Category Archives: Causes

Homogenized television

At the store we stopped by on our way to my Mama-in-law’s, I saw a diverse snapshot of people. An inter-racial gay couple who were both very tall, an Italian mother and her daughter, a few white employees, a mixture of humans milling about the aisles selecting last minute purchases for their Thanksgiving feasts. Every person I saw greeted me with smiles and warm wishes which I firmly returned to them. I felt so alive with happiness that I wished I could hug everyone I saw. I even commented this to Ben (my husband) as we got into our car and finished our journey. I felt amazing.

My beautiful in-laws are avid fans of local station news/sports/weather and keep the litany in the background all day long. The same newscast at noon gets a tad of refresher before being the 6 o’clock news and then the 11PM news. In between these news segments/shows were, what felt like hours of commercials. This is where I noticed something keenly off.

There was not a single local ad played on the station that had any people of color. The homogenized version of society was played out with white families, white men, white children dancing around with extra money in their hands to go pay homage to the golden calf shopping centers. Occasionally there would be a non-threatening black woman with VERY natural hair to demonstrate how very black she was (it felt this way…cartoonish in appearance to make her feel safer?) but not a single black man appeared in any of the local commercials. In fairness, the national ads (Straight-talk phones, for example) showed a knowledgeable black man with no sense of humor, but not any of the local ads had many black people at all.

Every show that was on the station had all white characters, many without even a “token”. I said out loud, “That can’t be right.” As the evening progressed I heard comments referring to the “needy black folk” as only those, “Who probably didn’t want to work anyway,” followed by the subsequent “Amen corner” rolling with the praise Jesus commentary.

Before you think I’m judging, please understand where I get this visual. My Uncle was a bit…shall we say…passionate about his faith for quite a while. He would attend church 7 days a week, sometimes twice a day. As kids, my brothers and I found it completely reasonable to want to tag along. We witnessed some incredible things while traveling to the back hills churches in Lake of the Ozarks. Speaking in tongues, rolling in the aisles, snot blisters the size of basketballs, and afterwards, the best food brought out by the church ladies (Nobody to this day has ever surpassed Myetta Baptist Church’s gooseberry cobbler).

But what always amazed me about those churches were the amen corners. They said Amen to everything the preacher said. If the preacher said they were all sinners, the amen corner agreed. If the preacher proclaimed they were all beating their kids and that was okay, the amen corner nodded their assent to their transgressions. If the preacher said that the fires of hell would make the pews burn off clothes, the amen corner would start stripping. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but they just simply agreed, sometimes without thought.

That’s what sitting in this living room felt like. Another comment flies past, “Always with their hands out. They should work.” A nod and a grunt of assent follows. Every local channel I surfed through and edited was whitewashed to the point where the diversity I saw in the grocery and at the theatre and at the gas station was absent.

It felt like the local channels were purposefully and methodically pointing fingers at those “needy blacks” that take and don’t give. It felt alarmingly wrong.

Another story that was shown on the news that involved “those people” was about a little boy whose mom and dad had been drug addicts at one time. Ready? The dad was black and the mom was white. The little boy had pale skin like his mom. Comment: “He must have a different daddy because he don’t look black.” “Amen. Amen.” The story talked about how this family used to be takers but now they were saved and serving others, isn’t that nice?

The only mention of Ferguson was a short 30 second blurb that talked about the march from Ferguson to Missouri’s state capitol. Then it was back to local sports.

How can anything change when people are not shown the “real world?” How can people realize that their behaviors are not out of bigotry (in the case that I am sharing) but of ignorance. It’s perpetuated by their everyday lives being reflected to them in whitewashed versions of reality. It creates such an obvious wedge that I believe, as an outsider, it’s no longer even noticed.

I get that change is a personal thing, but when there is such an obvious spin on the negativity of change being perpetuated by the ridiculous “reality” of shows, you may as well just be listening to one song over and over until your ears bleed. No matter how much you enjoy listening to “Peace on Earth”, until the tune changes, the song becomes as tired of a litany as the obvious erasure of any other race on Southern televisions.

If I can see this in just one living room in the Deep South, how many other people are doing their own “Amen corner’s” affirming that they are doing the right thing? Reaffirming that their belief in the stereotypes is justified because they once knew a person who knew a person and we all know how that ended. (No, actually I don’t. That isn’t the world I live in).

How many other families are camped around their tribal fire (aka the television) learning that to be anything other than white is an unforgivable sin? How many children of any skin tone other than “white” are learning their “place” (that sounds so bitter and cynical) by watching their own race, their own skin be erased until they are…less than’s? This is not acceptable.

Please remove this ignorance from your vocabulary and transform it into the education of your mind to the people you live around each day. Plug into your community instead of the media whom lies to you each day. Remember that the further we are from uniting as one people, the easier we are to divide and to be conquered. The farther divided we remain, the more ignorance is allowed to breed and the longer the cycle continues.

Please, for the love of humanity, do not let the ignorance continue. Let’s not repeat the murderous rampages of the 1960’s of peaceable men doing noble things. Let’s regard the possibility of peace among humans with reverence, not complacency. Let’s learn from our outrage that change is necessary. Change can only happen when we stand united as the people we are in our divine glory of humanity. Change is possible. We ARE that change, together; me and you.

The Firehammer Movement

firehammerThe last few days I’ve struggled to find sleep, respite, comfort, laughter. I’ll be talking with my friends and suddenly I’m overwhelmed with a rage that is so primal it’s as if I am not quite myself. Then, I feel agitated like a caged animal just before feeding time, pacing back and forth. I examine my face in the mirror to verify that it’s still me. Overwhelming grief yanks the rug and my emotions are all over the bar. No reason in my personal life. Everything is just peachy where I live.

This sounds like I should be committed or at least be wearing a tin hat with aluminum foil all over the windows, does it not? And although I’m eccentric, I’m not crazy. Other people are feeling the same waves of intense emotions washing over them as well. They’re tuned in to the pulse of the world and the human “web” of emotional energy.

There is a tone of justifiable reason in the madness that our brothers and sisters are feeling. The shackles of oppression are so large that the only way they can be removed, believe me we’re not supposed to be united in this, is if we work together towards changing the system that has betrayed so many of our blood kin.

I am not attempting in any way to minimize any emotion you feel. I do not wish you to believe that I could. I feel your pain. I feel your suffering. I feel your anger. I feel your confusion, your frustration, your grief, your outrage. I feel it. It’s real. It’s now. It’s an every day occurrence for many of us.

But, I need you. I need you to hear this. The world needs you to hear this, believe (trust), understand me right now. With complete love in my heart I’m going to ask you to stop. Just stop.

Okay, I know, keep the straight jacket for a bit longer and hear me.

I need you to do three things with the sole intention of raising the love energy in this country of ours (provided you live in the U.S.A.) and therefore into the world.

One: CHOOSE JOY!

Refocus these Big Fat Feelings.

Choose one person or group of people (friends are good) and focus on their happiness. Sincerely, just call them up or visit them. Put away all electronics and focus solely on them (collectively or individually) in a non-sexual way. Crack funnies with them. Laugh. Have a sandwich with them. Being just kind. One hour (or as much as you can give). Find a way to connect with another human being that gives you the feeling of unity, of knowing someone has your back. For the time you’re with them, each time something negative comes up, say out loud, “I choose joy.” Yes, it will seem weird. It’s intended to because it’s a verbal stop sign that will help aid you in staying focused on the joy you’re building with your chosen person/people.

Two: UNPLUG!

hands-handcuffs_00409569The corporate electronic slave mentality.

No matter what phone you have, when you type or text, look at how your wrists are located. The larger your phone, as a rule, the more money you’ve probably spent on it which implies financial prosperity. The older or smaller your phone is, the closer your wrists are together. These hands are usually balled in fists around our phones and other electronic devices. They aren’t raised in prayer. They aren’t reaching out towards other humans to find true connections. They aren’t allowing us to see our similarities and celebrate our differences with open hearts. We are being divided by the shackles of a different kind of slavery.

The irony of me typing this on a computer does not escape me. But if you knew that just before I wrote this, I spent an hour and a half trying on the hat that you see at the top of this post, laughing hysterically at myself, and filled with such gratitude that the woman who knitted this hat said my joy was payment for the hat. Well then, you’d understand that I DO unplug and PLUG into humanity. I go visit my ailing friends. I take time to hug anyone I meet. I make this effort because I don’t want to forget that to love means to be as one with the Divinity that I see in everyone I meet. Yes, even you.

Three: RAISE THE VOICE OF LOVE!

Right now the world feels oppressive more so than any other time in my personal history of 46 years. I’m not kidding when I say that the emotional angst that our country is struggling with has permeated the energy of the world. Nobody seems to feel like they’re being heard over the voices of the most vocal and violent. It’s as if this has given permission for people to forget that they’re harming others.

I trust you. I feel as if I can share this with you because this is important. Right now it feels to me like the most important words I can share with you. I love you. I don’t have to know you. I don’t have to understand. I just have to love you. You’re a human being like me. You have struggles and victories just like me. You get hurt, your blood is just like mine and flows red from the wound. When something amuses you, you laugh or smile just like me. When you eat too much or not enough you experience the same sensations in your body as I do. We are humans. You are beautiful, compassionate, and your voice needs to be added collectively to this pool. Say it with me, please my sisters and brothers, I LOVE YOU!

Let’s break this cycle of anger. Let’s work together in unity away from the shackles that our “Corporate Masters” have placed into our willing hands. We can do this if we love one another, connect with one another, and choose joy. Wrap one another in the peace you wish existed. Help one another to learn to trust again. If we unite, they will fall from their tower and we, as a free people, will be able to, as the Unitarian Universalists say, LOVE THE HELL OUT OF THIS WORLD!

Faminism is Veruca

Faminism: (FAM-ih-ni-sum) (v.) 1. The act of removing food from the mouths of children. 2. The denial of women’s rights. 3. The active practice of both.

I want to lie to the children and tell them that the world is just

To stir up their hopes so that they will do all the things that they must

To believe in fantastical things like freedom, fairness, and truth

To discard the notion of fairy tales, of ghouls, and monsters uncouth

I want to lie to the children and tell them they’re not good enough

To shackle their hands to their desks until they’ve conformed rebuffed

To fill them full of nonsense more farfetched than any tale

To forget how to think while I fill wretchedness into our jails

I want to lie to the children and tell them their thoughts do not matter

To crash against their defenses until they’re all ragged and tattered

To consume massive amounts with terrible amounts of great greed

To spend their gold on stuff they’ll never use or ever need

I want to lie to the children telling them that pride is the greatest

To crush any challengers to authority, remove evidence of any progress

To take away their beds and hide them in empty foreclosed houses

To shred apart their families with four income part time spouses

I want to lie to the children and tell them they’ll not go hungry tonight

To close the door in their faces when they bring their empty-plated plight

To enslave them to the workforce by making them buy the diploma

To be the drone worker bees, church is Monday’s worker’s coma

I want to lie to the children about the content of their character being best

To blindfold their brown eyes with white that makes them brown skin-less

Not to remember that yesterday I protested against their “rights”

To watch blindly the riots in the murderous night.

I want to lie to children and preach how they’re valued and adored

To pay them the cheapest wage I can get away with not what I can afford.

To make them stupid by making teachers responsible for their kids

To tie up the hands of those who mean well in the red tape of “I forbids”

I want to lie to the children and make them wave the American flag like they’re boss

I want their bodies to give their sacrificial wine from their flesh their righteous blood lost

To refuse to keep the promises I made for no despair

To look them in their patriotic eyes and spit on them with lies of “We care”

I want to lie to the children and feed them slogans like “Just Say No!”

I want the underachievers to rebel, five to twenty in prison they’ll go.

To incite the gang wars to give the cops something to do

I NEED to watch the world burn around me, go back to sleep, I’ve much to do.

Is it Running?

Taking the journey of a thousand miles

Begins with a step, like those of a child

Returning to home or breaking one down

Making either world turn upside down

Taking the challenge that long is awaited

Bulldozing through obstacles unabated

Loyalty valiant to some of the house

Struggling for liberty in emotional joust.

What once was a longing, a need, an addiction

Is now a source of painful contradiction.

What one house rejects and claims desire

The other beckons with strength in the sire

What confusion lay in the mind of the child

To remain in chaos, trust long defiled

The raping of faith, knocked down from up high

denied the dreams with nary tears in the eyes

Blame things on everything, never their own

In the mean time, for eons, one stands alone

Time has passed by, much time indeed

When the child understands for them, no need

Abandoned, refused, forgotten, unwanted

Should the journey begin, progress undaunted?

Should the heart set aside the anger and sorrow?

Should the child remember there is always tomorrow?

The escape hatch is opened, standing ajar:

Will the house be destroyed from the will from afar?

Will temptation desecrate the once sacred heart?

Is all that it takes is a short time apart?

Love Thy Neighbor Campaign

I’d really like for you to join me in the Love Thy Neighbor Campaign. Below is a link where you can purchase the shirts and wear them with pride while you perform public acts of random kindness to your fellow humans. They’re very affordable, stylish, and the best part is, if I don’t meet the 20 I need to meet the minimum sales goal, you don’t even get charged!

I’d really like to meet my first goal of 20 shirts, so please buy the shirt, share the link, and act responsibly while wearing the shirt to promote Unity in CommUNITY!

Love Thy Neighbor

SAMPLE

Don’t catch “The Gay!”

I fully support LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) rights as both active participants in society and as human beings. I support their right to marry whom they love. I support their fights against discrimination.

I come to you as a human being. I am not a perfect person, nor do I profess to be. I struggle to keep my judgment in check. It’s so easy to point fingers and call one another hypocrites. It’s easy to look at someone and tell them they are wrong. It’s easy to reflect on my own life and color pretty shades of happy all over the pages I messed up by my poor choices. But what is even easier, it seems, is to do so in the name of religious intolerance.

I have seen on my Facebook feed posts about intolerance and injustices of the world. I see people hating others because of their sexual orientation. I see people hating because of the color of skin (Yes, even now.) I see people tearing down the President. I witness people spewing hateful messages because of gender. I see people calling each other names so vile that they taste bitter to speak them aloud. I see people projecting their own beliefs out into the world whether they are hateful or not, most commonly under the guise of religion.

In my belief system, the Lord and Lady in their duality are everywhere. They hang in the trees, they breathe the wind, they flow in riverbeds, they dance among the stars. The sense of serenity that I feel when I am out in nature is as good for me as a guided meditation or deep contemplative prayer. While I pray, I’m reminded constantly that happiness, tolerance, kindness, and especially love are my ways to finding my peace of mind, heart and soul. To achieve balance in both male and female aspects of myself, I need to be immersed in the joy of life. I need to be tolerant of other’s beliefs.

There are laws in my faith as well. One of our most important laws is, “Harm none.” That means myself and others. That means leaving nothing but footprints in a forest. That means helping someone who asks for it. That means giving and taking. A harmonious balance between the light and the dark sides of my inner self have to join equally for me to feel whole. To me that means opening my heart to infinite possibilities done in the name of love and harmony. To me, even when I’m sad or feel broken, I know that I need only pray. This allows the love energy to flow freely.

In the Christian faith, Jesus is asked, “What is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

His response, found in Matthew 22:35-41 says, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The words are deep and profound. In the words of Rev. Linda Looney, “Jesus’ message of inclusivity and love seems very radical. It WAS radical because of the impurity laws of Judaism, the absolutes, the impossibility of keeping every facet of the law. THAT is what we were saved from – the impossible law that was absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to keep, therefore it made people sinners for not keeping the law.”

Jesus didn’t say ‘Love your neighbor unless he is gay.’ or “Love your neighbor as long as they worship the same God.” He said to Love them as yourself. It would seem to me that there are a lot of people who can’t stand themselves out there in the world. They’d rather worry about what consenting adults do in their private lives than to feed the third world countries. They’d rather ridicule and spout hatred than to follow God’s command through His Son Jesus Christ.

This has caused me many years of contemplation. When I began to love myself, I realized that people around me are struggling with the same stuff I do every day. Just like a gay man or a lesbian or a straight person, I worry about bills, kids, schools, work, chores, etc. Just like a Christian, I pray for peace and love to rule the world instead of anger and viciousness. What face do I perceive when I pray? I see the face of the Goddess. I see the face of God. I feel the balance as if everything I ask for will be so. Not like a magic wish factory, but as in peace of mind. I don’t feel alone any more. I feel comfort from my day to day life from Father and Mother God/dess. I feel love for all creatures great and small.

I’ve heard people say to me, because I speak my mind, “Well, I’m a Christian and you aren’t.” As if that’s reason enough to reject another human. I say to them, “Well if you were such a Christian, why aren’t you living the life of Christ?” Jesus was all about loving one another. He loved his disciples so much (and they him) that they walked around all over the place teaching together. Why aren’t we more like that? It seems that Christ’s lessons are used only when it is convenient.

Jesus says, ALL your heart, ALL your soul, ALL your mind. If that commandment, the one Jesus says is the most important, is to be honored, how can there be any room for intolerance? How can there be room for God when the heart is filled with such hate towards my fellow man? How can I be truthful to my spirit when I’m unwilling to follow His lessons and commands?

In 1 John 4:8 it says: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” It is my interpretation that if God is love then wasting time with anger and hate towards the LGBT Community takes away from the glory of God. It takes away the potency of His words. It degrades and defiles Jesus by not following His instructions to love one another.

What love is capable of can be found in the story of my mother and myself. For years I held on to anger that I felt towards my mother. I was certain that she was the single-most horrid mother in history. I painted a horrible picture of her. Although some of it may have been true, it was only in my perception that was true.

My mother and I were estranged for 17 long years. We didn’t start speaking until about two years ago. During the course of our conversations, I came to a deeper understanding of our relationship. On her 65th birthday, together we burned a venomous letter that I had written that had, in part, caused the distance between us. As that letter burned in the bucket, I looked at her face. I saw my face 20 years from now. I saw my own blood flowing through her veins. I saw hope and love. I’d been so quick to toss blame. We’d soiled something that shouldn’t have been an issue had we followed the lessons we were taught.

The sense of peace, hope, love, and respect that I feel for her is stronger than it has ever been. I saw her for the first time as a human being, just like me. I saw her with kindness in my heart rather than anger. I was able to take the lessons I’ve learned and follow another important lesson that was taught to me at her knee. Jesus taught the lesson about judgment. His words were meant to show that there is a better way to do things.In Matthew 7:2-4 (NIV) 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

No matter what I am faced with, I know that if I follow the simple laws of harming no others, of loving one another as I love my Lord and Lady, of holding onto my judgment and letting things be as they are, of offering hope and care wherever it is needed, then I am doing my part. I have been told that I am the most Christian non-Christian. I’m proud of that. I don’t reject the teachings I was brought up with, nor do I reject my fellow human beings despite their age, race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other criteria. As for me and mine, we will bide by the Law of Love, not hatred. I will love my brothers and sisters in spirit no matter what their beliefs or choices. In that way, and with deepest respect for those who object on the grounds of religion, I wish you nothing but peace and love in your hearts.

Peace to you and yours.

Hear the Alarm! Don’t Hit Snooze!

Chapter Two:
I woke up to the sound of a leaf blower screaming outside my window. As I awakened my senses with coffee, the scream of first Wednesday of the Month sirens warned me of what I’d find as election results, but I didn’t understand. I feel so mournful as I think of what was lost yesterday (Thankfully not in the precinct I worked because I still had hope for Tennessee when I went to sleep). I watch, now, the rain drizzle down and my emotions reflect it.

I mourn for the people who have bought propaganda at the discount price that was sold at the dollar general tree. I mourn for those unwanted, unadoptable, hungry, sick, rejected children who will be born into a world that claims ownership but rejects responsibility. I mourn the education of these invisible children because what can’t be seen is clearly absent of life.

I mourn for the uterus that just turned inside out for the world to see but heaven forbid you see a child being fed at the breast of their mother. I mourn for the women who no longer will have a say in what happens to her own body but, in truth, am grateful that my body rejects the rooted seeds so my children will never know that I lived in such a horror movie of a state.

I mourn with my friends and thinking people who are wrenched with grief over the return to a time many of us don’t remember but are grateful to those that do and fought so hard to create a better place that was blown down by the Big Bad Wolf. I mourn in the form of dreaming exodus claiming political asylum in my own country which has returned to Jim Crowe against women and the LGBTQ communities while holding the marquee for next election saying that the brown skinned people don’t matter enough anyway so we’ll eliminate any aid so we can fill our fields with their broken backs and dreams.

I mourn for the prisons being built as plantation houses for the next generation of slaves that this election has purveyed onto the citizens of the United States. I mourn for those souls who are told from their conception that they’re wanted and loved only to be born into a world where those promises are broken. “May as well learn to live with disappointment, sons and daughters, because you ain’t no kin to me.” I mourn for that mentality being accepted as fact.

But most of all, I mourn that so many of my kin, my brothers and sisters of Light, are caught in so much darkness that they’re afraid to shine too brightly. I encourage you, my beautiful friends, to not give up even while the mourning strikes your heart with the righteous shame of indignities served on our hearts, minds, and bodies. Without us, that margin would have been far greater and the obvious ignorance would spill farther into this world.

We are the vessels that contain hope. We are the steps the future MUST take or we, as a free society, will fail. We are the eyes that see the changes that MUST be made. We are the hands that MUST NOT fail to act in the name of justice. We are the voices that MUST be raised repeatedly against ignorance. We are the backs that MUST bear the burden of challenging each defeat with a solid stance of support not only for one another but for those who are and will be victimized by these misguided amendments.

The warnings have blared at us, like my alarm clock of despair outside our window. It’s up to us as a people to determine whether we hit the snooze button on our kin, or whether we rise to the challenge that they’ve again faced and forced upon us. Me, I’ll put on my top hat and rise because without hope, there is no way I will survive.

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Sin-seriously

I don’t want to know the killer’s name or how it did its deeds.
I want to know the wo/men’s lives because therein lies the key.
To make the dead, neither sinner nor saint
but to revive their lives that are stained with the taint
of the bloodied hands of a death most gruesome
the details don’t matter in all the confusion
except to remember the lives that were lost
not glorify the murderer of stolen future’s cost

The New Toy

A blind eye in my family line denies that it is so

When forced from under his vulgar façade

He admits that he is that low

Why laughter and a joking word

Are used to take away

Why groping hands and choking words

Were never child’s play.