Where is your heart, America?

More innocent lives lost. I didn't want to face it, think about it, much less write about it. How in our country with all its beauty and freedoms could there be another devastating school shooting? How can we as a country let this keep happening? Because we all know, it's not just about guns and gun control. 

It's about fear and anger. It's about a total lack of leadership in all our branches of government. The legislative branch is too busy filling their own pockets with corporate bribes to do what they are voted into office to do: help everyone get health care, education and jobs. The judicial branch is too busy ruling in favor of gerrymandering and campaign contributions. The executive branch is in chaos because the wrong person is in the 'big house' due to a foreign interference.

Where, oh where is the true America?  I don't know. 

No one seems to know. And that, is the truly scary part. Because of that fear, I see people acting out in vicious ways. Threatening tweets coming from the top only lead to more viciousness and bullying all the way down to dear, sweet children dying.  

We're losing our way in this labyrinth of muck all around us. When even the Olympics is tainted by mean girl and guy commentators who care more about their outfits than the courage and strength and talent of the athletes, we've got a real problem.

Where is your heart America?

Our forefathers came here from a land where people were starving, beaten and jailed by the powerful English. They wanted freedom to speak, pray, live and love. They wrote our constitution to give us ALL the right to pursue happiness. 

Lately, I've been struggling to find it. I don't want to get mired down by the muck slung around by others. I don't want to shut down either. I've been avoiding my feelings because I don't want to take away from someone else's deep, deep loss by writing about how I feel about it. But I need to feel the deep sadness for those mothers and fathers and children who lost so much in Florida. We all do.

This loss hurts my heart. And my neighbors. And yours, too. 

And that's how I know our hearts aren't lost. I see it in the sweet face of my grandchild learning to count, my neighbors children walking their dogs and learning to drive, people stopping to talk on the corner and help others on an icy sidewalk.  

When I see those smiles, helping hands and friendly faces, I feel the strength and truth and roots of our hearts. It's my way, my small way to navigate through the muck and find my way back to love.

Thoughts as this Year is Ending.

On guns:

What was once a necessary survival tool has become an unnecessary threat to everyone's survival. Military weapons do not belong in civilian hands. If we let this happen, what's next? Every neighborhood having their own nuclear bomb? We don't allow armed tanks to drive around neighborhood streets, so we shouldn't allow military weapons either. Strict gun regulations need to include not just tough background checks but mandated gun training and licensing. If we can do that for driver's licenses, we definitely should be doing this for guns. 

On net neutrality: 

What are we talking about here? Free and available internet access for everyone. It's that simple. But corporate internet companies want to make it complicated for a simple reason, what we don't understand, we won't fight for. Let's re-brand this immediately because the label was created to confuse the public. We need free, accessible Internet as much as we need lights.

On sexual misconduct: 

Let's just stop it. Now. Abusers need to be convicted. Period. But let's also acknowledge that there are abusers on both sides of the fence. Using power for sex and sex for power is wrong no matter what spin you want to put on it. And, there are also levels of misconduct here, so let's not make the mistake of painting everyone with the same wide brush or pointing at one gender over another. 

On greed and corruption:

Our country is overflowing with problems stemming from corporate greed. That greed has infected our government on all three levels; executive, legislative and judicial. We've forgotten how hard generations before us worked for a free and equal nation. We've forgotten how the stock market crash and the depression brought about the many regulations to insure free trade, communication and social services to help everyone. That's how our nation has not just survived but thrived. It's time to remember and fight for our rights once again. 

On perspective:

Especially this time of year, let's look up at the sky. See the stars and the moon. Breathe. 

And remember we all share not just this planet, but this country, state, city and neighborhood. Every choice we make can help us all to be healthier, happier and safer. 

I'd like to end with this quote from Carl Sagan:

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Let us look out from our tiny dot in that sunbeam.

Yes, we are all different colors, shapes and sizes. We all come from different places. We all have our own stories. And it is these differences that strengthen us. Let your story shine a light for all of us to see, so that we can all move forward.