I simply cannot seem to wrap my mind around the current state of the nation. The election cycle has again brought to the surface the fissure in seemingly all of mankind. Left, Right, Blue, Red, Patriot, Snowflake, constant labels being put on people by those who believe differently and the labels are always negative, always derogatory, always meant to inflame and insight further animosity.

I also cannot seem to come to grips with the fact that so much is spewed out of both sides of the mouth: Example: I was born and raised a catholic (long since “lapsed” or perhaps more accurately “recovering”) and for all my life I have heard and read about how god loves us all, in fact, for the past 8 years I spent my post “retirement” working in a catholic middle school. The reality is that in Catholicism, we are actually shown the opposite of the words spewed…God does NOT love anyone LGBTQ, I actually know them to have been referred to by an administrator as “fags” and as “disappointments”…this from someone who represents the archdiocese of Bridgeport…. This same school also loves to talk about how they are family, well that’s a nice thought, but other than in Stepford, show me the family that all marches to the beat of the same drummer (something you are expected to do in that “family” setting. It is also a “sin” to marry someone NOT of the catholic faith, and if you are given “dispensation” to do so they must promise to raise children as catholic or it’s a no go… Why?? if they don’t are the children then “condemned”? if you actively discourage a different belief system is it because you are afraid someone will see the faults in yours?

Then we have the “my body-my choice” anti vax and anti mask people….who are constantly using that slogan to support their own version of idiocy…YET many (dare I say MOST) of those very same slogan spitting buffoons are the same ones protesting in front of Planned Parenthood clinics and doing everything they can to limit and ultimately overturn Roe v Wade. seems kinda contradictory doesn’t it?

I could go on with more examples and anecdotes but you already know the drill so I won’t. The truly distressing thing for me is how much worse it keeps getting. There is no reason anyone should believe the same as everyone else, diversity and difference of opinion based on real facts is healthy and productive. Debate and discussion, discourse and dialog all very good, but when it becomes epithet tossing, name calling, screaming, blocking, filibustering and denial of change for the better simply because you are somehow in power over others, that is unhealthy and unproductive for all of us.

To close this series of thoughts yet more song lyrics that I heard today that kind of fueled this post it’s really about love but I still think it fits:

“Feeling forsaken
Broken in two
How did this ever happen to you?
Taken for granted
Bruised and betrayed
Lonely survivors
These promises made.” Dan Fogelberg