Sometimes life just slaps you in the face and says “it’s time for you to slow down”. Such was the case for me this week.
I have been going on my merry way for months and then I picked up the pace once the weather cooled. I have been weeding, chopping, and pulling up in the yard and in the garden. Then we started on some projects around the housethat have involved pulling, climbing, lifting, etc. You know what it entails when you are trying to clear and sort things out. I had big plans for everything that I was going to accomplish before our trip to San Francisco in three weeks to see Corina, Sherwin and the girls. Then, everything ground to a halt, much like the Kavanaugh nomination. One of my knees is out of commission for a while. Nothing that requires surgery or anything more drastic than sitting still, not climbing stairs and two Advil every four hours. That should be easy, right? Figuring out exactly what brought me to this place is a different matter.” Sometimes, we have to stop and reassess what we have been doing and it may be that our current course of action, no matter how natural it appears to us, has brought us to a stalemate. Life cannot go on without some drastic change. Such is the case, I believe with our society, both here and in great portions of the so-called developed world. Sweden is rethinking where their drift to the left has left them. The British are trying to deal with Brexit and have been so for the last couple of years. There are protests all over Europe because of the massive influx of immigrants. Brazil is on a downward slope. The list of forment goes on and on.
And here we are as well. The animosity between the parties has grown so great that a slide into totalitarianism seems inevitable; the place where all you have to do is accuse your enemy and they will be guilty. The communists under Stalin knew how to do that very well. A mere accusation by former colleagues was enough to send a person to the firing squad. Funny thing, eventually even the biggest accusers, such as Beria, met the same fate. He had been Stalin’s right hand man, but once Stalin was gone, so was his protection.
Could the same thing be going on in our government and society today? It sure appears that way to me, on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the media. The accusations are flying faster than one person can keep up with and they keep coming. This week it’s Kavanaugh and Rosenstein. Before that, it was Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein. Who knows who will be next?
I’m not saying that any of these named are guilty or innocent. I’m saying that the court of public opinion should not be the one to judge guilt or innocence. We did have witch hunts and burning at the stake early in our country’s existence. Remember? I don’t see any difference except for the fact that it’s all a lot more public and no matter where you live, you cannot escape the drama.
Wait, you can! You can stop watching the national and cable news shows. You can exit from Facebook and Twitter. You can start taking part in life once more. Go to a ball game, read a good novel, have a few friends over for some games instead of political discussion, take your chair out in the backyard and enjoy some of the remaining few sunny warm days.
Not all of the hippies in the sixties were activists. Some of them just wanted to drop out and chill. My knee has forced me to do so physically, and this slowing down has forced me to recognize that
I need to do so mentally as well. Perhaps it’s time for all involved to take a deep look at the harm we are doing to ourselves and our country. It’s time for us to stop trying to vilify and destroy each other and figure out what we have to do to heal.