Ghosting God, Ghosting Self
Day 20
Trump is in China going to get outmaneuvered by Xi, again. Trump is in China and he could very easily give Xi the green light to attack Taiwan. Netanyahu is in Jerusalem and using AI to gin up more racism and hate, Putin is in Moscow and sowing his usual hatred for everyone not Putin and where are We the People? This is the question that is nagging me every day.
Witnessing the successful pushbacks in cities where Miller et al wanted to open concentration camps for immigrants they deem here illegally is one way that We the People are showing up. The Democrats keep trying to win the redistricting map war through process while the Republicans just muscle their way to victory-one way to witness the NON-SHOWING UP by these phony ‘good’ people. We are in a war for the soul of America, the soul of Freedom and to allow the enemy to use our vulnerabilities against us is EVIL ON OUR PART! I am not advocating violence, I AM advocating “taking it to the streets” once again! We the People are being called by something much larger than our fears, our need to “go along to get along”. It is the call of our ancestors who WERE IMMIGRANTS- many of them could be considered illegal, the ‘dregs’ of society, even Trump’s grandfather may have come here illegally! It is the call of our descendants, our children and grandchildren. As a child of a WWII veteran, there were never war stories spoken about, my father did not want to put his trauma upon his children. When my oldest brother left college and had to go to boot camp for the National Guard, my father shook with his memories of boot camp and the anti-semitism he encountered. We the People owe our ancestors who braved everything to allow us to grow up in freedom, we owe our children and grandchildren the same opportunity we had, we owe one another the dignity of being human and decent towards one another, we owe God gratitude for being alive, for the hope that this day brings, and the power to change, be one grain of sand better. None of this is possible as long as we the people hide and stay small in our little bed with the covers over our head!
I am thinking about the 3 ‘men’ who visited Abraham to bring him news of Sarah giving birth, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the saving of Lot, his nephew. Abraham, instinctively knew these were messengers, he rushed to serve them, he listened to them intently, and then had his famous conversation with God-bargaining for the life of the people of Sodom and winning the bargain, only to be unable to find 10 good men in the kingdom-which sounds crazy and, how many good men/women can we find in positions of power in our government today? I do not think we can come with 10 either. Against the greatest power in the universe, God, Abraham stood up through his fear and argued for the sake of people he did not know-just as the demonstrators are doing when We the People stand up to: ICE, to the proposed and in use ‘detention centers’, to the illegal raping and pillaging going on in the West Bank, the illegal war Russia began and CAN NOT SEEM TO WIN against Ukraine, etc.
While as every recovering person will attest to, we may be powerless over Trump and his ilk here and abroad, We the People are not powerless over protesting, changing the ‘way things are’, arguing for the sake of heaven-not self, and fighting for what is Holy- “love your neighbor”, “proclaim freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants therein, “love the stranger”, “all men are created equal… with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, etc. It was done in 1776, it was done in the French Revolution, it was done with the Magna Carta, it was done with the Russian Revolution, it was done in 1948, 1956, 1967 when Israel was attacked and/or going to be attacked.
I am the son and grandson of men who believed in the human spirit, who practiced the principles of the Bible while not being what most would call “religious”, they would not have worshiped at the Golden Calf of Trump like some Black and Jewish ‘holy rollers’ do! They fought for the dignity of all people, they believed in the freedom-having come to America without much, having fought in WWII to preserve our freedoms and the freedom of Europe and Asia, stood up against prejudice and senseless hatred because they were subjected to both. This is my inheritance, it may be yours as well. We the People have the epi-genetics to resist the cruelty and fight for freedom.
ACTION STEPS:
Have an inner dialogue with the cruel, negative parts of you that still want to prevail
Find the antidote, the contrary action necessary to transform your cruelty/negativity into ways to serve decency and kindness
Read the story of Abraham and God re: Sodom and meditate on standing the FUCK UP instead of sitting down to “get ahead”
GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi Mark