The value of truth seems to have lost its influence.
The world keeps turning. I get up in the morning to the sun, and go to bed each night with the moon and the stars shining their light on my broken heart. The world is a “hot mess” as my young millennial friends would say.
Navigating life now is not an easy task! Walking the medial way, with one foot in the world and one foot in Spirit, isn’t easy to do under “normal” circumstances! Now, it feels impossible, and yet it is certainly an excellent opportunity to practice! I, like many I talk to, long for simpler times.
SPEAKING THE TRUTH AS I SEE IT
I keep choosing, every day, to speak the truth as I see it; to ask the questions, explore the answers, look for what lies beneath the surface of things. Even as I try to be kind about it, not attacking or name calling, my words seem to cause sparks to fly. People rant at me and call me names.
In the past week, I was called a bigot, a pseudo-intellectual, an irrational feminist, and a few other choices names I’d rather not repeat here. The nastiest, meanest comments came from men, who I previously believed were highly rational, intelligent, educated men. The comments I received from women were angry and upset, more aimed at the belief that I should be taking about the politics on an aging site, nor should I take sides. I weigh this question constantly.
“JUST GET ALONG!”
The most common concern I’ve heard from women has been, “don’t you think you should play nice and just accept what is happening?” To this I say, yes and no.
Nothing infuriates me more than the part of our culture that wants us to get on board with the status quo. What we are experiencing right now IS NOT NORMAL. It is not business as usual, and I won’t pretend it is. I protested in the 60’s and my values with regard to peace, love and acceptance remain the same. I’ve never been a fan of the establishment, but this is going too far!
NAME CALLING HURTS!
It hurts being attacked. Conflicting feelings rise to the surface, adrenaline pumps through my body and I’m suddenly in fight or flight mode. I want to lash out, and with my weapon of choice write an epistle explaining exactly how and why I am not what they say I am. When I realize that more conversation would be pointless, I sink into despair. What am I to do with all these feelings now?
ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS
I have no choice but to go inside myself and ask the hard question. Are they right? Do their labels fit?
Am I a pseudo-intellectual? I’ve never thought of my self as an intellectual, so that one was lost on me as a true reflection of myself. However, by asking the question I began to see the perpetrators projection. The particular label came from a man who, even at 16, took abundant pride in his intelligence. He believed his intellectual abilities made him superior. Sadly, all these years later when we reconnected I discovered that he has not grown past his arrogant, narcissist ways. He still needs to be intellectually superior, and when he feels threatened, he does what all great thinkers do, call people names. I told him he was behaving exactly like the President-Elect, which he was. He didn’t like that a bit and unfriended me. I now consider it a victory to have stirred that particular pot!
A bigot – that one got me. A bigot is “a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions” – this coming from a man who unfriended me because he didn’t like what I was saying on Facebook. Am I a bigot? We all have our blind spots so I’d have to say yes, I’m intolerant toward some who hold different opinions. Our president-elect would be one of them. Trust me, I am working on this. I long to find a place of acceptance that does not mean acquiescence. Right now, I can’t see the divine in this man just yet. In fact, I tend to think he’s evil incarnate and see it as my job to speak out against him.
COMPASSION FOR ALL WHO HAVE BEEN & WILL BE DISAPPOINTED
Beyond that, I have deep compassion for the people who elected him believing he would change their unhappy lives. I have less compassion for the meanness and hatred that a few carry and choose present to the world. I want to say, show me your misery, this I can understand. But anger, rage, hubris, entitlement? And yet, tolerance is tolerance. I’m working on it.
Here’s what I do know. The women before us modeled tolerance and acceptance as a virtue, and to some extent it is. They did not feel free, however, to rebel or speak up when perhaps they should have. We feel freer to do so, and yet the past that lives on in us often keeps us feeling guilty and wrong when we do.
Making nice is not always possible, nor is it human. We have a wide array of thoughts, feelings and reactions. it is to our detriment to keep them buried. They will erupt when we least expect them to and it won’t be pretty.
THERE IS A TIME & A SEASON
There’s a time to fight and a time to stand down. There’s a time to speak and a time to be silent. We must each in our own way and find a balance between speaking our truth and taking time for deep reflection. None of us are totally clear on what we are fighting for. Those who are, seem to be fighting one particular battle. Maybe that’s the best any of us can do.
We must continue to ask ourselves challenging questions:
- What am I really angry about?
- Are there unacknowledged feelings and thoughts beneath my anger? Are the thoughts I’m thinking true?
- This feeling of fear, what is it really trying to tell me?
- When have I felt powerless before? How was that similar to what’s happening now?
- Is this situation triggering feelings I’ve had all my life?
- What are those feelings?
- Can I be proactive in giving myself what it is I want from others?
- Have I taken time to sit in silence?
- Have I expressed my feelings honestly?
- When I speak my truth am I using “I” statements?
As I navigate these strange times, I take comfort from the wisdom of great teachers.
“Wholeness is possible only through the coexistence of opposites. In order to know the light, we must experience the dark.” ~ Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections
“Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that is the one that is going to help you grow.” ~ Caroline Myss, Defying Gravity
“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them”
~ Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
“If you have never been called a defiant, incorrigible, impossible woman. . .have faith. . . there is yet time.” ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
“Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.” ~ Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be
I feel at one with the Alice in Wonderland depiction. Yet, I know hope will emerge – eventually.
Beyond that, I am incensed by the name-calling you record here. How about “wise and thoughtful woman” instead!
Yes, I think sooner or later, things will level out and we will be able to do what we need to do to rectify some of this. It may take a while, but knowing that they are many people like you in the world, Marian, does my heart good.
So many of us are still trying to digest this big mistake America has made in the name of fighting a broken system, being lured in to false hope by the Trump phenomena. Anyone who can see beyond the curtain of Oz can see how wrong this choice was, but people will always fight for their imagined beliefs. It’s just too bad that there are many who can’t stand to hear a different opinion than theirs voiced and have to resort to childish tactics. And it doesn’t seem from where I stand that this questionable president elect has even the decency to quell the worries of the public and protests, but rather adds fuel to them with his tweeting addiction. The monkey see, monkey do scenario is ominous. God help us all.
You hit the nail on the head, Debby. He’s in it for himself, not for the American people. It’s been true since day one. So many are so blind, in large part because of the suffering. They put their faith in him. I pray they are not disappointed, but I can’t help believe that they will be. He’s the worst kind of narcissist. I’ve known people very much like him and seen the damage they’ve done. I will never support him. I will support those people who have already lost their peace of mind and who are suffering the result of the abuse who continues to perpetrate. His team is probably more dangerous than he is. God help us, indeed. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
So very true, all of it, blog and replies and replies to the replies! And, a friend pointed out that he is not a true conservative at heart like members of Congress, and even his Vice President. He’s already backing down on campaign promises, and I hear his child care initiative is quite liberal, thanks to his daughter [ I’m still not reading the news, so that’s definitely hearsay!] We can hope that in regards to things like civil liberties for immigrants, people of color, women’s health issues, and the LGBT community, he holds the line on what is destroyed. That still leaves him a monstrous amount of space to hurt, maim and destroy, but perhaps less so than others in line for succession should something happen to him.
As for said daughter, it is she I primarily hold in prayer; she seems to have the most power with him. Given what I have seen and heard of their relationship during the campaign , I can only imagine the cost of that power for her. My prayer is for some measure of peace for her, for the fortitude to keep trying to steer the Trump ship through channels of decency, kindness, whatever passes for integrity in their world. She may be our best hope in limited destruction. As a woman I am both in awe of her coping skills, and, horrified that she has any loyalty to him at all. Mostly I am grateful for her presence in our world, and will continue to hold her in the light. My itty bitty contribution to the moment at hand.
Great thoughts! Thanks for sharing them. My heart hurts for all of the family members because I know, first hand, what that can of father can do to a child emotionally. Of course, I don’t really know, and sometimes I wonder if it was all theatrics. Either way, we will have to watch and wait and keeping praying!