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Thoughts From Las Cruces As We Approach 2021

 

Commentary:  We are united by our love of the Organ Mountains, the Chihuahuan Desert, this community, and our homegrown chile, never misspelled “chili.”

We share an ideal of freedom, embodied imperfectly in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and by the imperfect men who wrote those and freed us from the dominion of a king. That they held other humans as slaves sullies their fine words. Nor did they recognize women or folks of other colors as their equals.

Having acted selfishly and thoughtlessly, and spoken out with youth’s arrogance and now with curmudgeonly impatience, I too am far from perfect. I’ve had excellent teachers and wonderful friends, but none has been perfect.

Our country, like ourselves, is a work in progress. While we have grown, and are correcting our Founders’ vision to embrace those whom they did not, we built our powerful country by slaughtering those from whom we took the land, and abusing those whom we enslaved to fuel our economy. We have created deep economic inequality, particularly during recent decades. While we have fought tyranny, we have also bullied many smaller nations into accepting tyranny.

Here’s hoping that in 2021 we have the strength and thoughtfulness to be the best country (and community) we can be. And to listen to each other about what that means to each of us.

In 2020 we are united by the pain and confusion of the plague. We disagree on how best to survive COVID-19, but all are suffering, whether from the illness itself; grief; lost jobs, savings, or dreams; hunger and thirst; or depressing isolation. Our youth have been forbidden their bold explorations: physical sports, intimacy, harmless mischief, trial and error, and “bull sessions,” all compelling and necessary. A year is a huge chunk of a young person’s life. Our loneliest old folks can’t hug us. And consider the breaking hearts of parents who now cannot even feed their kids.

We have focused more on our disagreements than on what we share, just as our bad knee or aching back grabs more attention than the many bodily parts that work just fine. We scream at each other about different political figures, without noticing how much we all love laughing with friends and watching our children grow, or feeling the sunset glow of the Organ Mountains somewhere inside. We enjoy watching light play on the water in an irrigated pecan field, even while we fret over water scarcity.

For most of us, something larger than our ego demands our respect, something we try to honor when we act. It may be God, Allah, or Jehovah Shalom; Changing Woman, Krishna, or Buddha; our connection to humanity, to nature, to Mother Earth; or just a nagging sense of Mystery.

These are difficult times, even without a pandemic. We are bitterly divided. But what if our humility, our love for something more significant, unified rather than divided? If shared humanity outshone petty fears and jealousies?

Without blinding ourselves to the world’s injustices, perhaps we each could reach into our deepest values, which are surprisingly similar, and live by those, while listening critically to how our pastors, priests, and politicians urge us to do so. Practice the love and compassion that Jesus, Buddha, and Changing Woman taught.

It’s a stretch for me, too; but when the Organs go all red tonight, let’s try to share the glow, be the glow, and spread unexpected kindnesses daily.