Seeing Otherness

I’ve said it before, but life in physical form is tricky. Instead of feeling our oneness with each other, all too often all we see is the otherness. Today is an example of this as another lunatic with a gun killed more than fifty people and wounded fifty-three more in a local LBGTQ nightclub. And although he was evidently born in this country, he has a Muslim name so cue the inappropriate comments from the crazy guy with the funky hair.

Opportunism is apparently more important than sensitivity with the funky hair guy. We live in the United States of America. As I was typing that, I initially typed Untied instead of United. Maybe I should have left it that way, because our country feels increasingly untied these days. The venom amongst the progressives rivals the take back my country teapartiers of a few years back. It’s disgusting and I refuse to participate in it.

We have a woman who is more qualified than anyone we’ve seen in a long time running for President but do we all rally behind her? No. Instead, people believe the lies that have been orchestrated by the conservatives over the last twenty years or so. I read tweets on Twitter by younger folks that seem to parrot everything FOX Noise has said, thereby avoiding critical thinking at all cost. Because after all, if we hear a lie enough times it becomes true, no?

Better healthcare? Nope. She tried when her husband was president, but they vilified her. She was a terrific Senator and her staff loved her when she was Secretary of State, but do progressives rally around her? Nope. Instead they bring up Benghazi and then demand her arrest.

Because she understands Wall Street, she obviously must be in cahoots with them. She’s a woman, so she must be playing the woman card, odd then that so many top military leaders support her. Her husband dishonored her, so she must have been involved somehow. Their friend commits suicide, so of course she had a hand in it.

And if women support Hillary, then we’re doing it because we’re all girls. And it’s known everywhere that girls do everything together. Evidently no one is capable of independent thought. Right. Well, think what you like, but I’m with her.

Whether it’s women, gay people, people of color, old people, young people, poor people, uneducated people, or anyone else that doesn’t find themselves in the one percent of those who believe they hold all the cards, it’s the arrogance of the haves in this country that has cost everyone. For some reason, many in that long laundry list of people that I happen to belong to sometimes adopt this same arrogance that oppresses even them, something I’ll never understand.

It takes no time at all to find examples of otherness. We saw such an example in Orlando today. Look around and you’ll see it everywhere. But we have a chance to rethink, to regroup, when tragedies like this mass shooting occur. We can see past the otherness and see a friend, or family. We can see the Source Presence within all and experience the oneness that is our true essence.

But for now, we’ll hold our friends and family a little closer and extend love and blessings to those who have lost so much.

~Blessings to all as we find our way back to each other.