Cry for Love

Do you see the news somewhere?  Even if you don’t watch TV news, headlines and big stories show up on FB and in conversations.  If we are wanting more love, more harmony…well, love and harmony are pretty low volume at the moment.  What’s making the noise and the news? Here are some recent voices, my thoughts on what’s behind them, and what we might do.

Donald Trump on Mexican immigrants: “They’re bringing drugs.  They’re bringing crime.  They’re rapists.”

I don’t even want to quote the racist comments being made by people with a public platform.  Or hateful remarks made towards the gay community.  Or the trans community.   But they cross my desk/screen/awareness all too often.

I’m into positive thinking and “looking for the good.”  I truly am.   My heart starts to hurt when I see the hatefulness, the efforts to control or shame or ostracize others “unlike us,” as it were. We, in this country, have been heating up the hatefulness these past few years.

Much of what is being spouted in hate lately masquerades as some “right” or other, loud voices shouting about rights and pointing fingers.

My dad was a thoughtful man who did his best to live an ethical life. One of many things he often said about freedom and human rights was this:  “My right to swing my arm ends just a little short of your nose.”

I call it the Disease of Oppositionalism.  Many people are eagerly engaged in finger-pointing, blame, judgment and other forms of hatefulness.  How are we different from the hotspots of the world that have suffered for years with warfare and the inevitable poverty, displacement and destitution that follows war.

Researcher and author Brené Brown learned in her extensive interviews with people about issues of worthiness, joy and shame, that the research proves this: we are inclined to judge others most harshly in areas where we feel unsure of ourselves.

To see someone doing “worse than we are,” in an area that we don’t feel very secure in, is a perfect opportunity to judge. Add in hatefulness for good measure – to further distance ourselves from “those people.”

This explains why someone like Josh Duggar, while lecturing others on family values, gets caught in a commercialized affair through Ashley Madisondotcom.   Oops!  Maybe he was feeling just a bit uncertain of his ability to remain faithful and honest with his wife and family?  So, hey, let’s just find someone/some group to judge and “Take a Stand for Clean Living!”

Like the minister’s note-to-self:  “Your point is weak – POUND the podium here.”

Who amongst us is not a bit timid about having a real conversation with someone we disagree with?  About abortion rights, immigration, guns, gay rights, trans-sexuals, even religion?   Do we feel safe or are we afraid we’ll be shouted down?  Or shamed?  It’s easier to talk about something inconsequential, like the weather, or sports, or…  Then everyone goes back to their own safe corner and stews in their own opinions.

Watching our world through the screens of online news and Facebook, it’s painful to see that isolated hatefulness simmer and stew until finally it boils over into a desperate act of some sort.  Or in some cases, a really foolish and inflammatory remark made by a newscaster or a public figure.

If you are thinking I’m coming to some sort of awesome answer by the end of this blog, sorry to disappoint you.  I dreamed last night of watching a news story of a group of gang members, including a young boy, with bombs strapped to their bodies, who blew themselves up in the street because of the chronic anguish of living with violence and hatefulness.  I was grieving to watch it.

Just a dream, I know.

The Course in Miracles says that everything is either an act of love, or a cry for love.   NO one does not want love.  But so many of us are walking through life so immersed in shame and self-loathing that we must find someone else to dump it on.  To blame.  To hate and demonize.   Only creating an enemy can make us feel one-up, a bit better about ourselves.

I don’t know the way out.  But I have a hint of the direction.  And I’m doing the best I can to move in that direction.  Here are my suggestions to turn the cries for love into Love itself.

1. Confront bullying wherever you find yourself facing it.  Your spouse?   An encounter at the store?   Politics?   You may or may not be the target.  Especially confront it if you are in a position of power/influence and someone without that power is being bullied or shamed (white privilege can be useful… use it for good).  WARNING – don’t risk your life or injury to do this. Be smart.  
2. Expand your heart.  Love bigger. The bullies are doing it to deflect or numb their own sense of shame and fear. Love them too. But don’t let them get away with exercising their “rights” while denying rights to others.
3. Forgive someone you need to forgive.  In time, forgive everyone.  Don’t stay in unhealthy situations.  Sometimes you need anger to get out, like rocket fuel.  But once you are safe, set about the business of forgiving.
4. Watch your own tendency to judge others.  Might your temptation to judge be concealing an issue you could stand to do some healing work around?  Ask for help from trusted people.
5. Talk with safe people about these issues and develop language that you can use when you need it.  We must speak out against hatefulness and oppositionalism.  Dissolve it.
6. Lastly, watch for opportunities to connect and have respectful, honorable conversations with people you disagree with, first maybe on neutral topics, then eventually on the hotter topics.  Find a way to build bridges.

My rights should not take away your rights, nor vice versa.  These are hot topics and need to be discussed by people who are not afraid of knowledge, truth, and honoring each other.  Our country was founded on principles of respect, freedom, cooperation and responsibility.   Also knowledge.  Hiding in corners nurturing our grievances and nursing our prejudices until they explode into the light in pain and judgment is doing nothing good for our world.

Everything is either an act of love, or a cry for love.  Find a way to build bridges.