It doesn’t always work out like I hope it will. It’s not always okay.
I’m relearning that truth of late, and I have to say, I’m not a particular fan of it. But I’ve made my peace. I’ve been fighting a lot of what is, hoping for a change—seeing conditions and behaviors that just shouldn’t be and trying to will them to be different.
I am by nature a mediator. Middle child syndrome perhaps. If only reason is inserted in this mix, my impulses assure me, then order and rightness and wholeness will be restored—perhaps achieved in the first place.
But it doesn’t always work that way. Through age, experience, and more than a little therapy, I’ve learned to walk away when insane behaviors around me become toxic and dangerous to my wellbeing. But the problem—the deep problem—is when I can’t walk away. When the toxicity is threaded through society, and there is very little I can do about it. I can speak out, but mainly I’m preaching to the choir and retreading the same path. I can contact my representatives, but they have agendas that are part of the problem. I can ignore what’s happening, but that is an aspect of my privilege and not tolerable to my heart or conscience.
And so I support causes and people that are aligned with love. I look for the humor and laugh—grateful for the court jesters of modern days who speak truths couched in more clever wit than is reckoned by those they lampoon. I march; I speak; I vote. I hold myself to high standards—standards based in love. Above all, I pray and spend conscious time with Spirit.
I accept that the conditions of today are, in fact, what they are. Racism is alive and well in our world, and people literally die because of it. Sexism is deep and ugly and potent. It’s still dangerous to be other than cisgendered. Fiscal inequity is thriving, and the reins are held by a select few who have no interest in sharing them. We are “team” driven and exclusionary—even violent when others don’t look/sound/act like our team members do. We sorely damage our planet, and while the planet will survive, we as a species may not. We collectively are an uneducated, frightened people. Sometimes our inner bullies rise up. Sometimes we are our own enemy. In truth, we are our only enemy.
These are all truths I want not to be true. I thought we as a nation were moving in a different direction—one of inclusiveness and hope and love. I believe we will redirect and move in that direction again. But it’s not today.
What it gets down to—what it must get down to, or I will lose my mind—is acceptance. I accept that these things are so. They are not right or good or for anyone’s highest and best. But they are real. They are what they are. I will not pretend otherwise; I will accept that reason and rightness will not change the reality of what is. And while I can and will work to change these conditions, to change these realities, I have to at least accept that they are so.
And therein is the peace—if not the joy.