On the Horizon...

 

Hi! 

So, a few days ago, someone who incessantly spouted hateful ideas, perished, literally, while promoting the very thing that took his life.

I don't condone any kind of violence. I think the death penalty is barbaric. But, I also don't believe, no matter how someone passes, that their death, in any way, erases or changes the things they did while they walked this earth.

If you spew hate, bigotry, and misogyny over every platform you can find, influencing gullible, vulnerable people to believe in that garbage, the world need not pretend you were some sort of hero once you are gone.

My heart breaks for his children, they are just babies. But so were the kids cut down in yet another heartbreaking school shooting in Denver that very same afternoon. 

The fact that some want to turn this guy into some kind of martyr makes my stomach hurt. 

When thoughts and prayers are the only actions taken, nothing changes. 

This guy rode a horse so high, he couldn't see the ground. He carried religion and morality in the same hand, trying desperately to force them to meld. They don't, they can't.

If your religion fills you with the remotest sense of superiority toward others, in any way looks the other way while evil plays in the shadows, or encourages you to do anything short of fully embracing every person under the rainbow, it's not teaching morality or ethics, or empathy. 

No, it is, instead, teaching entitlement and self- righteousness. Training you so well, you'll be able to ride that high horse without thought, blindfolded. 

I come from a long line of people who have tied their souls to the pomp and circumstance of ceremony, fully believing that those who don't will be forever damned. So, I get it. I really do.

I believe everyone has the right to take part in religion, I just don't believe that any one religion is superior, or more correct than another. Of those I've studied, there are positives and negatives to all of them. 

Some lament that organized religions are losing members, followers, and want to say that it's because humanity is losing its morality. I argue that maybe it's because humanity is trying rediscover their morality, salvaging it from under all of the fire and brimstone. 

The world seems pretty morally bankrupt in certain spaces right now, but if you listen, you find its those who bathe themselves in Bible verses that are pushing for the unhoused to be discarded, for the LGBTQ+ community, both young and old, to cease to exist, or at the very least, have the decency to get their asses back in the closet. 

Look, I think we can all agree that murder is wrong. But violence is not JUST wrong when someone who has made a career out of stoking hate becomes the victim. It's JUST as wrong when you allow grown men to marry children. It's just as wrong when you swap covering basic needs of your most vulnerable for Presidential golf trips, some hideous patio, a gaudy ballroom, and a million spray-painted gold, dollar store appliques to make 'someone' feel like a king. It's definitely JUST as wrong when you scoop people off the street for no reason, other than they are varying shades of not-white, and throw them in your gulags, funded partly, I might add, by the tax dollars generated by the hard-working people being held in them. 

None of us see the world through the same lens. 

We are simply products of our personal experiences. 

Almost all of humanity is born with a sense morality, an instinct, an inner voice, something that guides us to be decent, empathetic people. 

How we internalize our personal experiences as we grow up, and as adults, can help that instinct to sharpen, grow, and evolve. How we internalize our personal experiences as we grow up, and as adults, can warp that inner voice, twisting it, molding it toward self-service. How we internalize our personal experiences as we grow up, and as adults, can numb that sense, almost into oblivion, turning empathy into apathy.

None of us see the world through the same lens. Our personal experiences as we grow up, and as adults, are a mosaic of beautifully broken pieces, as no one gets through life without scars. A myriad of accidents, both happy and not-so-happy, as nothing ever really goes according to plan. 

I guess my point is this...

Don't let the hard things in life twist your instinct, or make you not care. Don't let the hate and fear, disguised as righteousness, replace your empathy. 

I know my personal experiences continue to change the view through my lens. I'm constantly learning as I go. 

We'll get through this rough patch. Historically, hate has a hard time keeping grip on the upper hand. I see peace and progress on the horizon, it's in the distance, but it's definitely there...

We are, all of us, each of us, every single one of us, only here for such a short while. If we are very lucky, we might see more than eighty summers, experience love, create precious memories, have a family if we choose to, be who we authentically are, and laugh more than we cry. We should all have the right to these simple joys... equally. 

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