Something happened in the last couple of days ... specifically on facebook but probably on other online sites as well. I just noticed on Facebook because I am there a good portion of my day.
I am not a political person .... well, okay, let's put it another way. I don't get into political discussions because I am not good at it. I know what I believe and I stick to my opinions - quietly - as political "discussions" often escalate and arguing upsets me. So I read and formulate my own opinions and stick to them but rarely discuss them.
There was a disturbance in the force in the last few days. A Palpable disturbance. Everybody felt it. And many expressed it.
When I first read about the South Carolina shooting I cried. And it caused me to dig up a quote that has been a part of me since I first read it in my early teens. I posted it to Facebook because seriously everybody is different in some way or other and therefore we are all the same and we should all delight in our differences. I've been saying it in my personal forever. And if someone went out and killed everybody in the world who was different from him, he would wind up alone.
There was a definite disturbance in the force. I saw posts from people I haven't heard from in a long time. An out-pouring of "what the hell is going on?" A friend on tour overseas who broke down in public at breakfast. And I started to cry again when I read that because I felt it too.
There was that coming together of a like mind - that camaraderie that happens after a major disaster. As if most everybody was feeling pretty much the same thing. Perhaps it's because most of my friends list is of a like mind, and that's fine cause that's over 1,000 people thinking in the same direction.
I also saw avoidance ... people not wanting to admit to the one thing that was hurting most of the rest of us.
And now, this morning, there are the questions ... how do we stop the hate?
Well, for one, even though there was a lot of grief in the last few days, there was also a lot of coming together. At least on my friends list, which I was happy to see.
I think one thing we can all do is what we've been doing all along. Write and sing our songs and share our stories of peace and tolerance, be kind as much as we can. And don't follow a panicked crowd; don't be sheeple. Don't let fear rule your heart, your mind, or your hand. Don't do what others are all doing unless it's for the greater good.
Be the best person you can be .... not white, not black, not straight, not gay, not anything except people.
I do not identify as straight or caucasion; those are tags society places on me but I identify as friend, as a person. I wear my skin because it's what I was born with; but I think with my mind and I go with my heart.
Several years ago, when I still worked day shift at Longs/CVS, I had someone come to the store looking for "that black female manager." And I couldn't come up with anyone. I had to take a step back and pull up (in my minds eye) all the female managers to try and figure out who he meant. It turns out the person he was looking for was Hawaiian. But it's a bad way to identify people.
Maybe, try and think of it in the way that is my own personal mission for FAR-West - defining the four letter word FOLK in an open arms fashion: folk is the word of the people. Every single tribe on the face of this earth, from the beginning of time, had their own stories and their own songs (that we call myths), their own dances (and if you read all of the creation myths, you will realize that independent of each other, everyone pretty much came to the same conclusion). That is folk. It doesn't matter whether their beat or their instruments or their country became their genre NAME because it is in name only .... bottom line, it's all folk. Whether the stories are told with the backing or a guitar, a banjo, a balalaika or a flute, with spoken word or sung, or with the movement of feet - it's all Folk.
Bottom line, We are all Folk. We are all People. Take off our skin and we have the same skeletal structure.
So maybe the disturbance in the force will reach everyone it needs to .... we have water worries, we have the ring of fire acting up, we have climate change, our earth is talking to us, the news stories are talking about the coming of the 6th mass extinction ... is the gathering at hand? I don't want it to be. You don't want it to be. You want the good parts of our societies, our earth, our planet to be here for your children and your children's children.
Because a lot of people felt the South Carolina church murders deep enough to react and to cry and to mourn. So maybe this will be a catalyst. I sure hope so.
Can you help me "make it so"?
