I was planning on writing about figs. Friends shared the bounty of their tree and my tall Richard helped pick a few higher-up ones for the others with his feet still on the ground. I always enjoy it when he does good simply by being tall–something he didn’t choose, it just is. Like the color of his skin.
I can no longer remain silent.
I haven’t mentioned the news of late because I felt nothing I could say could be enough and at the same time I simply wanted there to be one place on the Internet where people could rest from all that for a moment to read about, oh I dunno, mandarin trees and Costco shoppers playing falling piano to my roadrunner. Or whatever.
And yet some things require they be addressed. I feel John Oliver has done the best summing-up so far of Ferguson, Missouri. Daily Kos, meantime, reports that Tibetan monks arrived there to represent for peacemaking, knowing that sometimes simply observing people often improves their behavior in ways that transcend the barriers of language.
The whole issue of the over-militarization of our police is being shown and borne on the shoulders of those who have the least but whose power is that they may yet change our nation for the better for what they are having to endure–the huge betrayal by those who swore to protect them, the betrayal too by those who give in to their anger late in the nights and allow the rogue forces to justify themselves.
There is the utterly innocent black man beaten by them before Michael Brown, who was charged with destruction of city property for bloodying the cops’ uniforms with four officers later lying during the deposition against their own signed statements. Enraged at finding they had jailed the wrong black man, they’d been determined to make him pay for it. There were video cameras everywhere there, as there must be in such places, and yet somehow no recording of it could be found.
One of those cops is now on the city council.
All those images, all that grieving for the human spirits on both sides of that huge divide and for how much better it could have been, should have been, needs to be, must become for all our sakes….
I wrote this on Facebook at Robin Williams’ death:
Every person matters. You matter. Whether I know you or not, you matter to me.
…….
And that, in the end, is all that matters among us. May we so live.
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We all need to know that we matter to someone. In this age of smart phones…and social media…and the quick and mean comments that are too easy to fire off on a keyboard, we all need to know that. If I don’t matter to anyone, if my life doesn’t count for something (or even if it does), if I don’t matter, why should I go on?
Thank you, Alison, for reminding us that we all matter. Every.Single.One.
Comment by Pam 08.19.14 @ 11:15 amI really love this post! I feel calm reading it. Thank you for making time to write it.
It does make a difference to know we matter and to be watched as we behave. I can attest to that with my 3-year old… On both counts.
Comment by Suzanne from Montreal 08.19.14 @ 6:22 pmLeave a comment
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