I am haunted by photos of doctors
and nurses sobbing with scars from the plastic masks digging into their skin. I am haunted by mass graves and wooden boxes filled
with bodies of the victims. I am haunted
by images of death and destruction across our cities, by protestors fighting
for their freedom with guns and pride, by protestors fighting for racial equity
and recognition after witnessing a viral video of man take his last breath beneath
the knee of a police officer.
I awake in the night, my heart
hammering in my chest, worried, angry, scared and so filled with love for my
family, for humanity, for this world that I am overtaken by my inability to fix
things. I seek sleep, alcohol, food,
writing, shopping online and social media to take me away from it all.
The enemy isn’t politics
here. The enemy isn’t racism. The enemy isn’t the disease. The enemy is fear. The news tells a
story. What we believe is all on us – we
see the truth we want to see, triggered by the beliefs we choose – how the fear
steers us.
That police officer knelt on George
Floyd’s neck because he was afraid. It
wasn’t fear from the black man, it was a fear instilled at the age of 2 or 4 or
17, something triggered by something else – an abusive parent, a broken
friendship, a brokenness of the soul.
We witness that fear in our
leader. He isn’t driven by compassion or
love for humanity. He doesn’t know the
meaning of it. He is driven by fear –
fear they won’t like me, fear I won’t get re-elected, fear that I am the failure
I saw reflected from my mother or father’s eyes.
Why do people hate him?
Why do people support him?
Fear.
The republicans don’t want to lose power. The democrats don’t want to lose power. All these beliefs come from fear.
Is the Corona Virus hyped so that the liberals can sabotage Donald
Trump’s re-election? Ask anyone who
couldn’t be by their loved one’s side as they took their last breath. Ask the person looking into the eyes of a
nurse with a visceral fear before he is intubated. Ask the mother who lost her
child due to the child’s overactive immune system. Ask the Navajo and Hopi Nation in America and
the remote Amazonian tribe members in Brazil who are suffering from it. They
don’t care about Donald Trump. To give
him that much power is ignorant, and it portends a greater demise for our country,
for this world.
It takes bravery to recognize the fear and turn it around.
It takes bravery to step outside
and look up – to notice the blue sky, the awakening horizon, the sleepy night
sky. It takes bravery to fight for
something greater than the fear.
Fight for Humanity
Fight for Health
Fight for Freedom
Fight for Beauty
Fight for Truth
Fight for Equality
Fight for Love
Do this in defiance of the fear.
