We need to cross the floor
Collaborating with the enemy
There are few really evil people. Almost all of us do bad things, make mistakes, lash out, step over, dismiss. Often from hurt, fear, protection, or ignorance.
This week I heard a group of privileged 15 year olds speak of slavery as something worth doing to refugees. In truth I am still trying to reconcile that. I am in shock that this could even be a conversation in 2018.
The same day I stepped back into conversations with the very people who had done their best to destroy a community project I had created two years ago. I have no idea why they did this. It has taken me two years to recover from the grief.
Our current world is so divided. So broken. We are on a boat that is designed to do this…create obscene wealth for a very few, and hardship for the rest. To exploit and extract, reduce and use. To turn humans into refugees and refugees into non-humans. To take beautiful Earth and tear her apart.
As the mechanism that has been designed to do this continues, those who gain the most seek to turn those who do not to fight each other. This keeps the attention away from what needs to be attended to the most. We need to build a new boat that makes the existing one obsolete.
In the history of the world when the larger system is broken, the change comes from the grassroots. From people. From you and me.
We have our differences. Yet our suffering is similar. Our yearning is the same. We want access to health, security, education, dignified work, community, belonging, love, respect.
We need to cross the floor and hold these aspirations as our common ground. We will not always agree on the pathway. We can agree on the destination. It is a good place to start.
October 18th 2018
Photo taken October 18th 2018
