When I used to go with my mom on her epic 2 weeks of groceries at multiple stores PLUS coupons grocery runs (a frugal queen), my main source of entertainment was reading tabloid covers while waiting in line. Alien babies, the Sun about to explode, bat children discovered in caves, etc. All very exciting and very obviously fake. I assumed that these were some form of comedy/scary stories that maybe only a few (kind of off their rocker) people in the entire world believed to be true and that everyone else just enjoyed as fiction (or major exaggeration).
I would like to live in that reality again.
I need to admit that I have been guilty of assumption. Even as a person who is trained to understand that everyone’s brain works differently, I still have assumed things about the general public that have left me honestly pretty off-kilter.
I often say you can’t shock me about what people do – and you really can’t. I do understand the psychology of humans. It is my field of study and my line of work and my natural intuitive ability. I get people. And in line with that, I truly know how depraved people can be and what people will do to themselves and to others, even those in their care. So, it’s not that.
I just thought that we were collectively working towards being better overall, as a whole. Which I guess we all don’t agree about what that even means.
I’m also never shocked that people in power hide information or do unethical things. That has always been true, the same way people have always had the capacity to be cruel to one another. We see these themes in our oldest texts and stories.
I just thought that it was understandable that just because an entity is not completely transparent with all their info that it doesn’t means they are corrupt. It has proved foolish to give people access to information that they do not have the expertise, knowledge, or context to fully understand and results in more problems than solutions. We do need appropriate, timely, and pertinent information from organizations. We do need accountability and ethics.
We do need critical thinking skills to interpret information and have conversations about it.
And that is where it all goes sideways.
I have been assuming we were all at a dinner table, or even a conference room. Gathering data, taking turns speaking and listening, ready to divide and conquer all the issues at hand with some sense of integrity, decency, and decorum.
We aren’t.
We are at a carnival. One of those kinda creepy ones where everything is a little “off”. We are in a circus tent with clowns and acrobats and we have a lot of people screaming “fire” and trampling all over one another while lots of other people disconnect the water hoses and toss out the people willing to fight the fire saying that they are actually the ones that started the fire in the first place and the water is actually not water, but instead gasoline. We are in a mirrored fun house of manipulators all pointing the finger at everyone else and screaming at each other until the masses either join in or get tired and decide they don’t care, just let it all burn to the ground – there’s cotton candy outside anyways. It’s too complicated, too hot, too dangerous. Maybe we can ride the Ferris Wheel before we go home.
I think being a problem solver in a problem solving field has likely blinded me to how many people absolutely do not have any interest in actually solving problems. They just want the problem to be gone. Solving problems is messy and tedious. You have to identify the roots and the whys. And then, you have to address those things. It’s not simple and it’s not fast. It’s multi-step, multi-layered. It doesn’t headline well or photograph well. It’s gritty. And everyone just wants it to be shiny and quick. So, they take the splashy headline that makes it all so simple, so black and white. Fixed. Just a snap of the fingers. Magic wand style.
People love to have magical thinking that requires nothing of them except to pick the “winner”.
People scoff at the magic of making things better because it’s a magic that requires work and nuance and heartbreak and humility and compromise – but that work, that is the work of being alive; of being part of the big picture, of collaboration and community, and seeing one another, and caring, and letting the breath of the Divine move through us and amongst us and with us.
I am tempted every day to turn away from the fire, let it all burn down, and eat cotton candy on the Ferris Wheel. As time has gone on, I have become more and more disheartened and discouraged. There are so many hard hearts. So much ugliness wrapped up as religion. The work of the darkness is insidious and has its teeth deep, deep in us. We are all surrounded by its venom.
And I’m tired. I’m tired of the way my faith has been turned to mud in the mouths of those who’s viciousness makes people say “ain’t no hate like Christian love”. I’m tired of the demonization of the Fruits of the Spirit and the Beatitudes. I’m tired of the twisting of the gospel, turning it into culture wars, manipulating people, and grabbing at political power while actively ignoring the commands of Christ to the Church (none of which include anything about abortion or homosexuality, but DO include how to treat those in need and the danger of greed, fyi). I’m sick to my core of it. You know that scene in The Green Mile where John Coffey spews all the flies out of his mouth? That’s how sick I feel. Everywhere I turn, there’s more…and more…and more.
My assumption that most people wanted to make the world better more than they wanted to make their life easier was kinda off. I think I drank the PBS, Sunday School, Girl Scout, Vacation Bible School, Nick News kool-aid pretty intensely. I’ve been all-in on these ideas for a while now. Like, pretty much the whole time I’ve been cognizant. I wrongly assumed that at least most of my peers and cohorts were too. But, life comes and takes us down different paths. I want to tap out. I’ve definitely retreated a good bit after taking some hits, just letting myself sit.
But two poems come to mind now – one of mine, and one of another (more well known) poet, Edwin Markham.
If I could find the vessel
that so resiliently
keeps producing this optimism,
I would rip the damn thing out
that would have to be
less painful
than the torturous wait
that hoping creates
always believing
seems so masochistic
there’s no giving up, no numbing relief of indifference,
no walking away
just hope
and stay.
Hope and Stay by Rebecca Chasteen
He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
Outwitted by Edwin Markam
I know the work I am called to and the faith I am guided by requires that I hope, that I stay, that I keep drawing bigger circles, and that I carry water. The masses may not care, but there is someone thirsty out there.
