somewhere unkept.
Wishing hard will hurt the heart, but giving up will kill the soul. There can be no end to the mercy we must grant our pain.
“Yesterday, I should have done”. “Today, I must”. We tell ourselves tall tales while, Tomorrow beckons like a small flame easily snuffed-out by loss.
Each moment can be a new beginning to the hopes nestled in our cherished memories. Each intention falls short unless propped-up by a letting-go of self-containment. There is no joy in the prison of one’s certainty of aloneness nor in the sham of the inevitability of acceptance.
We do not long for a god residing somewhere past death, but crawl along the helpless shards of our afflictions for Someone better, Someone bigger, Someone who is not us but is with us. And every loss is a death and every death a loss.
And yet…. And yet ….
the soul responds to uncertainty with the certainty that death and loss are an illuminating darkness and darkness is what we were created to overcome. We fight the unacceptable with our acceptance that we are broken and with the stubborn wills of our need for wholeness.
We have never known wholeness. Its adopted spurious offspring are myths born of the illegitimacy of our need to numb our emotions and quell our rational fears. We claw at the desire to forget, clinging to forgetting like a raft in a hurricane. We remember in a panic and hold-on for dear life, for dear life, for dear life… to that which has almost drowned us and that which has kept us afloat.
In the suddenly YES! — we sometimes see fragments of a dappled radiance among divine clues hidden in plain sight in the world’s penumbra. We co-exist with Deity when we, weeping, Yearn.
We reveal ourselves to be that which from whom we most want to blind ourselves. And in our darkest nights, we awaken to a brilliance made porous by our pain. In the dawns of our best loves, we rise with tattered wings made translucent with the practice-flights of time. Only with holes gaping in our souls, can there be light for the long journey.
We are most luminous when we are most changeable. The shadows see our lambent light and flee.
We long to look at loss and pain as dross, best left uncovered, undiscovered, unused. But pain is a geode, a hard, dirty clod, formed in fire, hiding its truth deep within. Our hearts must be broken to find the glory nestled inside of us. The hard things formed in fire, when broken and opened, reveal a crystalline universe of reflective beauty, as substantial as heartache, as durable as hope, as fierce as love, as illuminating as the truth behind a waterfall of tears.
Every loss is a piece of the soul’s broken imagination. Each loss awaits the sticky residue of our tears, the paste of our determination, and the glue of our love. We gently hold our sorrow as long as it takes to see where it belongs, before we stick-back into place the broken part, reforming the wholeness within us.
The pieces of pain dug out from our depths are laid down, piece by piece, like small tiles, laid next to the bits and chunks of love we have mined- out from the moments of our best selves, and as we lay-down piece by piece of loss and love and love’s losses and losses’ loves next to each other, the mosaic of our life takes its exquisite shape. And it is dangerous and it is awesome to behold.
And with all the love and all the loss, we create the kaleidoscope of our celestial luminosity. And this is who we may yet become.
This is something I was originally going to post only on my Facebook page, but then thought it might be useful to some readers on other mediums. I love the camaraderie and kindness and supportive comments of fellow writers on WordPress,and I try to do the same as often as possible, so this is not about anyone or writer that I have come across on this platform. I do know several people on Facebook who “inspired” this passionate plea for allowing freedom of speech and for questioning and for debate, and I think we have seen the problems I am trying to address in this post, exponentially take destructive roots quite clearly in far too many of our leaders in politics and religions. The following is inspired by the voices who are now insisting to be heard after the murder of George Floyd, and the renewed vitality in the Black Lives Matter conversation. Thank you as always, for, as Blanche would say, “the kindness of strangers”. ~~Jane
You Have the Right to Remain Not Silent
by Jane Tawel
June 10, 2020
I’m sorry to have to point this out, I dislike conflict or being the gadfly or bad guy just as much as the next person — but if you are just now getting on your high horse about the injustice that people of color have been suffering or any of the horrible things or violence and the lies told to support them that have been happening in this country, for a long time, and you want to speak out now but you don’t want any conflict about it, then we have a problem. If you are white or “Christian” or a “good person” or an educator or a parent or a voter and you haven’t been saying anything about this until now — and if now you are “speaking out” oh so carefully but making sure on your posts that you also say, “I don’t want any one debating me on this” and “it’s true for people on both sides of the fence” and “no negative comments please” — then you really DO NOT GET IT.
So go ahead — enjoy your comments that cost you nothing, enjoy your peaceful life with no debates and no questions and no dangerous protestations. Don’t worry about people who might wonder “where have you been up til now?” No need to feel bad or ask forgiveness or make changes if you make sure only your cheerleaders communicate with you. Continue to not offend anyone who might be a part of cutting your paycheck or a member of your in-group.
Just keep basking in those lots of likes about what a “nice” person you are, but please — know this — some people aren’t as stupid as you think and they do see through you. Not that you care, because your defenses for protecting yourself are as strong as your defenses of those who need your help are weak.
Some people are taking a stand — for decades — or at least at last — and even when they get knocked down — they get back up. When someone disagrees with them, they don’t back down and they don’t back away and they may even change their minds about something, or apologize or grow up and change for the better even.
Today it is vitally important that we listen and learn, and today it is time to listen and learn from black people, the Afro American communities who today will not ride in the back of the bus of your Facebook posts.
Black people and Jewish people and sojourners from other countries (usually brown people) at our borders have been trying to involve you in debate for years now — and not only have they had to put up with your own dissent, your negative comments, your disagreements your powerful silences in the face of their powerless silenced-ness — they have put their lives on the line.
To want to say whatever you want with the caveat that none of your friends or followers or anyone can debate or question you is a perfect example of white / “Christian” / American — whatever label you harbor to think you have the privilege to shut people up, to shut people down, to dismiss people who make you uncomfortable. To unfollow those who debate you, who question you, who make you think — that is the epitome of an abuse of power and a greedy need to be safe and liked and untouched. Your “good heart” in your posts that is untouchable and untouched is a stone not a heart.
This is not however how nations or communities or peoples survive or grow or get better from whatever ails them. It is not at all the best of what this country of America was formed to be — a democracy — debatable, questioned, continually questioned. It is not at the center of a sustainable world view or of a valid belief of any kind. It is a mockery of a religion, with its adherents “nice Inquisition-ists”. It is not however an example of the person so many want to quote but not follow who gave His life and His name to Christianity, a man full of debate and endlessly debatable and forever questioning. It is not a path to certainty or truth but a quicksand of thoughts supported only by one’s need to to be right despite any theories or facts to the contrary.
A nation that has stopped questioning itself will surely wither and die, alone and bereft. A person who believes in an unquestionable God who created unquestionable human beings has no hope in a future that consists of the Unknowable powers of faith, hope and love. A human being who stops questioning his own rightness is a king of fools.
If silence is agreement, then silencing someone else is an abuse of power — even if it is only the abuse of the power of your role in a group, of your relationship in a tribe or family or even of just one friendship.
Freedom of Speech and the ability to question authority — It is one of the things our founding forefathers tried to get right in the name of God and nation. It is one of the things our Creator tried to get right when She created human beings a little higher than the beasts and a little lower than the angels.
I am sorry my passion and questions disquiet some of you, I will listen to your requests to “not comment” but I certainly won’t be under the impression you mean all those “nice” things you are saying on behalf of others. Sorry — but real truth is meant to set us all free and real caring for others — enough to fight for them, speak for them, protest with them, change the world for them, love them — means, no protective armor for my own self-serving needs.
We have made a world where people are vulnerable because of their black skin color in a white world. Surely we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable for some black words on a white page.
And by the way, anyone who knows me knows, I would never dream of asking you not to debate or question or engage with my ideas in your desire to make me think. I would never unfriend someone for disagreeing with me and I am grateful not just for those who build me up with support and additional help but those who respect my ability to think and reason and maybe even change and who question or debate me. I may not agree with you but I will defend your right to speak out and disagree with me with my last Facebook breath.
Jane Tawel 