Mark 10:44-45 Interpretation
In light of recent events…
Photo of our wedding by ? (family)
Resist
The Choice Is Yours
While perusing the Climate March posts on Twitter yesterday, I came across this:
I was proud and grateful to participate in the People's Climate March today! #LaudatoSi #ClimateMarch #NotAPaidProtestor #Mercy4Earth pic.twitter.com/Es8puAgpcU
— KimberlyAnnClare (@bonaventure99) April 30, 2017
Tonight, I played with words from the creator of one of the signs:
Blue Brick Texture By Beckas
Recrafted Words By Me
Not Silence – An Unexpected Poem
This is one of the signs hubs and I made for last weeks March for Science in Salem, Oregon…
And also used for the Climate March in Portland today. #RecycleResistance
~~~~
After sitting with these words, put together in this way, an unexpected poem emerged.
“Not Silence”
~~~~
A Fundamental Problem
I hear the voices of people of color crying out to us white folks to get our people together and I absolutely want to make this happen.
Based on personal experience, to accomplish the task, we run across many issues with reaching white Americans founded in Fundamentalist religions.
I grew up in this white Fundamental Christian world, in a state white folks colonized with the goal of founding a white utopia.
I know these folks, have lived among them my entire life, and still try on occasion to reach out to them and bring them forward. But mostly I am at a loss.
How do we change the mind set of people that have a belief system not based in facts and logic? People that literally believe the Earth is ~6000 years old and/or climate change is a hoax. Those that lack, or don’t exercise their critical thinking skills.
How do we change the mindset of someone who verbally abuses and/or gaslights you whenever you try? When sometimes all you physically can do is run away from the interaction that trips all the triggers of abuse you grew up with.
How do we teach people who are uncomfortable with self-introspection, to take the time to critically examine and reflect on their own words and actions? And to reflect on the behaviors of people they consider leaders?
How do we white folk actually accomplish the great task of changing the mindset of our close-minded brethren? Is it even possible when they suspect any source that does not align with their belief system, as elite propaganda??
And most importantly, how do we hold white folks living in denial accountable, when they don’t even believe reality?
Maybe we don’t…
~~~~
The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present.
The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion.
As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.
We must disentrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
Abraham Lincoln — 12.01.1862
Toward A New Normal
One of my goals for my 48th year on this planet is to reconsider and reflect on all the things our society, and myself in particular, consider “normal.”
The election of Trump has a lot of us wanting to make sure things we consider horrific don’t become “normalized.”
But what about all the other things that are part of our “normal” society already that should never have been “normalized”?
