"Hello there, it's been a while.
Not much, how about you?"
I just realized that I haven't blogged since December of 2014. Not sure why. Don't hold your breath on this one.
In 1969, I walked onto the University of Texas at Austin campus to find an atmosphere that I had never experienced. The Viet Nam War and the corresponding anti-war movement were still raging, and the Civil Rights Movement continued to divide the country as well. America was in turmoil. Many of my professors made their liberal views clear, and class discussions often veered off the topic of the course and into current events. Movies such as Billy Jack (man, that one ages me) offered anti-establishment doctrines that had previously been foreign to me. The audio library was a popular hangout, where I listened to Civil Rights protest songs and anti-war artists that still comprise my favorites play lists. This exciting, liberal milieu energized me and put me on a road to more progressive thinking than I had ever experienced. I will always be grateful for my time at UT because "the scales fell from my eyes" in many ways. I am forever changed by my exposure to ideas that have shaped the person I am.
However, there was a part of me that hung back. I'm not sure why. I had been reared in a conservative Republican town in West Texas by conservative parents, and although I never remember discussing politics with them, I do recall heated exchanges with my father in my teens about images that invaded our living room every evening from Civil Rights protests. I found it unconscionable when he was not as outraged as I was that people such as Bull Connor could even exist. I have, in recent years, told friends that if I had it to over again, I would have done more for the Civil Rights Movement. I would have joined in protests to help bring an end to what I considered to be one of the biggest injustices I had ever witnessed. Yet I did nothing except soak up the rhetoric and listen to Judy Collins sing:
It isn't nice to block the doorway.
It isn't right to go to jail.
There are nicer ways to do it, but the nice ways always fail.
It isn't nice, it isn't nice,
You told us once, you told us twice,
But if that's Freedom's price,
We don't mind.--Malvina Reynolds
Similarly, I didn't protest the Viet Nam War. While I listened to the arguments for both sides and was particularly moved by the huge number of Viet Nam Vets on campus who had become anti-war militants, I still believed that my government had to be right about what was good for the country. I was patriotic. I had two brothers who served in the military. Slowly, I was moving toward waking up to the lies of LBJ and the motivation behind them, but I sat in the library working on a research paper while 20,000 students held a march to the Texas State Capitol. Richard Nixon changed my world view forever, Dick that he was. I never blamed soldiers for going to Viet Nam, even if I felt they had drunk the Koolaid and swallowed the party line. What were young draftees supposed to do? I had problems with the Gung Ho "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" types, definitely. But even when I had begun to change my thinking, I was still inactive. I took no steps toward DOING anything, other than voting, to alter the situation my country was in. I guess my problem is that I could see both sides of situations.
Fast forward to 2016.
My Facebook feed has been inundated with posts about the deaths of young black men at the hands of police in what appear to be totally unnecessary uses of force. The hardest ones to read are from some of my former students who still live in Baton Rouge, my ex home town, and who post about legal protests that turned nasty. And who could not be horrified seeing the cold blooded premeditated murder of the Dallas police officers? I feel great pain for both sides of this issue, yet I do nothing. Not anything so much as repost a poignant image or a plea to end the violence. I have almost reposted "I support Black Lives Matter" pictures, yet I didn't. So why didn't I? Did I not want to offend certain people? Did I NOT believe that ALL lives matter? (As a side note, I read an article the other day that has had me thinking a great deal. The essence of it was that you can't argue that ALL lives matter until you accept first that this country cannot move forward until we stop denying the fact that Black lives HAVE to matter. By arguing ONLY that ALL lives matter, we are denying the institutional racism that anyone with a brain knows permeates our society.) Similarly, I was about to repost a meme stating that Blue Lives Matter, but I didn't. Why not? Because I hadn't also posted something from the "opposing camp"? If I first don't support the thoughts and feelings and outrage and heartbreak of those who have endured institutional racism in ways that I cannot even imagine, then it is disingenuous to say that All Lives Matter. I'm not putting this very well, but I wonder why I can't bring myself to repost anything at all. Again, I find myself with a lot of thoughts on the subject, and, as always, I am trying to look at both sides of the argument. But I sit and do nothing. I wonder why. I detest the unnecessary police violence, yet I also support the men and women in blue who protect us every day while risking their own lives.
This has been a strange summer. An unsettling and unsettled summer.
Don't even get me started on politics, but I fear for the future of our country on so many levels.
I have lapsed into a more lingering physical and emotional funk than in a long time. I'm getting better, but I'm still not completely out of it.
I have found myself deeply saddened and disheartened by some events in my family and in the life of one of my oldest and dearest friends.
It has been so hot and dry that my front yard is burning to a crisp and the shrubs and trees are suffering.
However, many good things exist in my world too.
As I have written this, a God-sent rain shower dropped an inch of much needed moisture (and some hail) on Ridgehaven.
We spend a nice few days at the beach with Carol's son and his family, including their sweet little 17 month old daughter. She is a beautiful African American child who brings joy to everyone, and I pray that she will not have to grow up in a world filled with racial strife. I'm not sure I could bear to see this child of God hurt by prejudice.
I've had five blue birds fledge and another four eggs are in the nest as of now. Who cannot be happy to see blue birds in their yard?
It's Jeep season!!! And even with the heat it's been fun.
Ok...that's enough of my musings for today. Until next time.
