New Chapters

A typical day in my life doesn’t usually go according to plan. But one morning last week was an exception. I fit in a workout and shower before 7am, the older kids got dressed and did their morning chores without extra prompting, and the day was off to a positive, earlier-than-usual start. It stayed that way all day, too. Hi-fives and feel-goods all around.

Here’s the issue: whenever I have a day that good, I expect every day to be that good. Just like I expect the kids to always be good just because they’ve demonstrated that they can be. Just like I expect myself to always be super-productive in every way. (You’d think nine-plus years of motherhood would have beaten that out of me, but I am, by any indication, a slow learner.)

And then, when the day’s not so smooth–and it usually isn’t–I am hard on myself, hard on the kids and impatient with pretty much everyone and everything. That person is not the person I want to be and this daily pattern it is not the way I want to live.

The older I get, the more I am convinced that the things we would wish for if genies were real are things that cannot be wrapped and put under a tree. Improved health. Restored relationships. Peace. Freedom from worry. A job we love. We all have something. And for many of us, the fact that we don’t have this thing can easily lead to frustration and, well, impatience with ourselves and with the world. There is a restlessness to our humanity that no amount of consumerism or distractions can satiate.

There is a well-known passage in I Corinthians, Chapter 13 of the Bible that lists love’s attributes, and among those attributes is patience. I’ve read or heard this passage approximately 783 times in my life, and I think I’ve always understood “patience” to mean doing things like waiting for a slow walker, or, I dunno, listening to your grandma tell the same story for the tenth time. It’s only recently dawned on me that this is a very superficial understanding of patience. Patience is kindness is forbearance is love is patience. It is seeing the flaws and failings of another, and of myself, and accepting the person anyway, being gentle anyway. Not because you don’t see the flaws or don’t expect better, but because you know how hard life can be on each of us, and because a gentle response has never done the harm that an impatient one has.

This has become manifestly apparent in my parenting. Between encountering a new preadolescent in my oldest child, scooping up the 30-some pound angry acrobat that is my terrible-two-ish youngest, and not neglecting the middle child, I often lose whatever cool I may have once had. And when this happens, I doubt my skills as a parent and worry that I am ruining my relationship with them and scarring them for life. A little more self-restraint and patience with each of them and myself would make all the difference. Of course, a change this fundamental is easier declared than made, but it is still January, and it is not too late for resolutions. (Not that it ever is: resolutions are made when you are ready for them, not when the calendar dictates.)

So, patience. It’s my resolution for the new year. Patience with the kids when they act like, well, kids. Patience with myself, as I am a less-than-perfect mother and human being. Patience for this messy, imperfect life that we all live.

Knowing Our History

In 1923, there was a 31-year-old man applying to become a naturalized citizen of the United States. He was college-educated and a U.S. Army veteran. His case ended up going all the way up to the Supreme Court, where his petition for citizenship was ultimately rejected. It was rejected because, even though Bhagat Thind was classified as Caucasian (a racial category used at the time but since debunked), the Court deemed that he was not a white man, and therefore not eligible for citizenship per the laws of that time.

Most of us have heard about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. There’s more to America’s immigration story. After World War I, the National Origin Act of 1924 also sought “to confine immigration as much as possible to western and northern European stock.” As recently as 1954, the Attorney General, Herbert Brownwell, launched a program he dubbed “Operation Wetback,” in which he deported half a million people to Mexico, more than half of them U.S. citizens. This bears repeating: hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens were deported from the U.S. as recently as 1954.

1954.

In 1954, our current president was ten years old. The America of 1954 and the America of 2018 are worlds apart. There were no cell phones in 1954, and no internet. The Korean War had just ended and Vietnam hadn’t happened yet, and neither had 9/11. The Montgomery bus boycott was still one year away. But the two Americas are not so far apart that a single lifetime cannot span them. Why does this matter?

It matters because many of us, whether we were alive in 1954 or not, think that we are past racism. We are “post-racial,” we are an advanced and civilized society. The Civil Rights Movement happened, some laws were passed, and we are all good now. We think everyone knows that race is not genetically dictated and does not, in any case, dictate your character or your humanity. (Didn’t know that? Or don’t believe it? I have some good reading to recommend. Or go attend some lectures. Watch some documentaries. However you learn, go educate yourself.) But we are not so far removed from the America of 1954 that its racism does not still run thick through the nation’s veins.

Yesterday, our president used extremely vulgar language to describe immigrants from Haiti and African countries, saying we should instead be attracting immigrants from Norway. Let me be clear: the language wasn’t describing the countries’ governments. If it was, he would have included places like Yemen, or Syria, or Ukraine. The language he was using was describing the people, and specifically, black people. It is shocking and angering, but perhaps it shouldn’t be. His words were vile and offensive, no doubt, but we first have to acknowledge that many Americans still believe that what he said is true (the “at least he says it like it is without being PC” defense). And until we acknowledge that this belief is not Donald Trump’s alone, we cannot address the fact that Trump isn’t “saying it how it is,” he’s saying it how he thinks it is, and so are the people who agree with him. And until we get them to understand that this is not, in fact, how it is, we cannot truly advance as a country.

A lot of ugliness has been unveiled in the last year, and a lot of ignorance. It is disheartening and it is, sometimes, frankly frightening. But it has to be unveiled in order to be eradicated. What gives me hope is that many people have also shown a lot of bravery and a lot of kindness and a lot of intelligence in this past year. And while I don’t claim to have many answers, I have hope in those things. We will never be a perfect country where every person is well informed and well-intentioned, but I believe we can be a whole lot better than we are right now.

Donald Trump’s racism is not just his problem. It is not just his problem for two reasons: the first is that he represents and speaks for all of America, whether we like it or not. The second reason is that he is not the only one who holds these views. So it’s all of ours to work through. And we begin by knowing our history.

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Recommendations I think would be helpful:
Books on Immigration, compiled by the Smithsonian
Books on Race, with this second list. Take note of the books that appear on both.
Readings on race and immigration featured on PBS

My Resources:
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color-Blindness. The New Press, 2012.
Ian Haney Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. New York University Press, 2006.
U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS, The Tarnished Golden Door: Civil Rights Issues in Immigration (Sept. 1980).

Decade Turning

In the months leading up to my birthday this year, the big questions have often and repeatedly pushed into my thoughts: am I living the life I want to live? The life I was meant to live? Have I accomplished all that I should have by this age? (What is it, by the way, that I should have accomplished?) This was, you see, the year I turned 40.

Even just typing those two digits is surreal. Forty-year-olds can’t claim the hint of youth that thirty-somethings can claim (and that twenty-somethings possess outright). And the evidence is there. My body doesn’t recover as easily as it used to from exertion and injury. Also, forty is the age that women are supposed to begin getting yearly mammograms–how’s that for a sign of aging?

On the flip-side, I have less fear of people’s judgement of me, but more fear for the fragility of life. Fewer things make me panic, but when I do worry, it’s a can’t-sleep-at night kind of worry. The way I respond to life’s surprises has changed, and I hope it’s for the better.

I realize I’ve traveled many miles when I look back at the last decade: my belly has swelled and deflated three times with the growing of three new lives–well, not fully deflated, but that is a topic for another day. I have nursed those three infants for a total of almost three years. My family has suffered, and survived, the sudden loss of my father. I have completed a professional degree, accomplished some work missions that I am proud of, and written my first book. I have learned immeasurable lessons about forgiveness, bravery, kindness, love, and a number of other things that make us human.

The time for textbooks and swaddling blankets is behind me. Turning forward, I know that many personal and professional opportunities for growth and failure await me, as do more lessons in humanity. Looking forward, I also know that my mission, along with my husband, is to lead those three lives in our charge through childhood and adolescence and nurture them towards the best of themselves.

Forty is in part a look back at one’s life to see if any of those 14,610 days have been wasted, but it is also a reckoning that my life, assuming God grants me a long one, is half over, more or less. And do-overs are not guaranteed. Time is fleeting; you can neither pause nor repeat it.

If I miss enjoying my kids at a certain age, that chapter is gone. They keep growing and cannot revert. If I miss the opportunity to do something new, that opportunity may never come again. If I decide to give the markers of our lives (birthdays and holidays, for example) a pass one year because I just don’t feel like it, that occasion is gone. If I have the opportunity to lift a stranger or friend up in their time of struggle, and I do not, for whatever reason, I forgo that gift. The place for those memories is empty, and I think one of the things I fear most is to look at my life, both at its end and in the after-life, and find that where those riches should be, there is only emptiness.

So the question I have to ask myself is this: what do I consider riches? When I am old or gone, what will give me pleasure and pride to remember? What kinds of memories will allow me to say that I have lived a good, rich life? What memories are worth storing up? Whatever those are, that is what I have to pursue, earnestly, in the present.

Forty-year-olds are supposed to have it together and be settled in life. They are supposed to know themselves and have answers to all the big questions. I for one don’t have it together and the answers to the big questions evade me as much as they ever did. OK, maybe not as much, but neither do I have it all figured out. And in a way, I hope never to, because when you think you have all the answers, you stop asking questions. When you stop asking questions, you close yourself off to all the mysteries that remain unanswered in this wild ride called life. And this ride is one I very much am still on.

The Holiday Ache

A buzz is in the air. I see, even as they go through their routines, people attending to work or school with a light touch and the gleam of warmth and turkey in their sights. It is Thanksgiving week.

Many of us will be seeing loved ones. Many of us are preparing for the holiday. Meals. Travel. The house for hosting. Something. There is an aura that surrounds people at the thought of the holidays. Busy-ness and anticipation. All most of us long for is to enjoy one another, yet these memories don’t create themselves. So as soon as Thanksgiving’s over, it’s full-on holiday frenzy. Gifts and Christmas parties and holiday greetings. I’m already drained thinking about it.

This year, I’m not in the spirit. And I know I’m not the only one. So to all the others out there who will work to put the festivities into the upcoming holidays, even though your heart’s not in it, know you’re not alone. Thank you for doing it anyway. In her book, The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin quotes, “It is easy to be heavy, hard to be light.” This little nugget of wisdom has burrowed itself in my mind, and it often comes to the forefront of my thoughts these days. So take heart, fellow non-jolly people. New Year’s will arrive. And then we can let winter be winter. And then, while we wait for March, I will do my daily work, then revel, in between the scarves and warm boots, in winter’s gift of cozying up in the early dark.

Seeing the Pixels

I shut my ears to the voices of discord and anger. I shut my eyes, searching for the peace that the God of all things bestows. Colors flow through my mind: ruby anger and amethyst death and obsidian fear and jade destruction.

In the face of darkness, emboldened and unveiled these past months, I find myself mute.

The fact is, I’m tired of being outraged, of watching greed and narcissism use power to oppress. I’m tired of being sad, of grieving for all the senseless loss of life and love and for all the pointless, useless pain.

‘Hug your loved ones close and appreciate the good in your life.’ We’ve all heard a variation of this message in response to life’s hardship. It is important, because gratitude gives richness to our lives. But is it enough? In the face of active corruption and cruelty, is it enough?

A still Voice reminds me that there has always been and always will be darkness in the world, but that there is also light. The Pantocrator urges me to keep my own peace in the world around me. Reminds me that this life exists for how I use it to prepare for what comes next. Urges me to be the light. And so I imagine what would happen if more of us tried to be light.

What does it mean to be light? With each oversimplified meme and soundbite I encounter, I am becoming more and more convinced that it means shining light on things as they are, not as they’ve been made to look. We live in an age of spin doctors–that wasn’t just a nineties band. Shining a light means looking beyond the spin: listening to or reading actual sources, not just someone’s interpretation of them, and evaluating them on their own merits. It means analyzing leaders’ messages and then calling out their inconsistencies, because too often the stories they tell change on a weekly basis, and it takes someone reframing what has happened for us to see the truth. Be that someone.

Yes, there are some diametrically opposed beliefs about how we should proceed as a country, and there are some very, very strong feelings about them. Feelings of anger, of defensiveness, of contempt, of hurt. These feelings are valid. And I’ll be honest. Speaking for myself, I don’t always know what to do with them, other than be aware of them, examine them, and when appropriate, direct the fire they ignite into a solution.

My point is this: there are proponents for every cause and every political stripe that use the same tool to their own ends. They use a broad brush with which they paint the “other” side, dismissing it as stupid or evil (the adjectives used are harsher), or with which they paint their stance as flawless. Those strong feelings we all have are exacerbated by those with the giant paint brushes who would convince us that the other side hates us and, if left unchallenged, will take away everything we value.

Can we leave the fear mongering and diversion tactics to our current head of state and his team of trusty sidekicks? (And by that I really mean call it out.) We the people are being played, and it is time to step away from the tweets and direct our attention to what the government is and ought to be doing.

We are, as I’ve said before, a big, complicated country. Healthcare, public education, gun control, welfare, emergency and disaster management, environmental regulation, tax reform, taking a knee and the NFL, name the issue. Now read something longer than three sentences about it, or have a respectful conversation with someone who disagrees with you. It doesn’t take long to see that the issues are multifaceted and often intertwined. If they were simple, smart people would have solved all the things.

We have to start applying our minds and not only our anger to these issues. We have to zoom in and see the pixels. They are not just red, yellow, and blue; they are all the colors that emerge therefrom. And if we can’t each zoom in on everything –and none of us can–then we have to choose what we can zoom in on and let others do the same.

I love that so many people are talking about topics that in other days would have been obscure: gerrymandering and redlining, to name a couple examples. I believe very strongly that information and awareness among citizens are crucial to developing a truly democratic civilization. And I am realizing that forbearance and a willingness to listen before defending are also important–and skills I need to work on. I won’t ignore that there are those who will always hold their broad brush and only see red, refusing to see anyone on the “other” side as anything but a *#&^%#. But they are by no means the majority, and they cannot be the force driving this country. Our strength is in our many diverse experiences and voices, and we ought to allow each other the space to question, explore, and learn.

When I was in college, I attended a talk given by the outgoing president about the college’s motto: Lux Esto. He reflected that the Latin phrase actually had two translations: “be light,” the commonly used translation, and “let there be light.” In other words, shine your light and enable others to shine theirs. I don’t know why that message stuck with me, but I understand it now. I cannot think of another time in my life when it has been more important.

In the face of darkness, emboldened and unveiled these past months, lux esto.

Dread

Near the end of a charity ride I rode recently, there’s this long, steep hill. I know this because I’ve struggled up it in previous years’ rides. Without fail, each time I’ve ridden, I’ve seen riders hop off and walk their bikes up, sometimes before even attempting the climb. The memory of that hill filled me with dread as I pedaled through rural Ohio backroads that day. “If I can just make it up that hill,” I kept thinking, “I can enjoy the rest of the ride.”

The thing was, that hill was only five or six miles from the end, which meant that I wasn’t enjoying the first several dozen miles. So fixated was I on this one point on the road that I was not enjoying all that came before. Instead of taking in the scenery and basking in the sun and fresh air as I rode, and instead of enjoying zooming down then coasting up the rolling hills, I was thinking, “I need to conserve my energy to get up that hill. I need to slow down.”

So it goes with life sometimes. Mostly we don’t know when we will encounter obstacles in our path, but occasionally we do, and the tendency that I, like most, fall into is to worry about it. As if worrying will change anything.

We often confuse worrying and planning. I am a big believer in planning ahead, especially for obstacles or difficulties that will take skills or resources I don’t naturally have at my disposal. Planning, I believe, is a necessary component for success. And it alleviates, or at least reduces, worry. In past years, for example, I have followed a cycling training plan and, on the big day, been able to enjoy the ride, confident that I would make it up that hill. And I did make it up. But life isn’t always neat or predictable, and this year, despite my best intentions, I just wasn’t prepared enough for an obstacle I knew was coming. So even though I had planned, life had happened, and I regressed to worrying.

With age, I’m slowly learning that I must balance how much effort and time I put into preparation with the attention I pay to my immediate surroundings and what joy I might find in unexpected places. Life is beautiful, and it’s bittersweet, and yet sometimes, for all of us, it is hard and dark. And one thing I know is that we are not meant to live our lives in dread of those dark and difficult chapters. It takes deliberation to not allow dread to overshadow joy.

I like riding my bike. I love it, actually. I love seeing a stretch of empty road ahead of me, flat or rolling or curvy, and just pedaling. I like reaching that point where my cycling is rhythmic, and my speed fast enough to feel like I’m flying but slow enough that I truly see the surrounding scenery. It calms me and rejuvenates me. I shouldn’t have wasted a single mile of my ride worrying about that hill.

As it turns out, I did make it up, though I came within a hair’s breadth of putting my feet down and walking up the rest of the way. But you know what? If I hadn’t made it, it would have been just fine. Sure, I would have been a little disappointed. But I’d still have finished. And the funds that I raised would still be going towards a worthy cause, which is what is important. Next year, my goal will be to enjoy the ride. Be prepared as much as possible, but enjoy the ride.

Living at the Speed of Walking

In the world of running, it’s known that those early minutes and miles are important in setting your pace. Once it’s set, your pace is much easier to maintain. In our lives too, the pace we set for our days become easier to maintain once we’ve established the routines and habits that determine that pace. For many of my peers in the U.S., that pace can border on frantic. “Busy, but good,” (or some variation thereof) has become the standard answer when someone asks how we are. We must be busy. If we’re not busy, we must not be doing worthwhile things. We must not be taking full advantage of our days, or being as efficient as we “should” be with our time. If we’re not busy, it must be because we don’t have anything important enough going on.

Where does this view come from? I think the answers are almost as numerous as the people who would answer them. For some, staying busy may be a way of avoiding–or if one is fortunate, of answering–a more serious but less pressing question: am I living the life I want to live? Am I fulfilled? Do I have people in my life who I love and who love me? Do my actions show who (or what) I love? Have I made the right choices in life? Surely being busy is a reassuring sign?

For others, it may be a way of proving to the world that one has indeed made the right choices, and that one has succeeded. The fact that I am so in demand and have so much to do is proof of the value of my contribution to the world (or to my own pockets–but it’s not polite to talk about that).

Maybe another type of person stays busy aimlessly and without intention, with activities that could easily be cut out of their lives. (But if I’m less occupied, I might get–horror of horrors–bored.)

And certainly for some, busy lives are a necessity: low wage jobs, financial obligations, and/or family obligations force some to work far more than the 40-60 hour weeks that many work, and to stay moving at home even when they’re not at a work site. Leaving aside for a moment why people are busy–the above examples are only illustrative–the question I’ve been asking myself is why we (not all Americans, of course, just me and almost everyone I know) are so accepting of being–no, aspiring to be–so busy. Why do we want to be able to say we are busy? I have to wonder if an important force behind it is the American conviction that a successful life is a life full of doings. People will see or hear the lists of projects, organizations, etc. that someone is involved in, and be more impressed the longer the list. And in all fairness, it is probably why we as a country are so dazzlingly productive.

I can certainly say of myself that I am tethered to this value of doing. I do not, for the record, want to be. Yet here I am, working on untethering myself, but still far from it. In this sense, Australia was a great teacher.

In the 18 months we lived there, thousands of miles away from the work I did and the activities I was involved in, I saw and experienced a different life. The people around me, working parents, retirees, at-home parents: they were not quick to say they were busy. Their lives were and are full, there was always something that needed to be done. But that rarely prevented them from stopping to talk for a while before continuing on their respective paths. They did not try to impress with their lists of accomplishments–or at least none that I’ve met did, despite the fact that some certainly could have. Even allowing for a moment that my sample of Australian culture could be skewed, and Australian society (in larger cities for example) is generally just as doings-obsessed as the United States, it still begs the question: is there something to this lack of value placed on being busy? Can I learn something from it?

I once had a person from the States ask me, while we were in Australia, what I did all day. The question, of course, itself carries a value judgement: are you busy? If you’re not, what’s wrong? But more pertinent to me was my own response. I rattled off a list of all the things I had done in the past couple of days, just to prove I am still doing a lot. I no longer want to answer that way, and I don’t want to be doing something all the time.

I am working on un-tethering myself from this mindset, but it is an old and deeply ingrained habit. I have made progress though: before going to Australia, I would not even have dared challenge myself to break this mindset. If my pace is broken, can I regain it? Can I reacclimate to my old life? The question should be: why do I want to?

And the answer is: I don’t want to, and I am working on removing from my life the sense of obligation that I have to. I don’t want to because there is more to life than being productive. There are more important goals for me, like making time to reflect on my life and constantly adjusting my choices to match my values: loving and serving others, being the best parent I can be, and tending to the state of my own soul, to name a few. Yes, my life is full. (How can it not be, with three kids, lots of family and friends, and work?) But when I have meaningful conversations with loved ones, they are not about time-saving hacks (those are useful, but not what I will value in my old age), but about our inner lives. So my goal for now is to have more meaningful conversations more often. It is to ask, and truly seek an answer to, “how are you?” It is to find joy and laughter, because those are among the first things that busy-ness steals from me. So is self-reflection.

Will I be able to change my mindset, if not my pace? I don’t know, but I am trying. And in the trying, I am hopeful that I can set a new pace.

On Becoming the Person I Used To Be

Maybe motherhood is a metamorphosis, like a butterfly’s, and I’m in the cocoon phase. But if so, I’m pretty sure I’m doing it backwards and going from a beautiful butterfly to a squishy slimy worm.

You know that mom in the grocery store parking lot with her hair falling out of her ponytail and stains on her yoga pants and a determined smile on her face while her offspring yell and tug at her? I always felt sorry for her; she couldn’t even get it together enough to handle a grocery store run. But not anymore. Now….well, now I find ways to avoid going to the grocery store solo with all three kids. Fresh fruits and vegetables are over-rated, and what’s more, I don’t need your judgment, thankyouverymuch.

Some time ago, at the end of weeks with the kids off school, I realized my voice was actually hoarse from yelling at them all day. If you know me even a little, you know I’m not the yelling type. But I’d been yelling, and a lot. When did I become this, I asked myself? Does it have to be this way? What in the name of all that is good and right in this world has my life become?

Yes, it is a beautiful life, full of beautiful, healthy children who live and love large and out loud in the heartbreaking way that only children can. They have taught and continue to teach me more than anything has. They bring me joy and pure delight. Yes, it’s a life with a wonderful and committed spouse and lots of memories being made. I am fortunate; I know I am. And I know they will grow and change and need me less and fly away. I know all that. I know I should be grateful for this time.

But sometimes, think of me what you will, I am not. Sometimes, I can’t take any more of their living out loud. I just want quiet. In fact, in the precious few quiet moments, early in the morning or late at night when they’re in bed, I think I’ve become someone I don’t recognize. And that is pretty terrifying. I say things that would be laughable in any context other than among kids, and I say them so frequently I am sure I will go crazy from the repetition. I am very happy to climb under the covers at 9pm. I drive a minivan. Going to the movies, or to, well, any type of event, is no longer a typical Saturday night. It’s a once in a blue moon occasion to be anticipated and savored. So is finishing a meal while it’s hot. Come to think of it, so is finishing a thought or a sentence without interruption. And it’s been this way for so long I have to concentrate to remember it wasn’t always so.

I have to remember too that, although examples like these are easy to find, they do not define who I am. Like the creature in that cocoon, the essence of who I am is buried somewhere behind the toys and school papers and constant chatter that are my environment these days.

One day, I hope to return to myself. I hope my kids will know me as I know me, or the me I imagine I am at my best. I hope to be able to have the conversations with them that I always imagined having, even when I was a kid myself. Right now, I’d take even the ability to talk to my kids without interrupting myself to yell things like, “How many times do I have to ask you not to pinch your sister?” or “Don’t interrupt someone when they’re in the middle of talking,” or a whole host of other things that are, simply, maddening.

But what if there is no returning to myself? The dreams I’d had of the type of mother I wanted to be are slowly being reshaped by reflections of the type of mother I am becoming, and the relationships I will have with these particular kids in our particular life. I hope that my kids will know me one day as a person, not just their hassled, frazzled mom. They may never know the young woman I used to be, but that chapter is long closed. Motherhood is a metamorphosis, and I’m in the cocoon phase. Until that cocoon breaks open, I don’t know how I will emerge. But I do know there is such a long road to travel, and in those multitudes of hours, there is the opportunity for betterment that I mustn’t let pass.

Examining our Relationship to Washington

What do we expect from Washington? Specifically: 1) Do we as citizens ultimately want the same things from our government? 2) What role should government play and not play, in our lives?

I saw a bumper sticker the other day: “I Vote My Values.” Well, sure, lots of people do, right? And it works when we all believe the same thing. It works just great in a country that is monolithic socially, religiously, and culturally. But how well does it work in America? Because America is not that country.

America is a country at a crossroads, where our values are testing and being tested by our traditions and history. Chief among these values is a deeply held belief in every individual’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; a belief in everyone’s freedom of religion; and freedom from tyranny. The beauty of this crossroads is that the true meaning of these values is being held up to the light and truly examined, for many people, for the first time.

Our traditions and history, as has happened at previous crossroads in the story of America, also need to be examined so that we can preserve what is important, and know why we are doing so. Our traditions and history tell a story of a country that has been at turns deeply xenophobic and also inherently welcoming, whose members are hard workers with big dreams and also are broken and struggling. But the traditions and history we hear most often told are the ones told by the powerful majority, as is most often the case with history. That history is of hard work leading to success, and success being defined, on a personal level, as owning a home with a white picket fence, a late-model car in the garage, 1.8 kids, closets full of clothes and recreational equipment, belonging to the Judeo-Christian tradition, having a nice big flat-screen TV in the living room, and perhaps a dog or a cat. Fit this mold and you will have lived the American Dream.

And yet. America is a country of over 318 million people. 318 million. We are not a “split screen” America or a nation of two Americas. We are a nation of dozens of Americas. Americans are urban folks, rural folks, and lots of suburban folks; religious folks, spiritual folks, and atheists; market-driven folks and values-driven folks. Americans include people who seek solitude and open spaces, and people who are spooked by any place without a data connection and a good cappuccino. Americans are married and Americans are fiercely single. Americans are every shade of human skin. Americans are rich and Americans are counting every dollar until their next paycheck.

You think all these people share the same values? Absolutely not. We make different choices and have different priorities. Regardless of how lightly or seriously those values are carried, and regardless of how much someone else may disagree with them, the beauty of this country is that we are free to live the lives we want, so long as they don’t infringe on others’ rights to do the same. We don’t have to agree with each other or support every decision our fellow citizens make–we don’t even have to like each other–but we do have to respect each others’ liberty. To tamper with that is to risk our own liberty–because what happens when your values and choices are under attack and those protections are too bruised and broken to preserve your liberty?

Is there a way for all of us to live alongside one another? Our country’s founders believed so, and they laid out a road map for it in their early writings. (Haven’t read the Constitution lately? Refresh your memory; most relevant as today’s background are the amendments, the first 10 of which are the Bill of Rights. And don’t forget the Declaration of Independence.) There is a lot packed into these relatively short documents, but the vision of the society the founders imagined has an overarching theme of freedom. I’ve never heard anyone, regardless of political stripes, disagree about the importance of preserving freedom. (Americans have, though, framed “freedom” in many ways over time, which will be a topic for a future blog post.)

Besides the desire for freedom, what do our expectations of Washington have in common? Are we voting for our leaders based on a common vision of what we want America to be? I’d argue the answer is yes, and no. Most Americans want the country to be safe and prosperous, and we want good public services (clean, well-maintained roads and public spaces, clean air and water), fair taxes, and good schools for our children. Most Americans want the country to be the fabled “land of opportunity,” free from oppression and full of big dreams. But as evidenced by the two Americas described by our main political parties, we don’t agree on how to achieve that America.

In normal political times, what we would see on C-SPAN is debate and discussion about how to achieve that America. That, I will posit, is the role that government should play. The role that government should not play is to force everyone to conform to a certain set of values (except, of course, the values that are universally held–e.g. murder is bad–and that preserve our democracy). So when we “vote our values,” are we saying that we want to send representatives to Washington to enforce our own values in government? How about if we turned that around and sent representatives to Washington who would preserve everyone’s rights to have their own values, while working on the issues government is supposed to work on? I for one look forward to the day when the government’s work is slow, thoughtful, and focused–and, let’s face it, more boring to everyone but the policy nerds among us. I look forward to a government where foreign policy, economic policy, education policy, climate change, and the like are the topics of debate. By people who understand them because they have devoted their careers to studying these issues. And I hope that when that day comes, more of us stay tuned in.

The World Is On Fire

I’m not going to lie. Every time I tune into any type of media these days, the world immediately looks mangled and dark. This new era in politics is unknown; between the Bannons and the DeVoses, disruption is about the only thing we can safely predict. But what I want to focus on here is that we, as Americans with opposing political views, cannot seem to have a worthwhile conversation about any of it. The emotions that any political talk seems to tap are, simply, combustible. The increase of available information, some of it valid and some of it not, and some of it relevant and constructive, some of it not, means that everyone’s sources of information are feeding them competing and contrary narratives. So let me ask a question: To what end?

This is America. We are diverse and we have always had “robust” national discourse about the best path for our country to move forward and prosper. But this is not national discourse. This is all-out madness. This is painting each other as demons or idiots. Most of us are not, so can we try to remember that the people we called fellow citizens a few months ago are still the well-intentioned people they were back then? (I say “most,” because, certainly, there are people who, in the pursuit of less-than-noble goals, cause harm, and we’re not all geniuses–or necessarily the best informed. But it’s not naive to say that most of us mean well.)

Need I spell out the obvious result of this madness? We all become entrenched in our opinions and vilify the other side even further. (My deepest respect for the few who are open to changing their views when presented with convincing arguments or facts.) Our government then reflects this entrenchment and refuses to work across the aisle to move our country forward. (Wait–our government’s already there. Is it possible for the malfunction to get worse?) The point is, if we continue down this path, we all lose.

Trump’s candidacy and election have emboldened the worst in America. (And in recent days, it is emboldening the best, but it is only beginning, and yet to be determined.) We see the worst not only because his election emboldened or forced extremist individuals and groups to come out of the shadows (more on that in a moment), but even more because his election, and the candidacy preceding it, have turned civil discourse into a screaming match. Half the country’s angry. Half the country’s scared. The other half is defensive. And angry. And we’re all shouting to have our opinions heard. That’s not all Trump’s fault. There were all the -isms (racism, sexism, etc.) before. There was opinion-sold-as-fact and oversimplified or misrepresenting memes before Trump came along. But he has managed to harness it to his great advantage, and we are all paying the price.

So can we not? Can we just not? Yes, the stakes are high. People are suffering real harm–most recently in the area of immigration–and will likely continue to in other areas (ACA repeal crisis, here we come). Not to mention the people who have been mocked, beaten, or otherwise suffered at the hands of emboldened extremism since November 9. But these dark forces are not what I want to focus on, because I am clinging to a faith that our laws will not take away basic protections of safety, and that police, judicial, and civil forces will continue to uphold our laws. This does not mean that peoples’ lives won’t be affected, or that our most vulnerable members won’t be attacked and hurt before law enforcement can act (which is why, by the way, so many people are genuinely and justifiably frightened for themselves and their loved ones), but it does mean that we have not lost our democracy. Yet.

If, however, we continue to allow this constant vilification of each other, then the fight is only going to get uglier. Our government will be less stable and less able to execute legislation, and our civic life will become more inflammatory. Worse yet, in the name of keeping society from all-out chaos, this government will restrict our freedoms so much that we will lose our democracy. Yes, it is possible.

In an ideal world, we would all agree on some rules of engagement. Here’s what my rules would look like:

•No ad hominem attacks: the amount of mockery, and painting people with a broad brush, is crazy. Learn to criticize someone’s ideas without criticizing who they are. Same goes with groups. I hate seeing posts about how those liberals or republicans are such hypocrites because ____. Just stop with the name-calling, m-kay? It serves no purpose.

•Use a common language. A basic premise to any fruitful conversation is to speak the same language. Because we tend to get silo-ed in our communities, I suspect half of us are using terms that are foreign to or misunderstood by listeners. I’ve learned, for example, that not everyone knows what “racism” or “hate speech” mean. Clarify when necessary.

•Take the time to fact check. As you’re talking. And if you’re not sure of something, pause and, as my old friend likes to say, consult the oracle (your phone). It’s ok. We can’t all have all the facts we’ve read readily available in our mental Roladex®. And if it turns out you were wrong, admit it. Or at least go home and read up on the subject. Don’t dig your heels in.

•What would you add to this list?

Everything is not alright. But using our words as swords instead of building blocks is not going to make it better.

orangeskyandmoon

Reflections on life, parenthood, and writing.