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Turning to Instead of Against Each Other
We live in difficult times. Stories of corruption, violence and down right evilness surround us. Trying to make sense of this state it sometimes seems easier to close it all out, becoming numb to our pain and the pain of others. Often we pretend things will somehow get better tomorrow.
Many of us come to this holiday season with fear. What do we say to our children and our friends, when there is no money for the ‘things’ they have come to expect from us? What do we do when we cannot buy our way out of pain?
Many of us have been chasing the American Dream, trying to consume our way to our image of the ‘middle-class American’. We have come to believe we are what we can buy.
Everywhere we look, corporations encourage us to value things over people. So over the last fifty years the average American family has spent more hours working, chasing an ever-decreasing paycheck to buy things. We use these things to replace the time we no longer spend with families and friends.
The holiday season, sacred to all faiths, has become nothing more than a hyped-up consumer season and a wretched time of the year for those with no money. As more people are thrown off state support for the barest of necessities, as foreclosures increase and unemployment checks decrease, people are turning against one another.
This season we have an opportunity to rethink our values and what it means to be a human being. Can we begin to look past the superficial ways we judge one another by what we wear, what kind of car we drive, or what church we go to? Can we learn to see each other in our hearts and not just with our eyes?
As a community we have a long history of transcending pain, of turning fear to hope and hope to action. We have learned to reach out to each other in service. We have known that a fragmented heart manifests a fragmented world. We have always made a way out of no way.
This holiday season is an opportunity for all of us to dedicate ourselves to building authentic relationships with our families, our friends and our communities.
We may not have money for toys and trinkets but we can wrap our arms around our children and show them how to love. We may not be able to spend money, but we can spend time.
We can set aside time and talk to one other about our hopes and dreams. We can take time to reconnect across generations, sharing stories of family and friends that pass on the values and skills that have enabled us to endure for centuries.
We can ask ourselves what do we need to do to create peace in our homes, in our families and in neighborhoods? How do we decide what we need, not just what we want? How do we live more simply, to consume less and love more?
We are facing an economic and spiritual crisis that threatens our survival and our deepest humanity. But it also an opportunity. It is an opportunity to create a more just way of living. In earlier, more dangerous times we created families, villages, places of worship and respect for one another. We have that creativity within us still.
Let us all celebrate this holiday season through the eyes of a Beloved Community, turning away from wanting things to valuing people. We can turn to one another and ask what kind of community we can create together.
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25 Comments so far
Show AllHaving increased far more than tangible "things", the costs of education, health care and other less tangible necessities are what forces many Americans into working more hours.
Millions of older US workers continue to work full time solely to continue their employer sponsored, relatively affordable medical insurance. This not only forces older workers to work more hours than they want or need to, it also eliminates employment opportunities for millions of young Americans who are experiencing the highest unemployment rate of any age group. Obamacare will exacerbate this problem.
This article seems to think that the problems in our society are the fault of the people. She says, "we can wrap our arms around our children and show them how to love." "we can take time to share stories between generations." These are not true in our society. Mothers have to go to work six weeks after having a child. The child is then sent off to a day care center with ever changing low paid staff. Even the children in the center change as their mother (so often there is no father in the home) loses her job or has to move. The children are taught to be independent. Don't cry. Take care of yourself. This does not allow them to learn to love. They are abused by neglect and the stress under which their family is suffering.
We as a society are abandoning our children. They are growing up without the guidance of caring adults. The base root of this problem is capitalism. We all must work harder for longer hours to keep the nice profits growing for the top 1%. The result is the terrible rate of sickness, mental illness and chronic disease. Long hours away from home and constant worry about the future is destroying our society. We have so over valued the individual that we have destroyed any sense of community. Like the old saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child". We need strong communities and that takes time and connections between neighbors. When a woman must get up in the early dawn to take her child to a care center so she can get to work on time and then after work shop and fix dinner she has no time to put her arms around the child, or demonstrate love or even see the grandparents two days a year. Our villages now are lonely places and the places of worship are empty. The moral tone of our society is based on greed, selfishness and violence.
Maybe the 99% can make some changes so that one salary can support a family. Maybe we can fund good education and health care for all. Maybe we can end these bloody wars of conquest and empire. It's a big 'maybe', but it's all we got. We must change our government. What we have is bad and destroys our families and our future.
It's not about fault but about responsibility. As long as we blame "them" or "the system" (which we support by every daily act), then nothing can ever change. Authentic change begins in the heart, and each of us is responsible for the way we live in this world.
As Victor Frankel (concentration camp survivor) learned "Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Spoken like a good Nazi, Robert River. However, we're not in the camps quite yet.
To some extent, I agree that we have created our own problems.
The corporate-run government got there because of us. We gave them all the power.
They called us "CONSUMERS" and we said how high should we jump. Here, take all our money.
Do we need to read a "book" on a computer display? What about checking a real book out of the library? It's free.
We have spent too much of our hard-earned money on CONSUMERISM and we thought the government would take care of us.
STOP BUYING factory-farmed "food", toxic electronics from China, carcinogenic chemicals (AIR "fresheners", "cleaners", etc.). Throw out all the chemicals under our sinks.
Buy local and organic. Budget for it. Cook for ourselves. Clean with vinegar and water and baking soda. Walk. Practice yoga. Eat a plant-based diet. Filter our water.
We need to protect ourselves and BOYCOTT the toxic factory-farmed "food" and all the chemicals that are making us sick and weak.
Stay strong and healthy. It's practically all we have left.
I do not understand how Obamacare will exacerbate the problem of people not being able to afford medical insurance. Although I do not think the even comes close to being as humane as the healthcare systems in Canada and Sweden, Obama did what he could to give some relief to those who have trouble affording insurance. I am not a person who defends everything Obama has done but I think Obamacare is a step in the right direction toward Universal healthcare, which is a necessity in this country and around the world. I for one have been personally helped by Obamacare--I had to take a year off from college due to health reasons and my insurance would have been dropped if it wasn't for The Affordable Care Act, which guarantees me coverage under my parents' insurance until I am 26.
The mentality that Lowe speaks of so eloquently is ultimately about remembering what is important. Although liberals and conservatives may disagree about political issues, I think almost all of us have the ability to feel compassion and we need to make use of this ability (it's there for a reason, whether or not you believe in evolution or creationism). I often find myself wanting to demonize those who I disagree with politically. I ask myself, how can I know in my heart I am right yet those I disagree with feel just as strongly. I sometimes wonder if there are just two different types of people who will never be able to come together and make the world a better place. I have realized, though, that this mindset is dangerous and counterproductive because hate can only breed more hate. This is something I know for sure. Another thing I know for sure is that those who put money above all else will lose out in the end. I thought this piece by Lowe was moving, inspiring and most of all, understanding her message is vital to the continued existence of the human race.
As a former Michigander, I send best wishes to the folks of Detroit. Detroit is an excellent example of the stark contrast between the 99% and the 1%--Grosse Pointe, Bloomfield Hills and their ilk. Gloria is right about the need to turn to each other for the strength and courage that will be necessary to go forward in this struggle. Venceremos. We shall overcome.
This is a marvelous piece. Forgive my obsessive-compulsive academic nature for drawing attention to "The holiday season, scared to all faiths,". I'm pretty sure you mean "sacred", don't you? Thank you regardless.
Mike
I agree, it's a good piece, but having read a stack of student papers with their usual spell-check-proof errors ("definitely" is spelled "defiantly" more often than not), I laughed at the "scared to all faiths." I hate the holidays, so I had to say to myself, "I'm with you, woman!"
This reminds me of a scene in Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat Cradle":
During the Christmas season, a group of typists referred to as the "Girl Pool" come to a research scientist's office to sing carols.
When they sing "O Little Town of Bethlehem", instead of singing, "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight", they instead sing, "The hopes and fears of all the years are here with us tonight."
FWIW, I haven't researched the question, but I am certain that Vonnegut got this from real-life experience, and didn't just make it up.
Was it Vonnegut who recorded children saying the Pledge of Allegience as "with liberty, injustice for all"?
I've seen that variation from time to time, but AFAIK it wasn't Vonnegut who captured it.
As you doubtless know, there are countless variations of "mondegreens" derived from the pledge, as one might expect whenever children are required learn obscure, esoteric gibberish by rote.
For instance, there's the kid who asked his mom who "Richard Stands" is.
Mom doesn't know, and when she asks the kid why he's asking, he replies, "Because every day we have to pledge allegiance to the republic for Richard Stands."
Kids say the darndest things!
BTW, you can reach Kay Johnson at kaymusjohnson[at]yahoo.com.
Reminds me of the time there was a special school board meeting at a very private school, posh community, with head honchos, coifed women with all their finery, held to discuss a very important issue (escapes me now). The presentation, 18 pages, was read and reread by the school administration, 7 PhDs and MBAs, and the word was never caught: public - without the l. Poor secretary was immediately dismissed. Had a good laugh on that one. Remove that word from spellcheck, public, without the l.
Of course the "poor secretary" was immediately dismissed-one has to protect her boss who had the ultimate authority for the document!
The problem I have with that statement is that ALL faiths consider the holiday season to be sacred. Yep, every last one of them, or at least only the major ones.
I like where you are coming from Gloria.
The passing of nth resolutions and drafting new bills and amendments into law will not help the plight of mankind in seeking a [world] that even Voltaire could not find. Nonetheless, it’s refreshing to be reminded of the spiritual side that could be harnessed to complement the universal smile on one’s face recognized the world over.
If you have time you might want to follow this simple exercise: The poem by LH is simple enough; two small verses that mean basically the same thing. Now rewrite a mental first verse incorporating [your] dream (on any issue) and compare it with the dream of the [other] in the second verse as you would imagine it to be. LH did not have this in mind when he was living in the failed experiment. He knew however, that blood ran through the veins of all mankind and that a mother's love for her child would be the same whether she was black or white or ……; hence the parody of meaning in the two verses. The exercise is endless with similar results.
His dreams did come to fruition Gloria and maybe one day what you aspire will come true as well.
DREAMS ….By Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
A wonderful, uplifting piece by a very admirable woman. Thanks CD for this.
For those who have been grappling with necessity right along, how do you look into your children's eyes and tell them they have no future? When you go without eating so your children can eat, when they see the standard of living in the visual media, "reality can not redeem the impact of a movie screen." The level of expectation is no where near the ability to provide. The schism is heartbreaking and only accentuates your inability as a parent. You have failed. I wager there will be more suicides than ever before. As people give up looking for employment so will they give up whatever else is left.
Perhaps one can find optimism, from a longer term point of view, that is inspirationally found in John Trudell's speech about "Poetry, Politics and Perspective" ?
See his brilliant YouTube video : http://bit.ly/vFL39q
"John analyzes our current social and spiritual state as a featured speaker at the US Social Forum in Detroit, June 2010."
I particularly liked his idea that revolution is essentially for suckers, as every revolution is ultimately about their inevitably becoming the new status quo -- that the rest of us later must oppose.
John recommends EVOLUTIONARY and conscious thinking, that frees us one-by-one from buying into the process of self-maintance of our own mental and cultural enslavement.
"I want to speaks to you as …human beings, because I think we're in a dimensional reality where we don't communicate as human beings, we don't identify as human beings, because of the way the distortions and imprinting have been layered and imprinted into our consciousness. … I think that … what the Technologic Civilization does, is that as part of its mining process, is to suppress and erase the memory of the the human being from us, and turn us into citizens, race, culture, class, gender and all these other things that they then turn and make divisive. We're human beings, … that's a piece that's missing in whatever is going on, is us acting from the consciousness and perceptional reality of a human being."
His rebuttal of O'shyster's 'Hope and Change' is but one of thousands of other reasons to watch this 37m long tribute to wisdom and 'being the change.'
In short, this is a multigenerational effort, to authentically know our true worthiness and sacred ties to the Earth and each other, to throw off the mental shackles that bend our thoughts and then our bodies to mostly unconscious subservience.
Thank you Gloria Lowe. The timing is perfect, after hearing the Florida Group forcing Lowe's, among others, to void their support for a Muslim program. To have this kind of situation - it's bad enough during the year, but at this very spiritual time? We're making a resolve to bring stronger spirituality into our lives, as you so eloquently expressed. That warm human touch.
"The holiday season, scared to all faiths"
I, too, couldn't help but notice this apparent Freudian slip. What is truly sacred to all faiths has no season. What we call the "holiday" season has nothing holy in it - it is a frenzy of participation in the consumerist "faith" of modern humanity - a "faith" that we've successfully exported - often at the point of a gun - to most of the world. Freedom as nothing more than the freedom to consume - to consume things, people, our own souls and the natural world which should be our temple.
No one would admit to " not following" one own conscience and when choices are made and so all who make a decision to act in a certain way cannot claim ignorance. Some will take the high road, like this lady,; and some will take the low road. Karma will have the last word and so I try to not throw rocks at anyone. The try, on my part, gets very heavy at times. Tony
As long as we are subjugated by the capitalist profit machine; as long as we succumb to its marketing ploys and social engineering, we will remain locked in this hierarchic prison.
The only purpose of profit is to ensure the dominance of those who take it over those from whom it is taken.
How wonderful, to be able to love even when your child is sick and you cannot afford the doctor's fees. And you're actually one of the lucky ones who could afford health insurance - the problem is that your child once had some totally unrelated sickness and on that basis the insurance company is pronouncing her "a habitually sick child" or "sick-prone baby" and refused to pay the cost (I was shocked when my grandson was given this reason for his kid's disqualification). And ain't it nice when you know your house - after your car has to be sold to pay your elder daughter's college tuition - is soon going to be taken over by your ever-loving bank. Yeah - great to put your arms around one another during this festive season of joy and remember that Christ had a worse time some 2000 years ago. At least no one in your family is giving birth in a manger - yet. In the meantime, to continue along that thought, let us not be a dog in a manger but be happy that at least some other God's creatures, especially the 1%, are going to overfill their bellies with food and wine and laughter, while we - to demonstrate our moral superiority - continue to hug each other with faith and love and hope. As God sees our wondrous joy, to quote Mark Twain, "all Heaven boomed." And Hell has to wait for us 99% patiently, though not too long.