An honest wish...

Dallas, TX - March for 15-year-old Jordan Edwards, killed by police on April 29, 2017.

Somedays, I wish I didn’t care.

I wish it didn’t disturb me so deeply to see many of the people I grew up with – who loved me into who I am – blatantly clinging to their love of (worship of?) the demagogue currently occupying the presidency. I wish they didn’t see him as their savior or try to justify his words and actions with tired references to flawed biblical characters like King David. I wish they would stop touting him as a Christian example because of a willful ignorance of seeing anything other than abortion as a pro-life issue.

I wish they would care about the lives of children who have been born as much as they care about protecting the lives of those who have not. I wish they would take the very brief moment to educate themselves enough to know that abortion rates historically have gone down under democratic administrations – not because they are shutting down abortion clinics, but because they are more inclined to implement reproductive healthcare (i.e. birth control) at affordable rates for women.

I wish they would care about women. I wish they would not support candidates, words, behavior, and policy that does harm to women.

I wish they could see the historical realities of this country when it comes to racial injustice. I wish they would take some time to avail themselves to the wealth of educational resources widely available that explain how systemic racism not only founded this nation, but continues to thrive in a multiplicity of  forms today (police brutality is only one of them). I wish they could understand that all lives can’t matter until Black Lives Matter. I wish that sentence were not utterly incomprehensible to them. I wish they could see that racist mascots, franchise names, pancake logos, and the like do cause harm to the peoples who suffered unthinkable atrocities under colonization, slavery, and Jim Crow – but that it costs them absolutely nothing if a company changes their name, logo, etc.

I wish they could see the ways US neoliberal economic policies have contributed immensely to the current struggles of poverty and violence throughout Latin America, and that migrant women, children, and families seeking asylum, or simply an opportunity to build a better life, are no different than their own children and families…or their own ancestors who migrated here in search of a better life. I wish they could see that you wouldn’t squat in a migrant encampment on the border as a hurricane crushes down upon you if going home were a better option.

I wish they could see the current truths of this GLOBAL pandemic and stop pushing conspiracy theories straight out of Trump’s toolbag that it’s all just a “liberal media overreaction.” I wish they would do more than say they care when their own friends tell them they’ve lost family members to COVID-19. I wish they would actually show they care and stop promoting death-dealing falsehoods and start promoting (and living) healthy and socially responsible precautionary measures.

But mostly, somedays, I wish I just didn’t care.

I wish it was easy for me to say things like “we’ll just have to agree to disagree” – as if people’s lives were an opinion of a movie or sporting event – and wipe my hands of all responsibility for the lives and wellbeing of others. I wish they believed in verified science instead of charlatans promoting politics or self-aggrandizement. I wish they loved this Earth and realized it’s the only home we have, and that if we truly worshipped the God of creation, we would understand we are called to care for it in a spirit of humble gratitude, not to ravage it in a spirit of apathy, greed, and dominion.

I wish they could see that love is love and gender dysphoria is real and trans lives matter too. I wish they could understand they only do more harm to people by trying to force the narrowminded/narrowhearted kind of love they were taught by a corrupted Christian indoctrination onto people who love and live differently than they do. I wish they could let go of a few scriptures that have convinced them they are the only ones who know the way to God’s grace, forgiveness, and eternal life – and see that God’s love is big enough for people to come to know God/Spirit/Life in different names and different ways.  

But mostly, some days, I wish I didn’t care.

I wish it didn’t hit a rage-stirring nerve that little else can touch when they clothe these opinions in their misguided understanding of authentic Christianity. I wish Christianity had not been co-opted by US imperialism, capitalism, Doctrine of Discovery, “manifest destiny,” and White Logic centuries before these folks were ever born. I wish there were enough churches that preached a true gospel of Christ’s liberating love for them to find a better God to worship. I wish the Church of US Nationalism and White Supremacy, clothed in a thin veil of Christian imaginary, would soon die. I wish it didn’t feel like my entire life I will be fighting to convince people who profess to follow the same God I follow that nearly everything they’ve been taught about that God is a lie.

But mostly, somedays, I wish I just didn’t care.

But I do care. So I will continue to engage in exhausting dialogues for the hope against all hope that someday, something might click. I will not “unfriend” people I am no longer really (or perhaps never really was) a friend of, but for some reason have allowed me some small entrance into their social space, and I therefore have an opportunity – hope against all hope – that something I say or do might have a positive impact and help them care just a little more for a world beyond their personal circles. And when push comes to shove…

I will fight. I will fight. I. WILL. FIGHT!

For the things I believe in – because they are not things at all, but rather, they are the children and the creation of God. And my humanity is bound up in theirs. I will fight until my last breath – even when somedays, I wish I didn’t care. I will fight not only for those lives who are endangered by the death-dealing structures and ideologies of racism, xenophobia, misogyny, capitalism, and colonialism – I will fight for the souls of the very ones who are upholding those structures. I will fight for them to awaken to the beauty of a world where all peoples can live an abundant life upon this home we call Earth, a home I wish we would all care for and love as if it was our only home – because it is. I will fight for them, even if they are only fighting for themselves, because my humanity is bound up in theirs too.

I will fight. And when I get knocked to the ground by the soul-crushing words, attitudes, and actions of people I’ve known and people I love – I will brush off the dust, get up, and fight again.

Even when, somedays, I wish I didn’t care.

On those days, I will fight the apathy within myself, so that those days are much fewer and farther between the days I’m grateful that I do care.