Selling redemption and enslaving reality: Michael Vick and the acceptance of slavery in plain sight

There’s a lot of debate about whether Michael Vick should be the captain of the NFL Pro Bowl team. There’s discussion about redemption, time served, and the cultural context of his crimes.There are the questions about viewing what he did as being more significant than if he had simply beat up his girlfriend. There are the issues of how unfairly the deck is stacked against black men in the criminal justice system, and would we even feel the same way about his past if he was white?

I have actually thought about it a great deal. To, on the one hand understand that our criminal justice system is just a legalized means of perpetuating oppression and systemic racism, and on the other hand be unable to see this man as a victim of that system might appear incongruent. 

How can I recognize and acknowledge our culture, society and systems as deeply oppressive, but disagree that in this one instance that two of our systems favored a black man? Well, to start, I am imperfect, and have never said that I get everything always right or even fair. I’ve never claimed to be more “woke” than anyone else, or unwaveringly open-minded. Anyone who would say those things about themselves would be inviting ridicule. 

There’s a lot to unpack with the significant issues in professional sports and our criminal justice system. 

Where money is king—as in professional sports—perpetrators of unforgivable acts are given sanctuary. In our criminal justice system, the average black man who commits ANY crime—no matter what kind or how serious—is punished much more extensively than the average white male perpetrator of equal or far worse crimes.

Both situations are wrong, and both send heartbreaking messages to young black men, and they perpetuate many other wrongs. 

I actually hate football, and am indifferent to the majority of sports. I hate animal cruelty, neglect, and abuse. I signed the petition to ask the NFL to remove Vick from the pro bowl team, even though I wouldn’t be watching anyway. So, it’s fair to say this doesn’t directly impact me. But any time I get an email to sign a petition to punish perpetrators of animal cruelty or abuse, I sign it. Same with people who rape, people who abuse children and people who commit acts of domestic violence. And in all of these instances, I don’t stop for a second to consider why someone might deserve a pass in these cases.

For me, this isn’t an issue of black, white, fame or anonymity. I couldn’t care less about those things when it comes to certain types of crimes. 

And I have a really hard time accepting the cultural component so many associate with dog fighting. I am not a perfectly “woke” person, but it is not lost on me that our oppression of people of color—especially young black men—often sets in motion realities I will never experience and a life context with which I cannot relate. I have not, nor will I ever have to walk in their shoes, and no matter how much I learn in my life or strive to do better, I will never understand at the level of a person who has been the target of this kind of oppression. 

That being said, there are certain acts a person commits that they KNOW are wrong, regardless of whether they end up in the criminal justice system, and regardless of what cultural norms led them to do those things.

When you willfully pick up another living creature, lift them into the air, slam them to the concrete, and you see them bleed, hear them cry out and you are not impacted by that—to the extent that you do it over and over until the animal is dead—the right or wrong of the action outweighs the context of culture. You know you are torturing another living thing, and at some level you are enjoying it. 

By the same token, when you beat the crap out of your significant other, and you see their lip split, their eye blackened, or their bones broken, you know you are causing harm and pain. 

When you do these things once, it’s unconscionable, but when you do it over and over, you are making a conscious choice to cause harm, pain or even death. It’s no longer an accident of cultural context. 

It’s true that it isn’t my right to decide if Vick is redeemed. At the same time, if the NFL or any other professional sports organization glorified him or any other violent offender, I would feel the same way and take the same kind of actions. 

In this case, and many others, the message is sent to young black men that you are nothing to us if you cannot provide us with financial gain, entertainment, subservience, and acceptance of your status. It tells young black men that if they make a mistake or commit a horrible crime, they are only worthy of fairness if they are famous and can throw a ball. It also reinforces that any cultural norm is reason enough to justify your behavior, especially if you have something white people want. You aren’t expected to be a good human, because we still believe and treat you like property and a commodity—we still consider you to be less than human. 

Vick is lucky. He can do something with a ball well enough to win games and put people in seats. I would even argue that this controversy makes him a MORE valuable commodity to the NFL. He also got an offer in the criminal justice system that no black man in their right mind would ever refuse. He got what almost no other black man would get in the same situation. If the charges of animal cruelty hadn’t been dropped, he probably would have spent a significant portion of his life n prison. 

The NFL and its fans glorify this guy and athletes who have beat up their women or worse, but they shun, mock and crucify a man who kneels to honor and fight the struggle and inequities that young black men face in every facet of life, especially the criminal justice system—and especially black men who don’t make millions of dollars playing ball. 

Whether Vick has redeemed himself or not, the NFL is treating him and all other black athletes as property. It’s another form of slavery. The NFL treats its players like livestock. It’s culture glorifies a bunch of men intentionally running into each other and potentially inflicting irreparable injuries to themselves for our entertainment. If you perform at the expected level—win games and draw crowds—we’ll turn a blind eye to your failings off the field. If we can’t derive profit from you—you don’t win games, fans don’t like you—we will sell you out. Like an unproductive bull, you will be culled. 

I can’t reconcile professional sports or the criminal justice system, because I see both of them treating human beings like animals. And I cannot reconcile that anyone goes unpunished for crimes against the most vulnerable. 

I am not Michael Vick’s god. I don’t even know if I believe in anyone’s god. I wasn’t the judge or prosecutor in his case. I am not an arm of the law, and I am not perfectly anything. There are many things that aren’t crystal clear to me and many things that my own privilege won’t allow me to understand the way other people can. 

All I can say is that there are some lines that are not blurred for me. There are some lines that once crossed cannot be uncrossed. He cannot “un-torture” those dogs. Spouses who beat their significant others cannot take those punches back. People who rape cannot “un-rape.” People who abuse children cannot “un-abuse” them. 

I don’t know what would be enough to right some wrongs or to adequately atone for them. But I do wonder if the things we reinforce by rewarding someone for their ability to make us money are as insidious and terrible as I believe the torturing to death of another living being to be? I wonder if we don’t perpetuate an already destructive set of systems, when we reinforce that the value of a man of color only correlates to their ability to turn a white man a profit, or entertain them on a Sunday? To me, it’s the same game we’ve been playing with race from the start, and in my eyes, no matter the outcome, black men almost always lose. 

Beggars, liars and thieves: Giving is about you, not them.

So, something has really been bugging me for a while. I don’t have a claim to any faith. I’ve been exposed to a lot of them. I seem to embrace elements of several, and I find the most comfort in faith paths that teach us to love one another, to honor our spirits, and to understand our connection to every living thing in the wider universe. Like it or not, none of us is truly ever alone in our existence or our impact on things around us. 

One of the elements of Christianity I particularly embrace is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Show mercy. Help your neighbor. Do what you can. I don’t have much love for the Old Testament. I don’t have a lot of use for self-espoused Christians who choose to ignore the most important values in their book. 

When you give money to someone, it’s no longer yours. It’s not up to you what that person does with it. If you are uncomfortable with what someone might do with the money you give to them, that’s about you—not them. 

Giving and trying to help someone in need should not be predicated on whether or not you believe that person is worthy or not, or if they are going to do something that—in your view—is misusing it.

Charitable giving was never addressed with me growing up. I know from time to time my step dad helped pitch in and buy bicycles for kids at Christmas a few times, but he didn’t ask for praise or talk about it a lot. Neither he nor my mom told me what I should do. 

We all see people standing on street corners asking for handouts. We all see that some people roll down their windows and hand over a buck or few. In that transactional moment, a person decides that person on the street corner is a human being. All human beings are flawed and have failings. Some are con-artists and ne’er do wells. Some are suffering from mental illness or ended up asking for handouts because of some tough break in their lives. You may never know who’s a “good guy” and who’s a “bad guy” in this street corner begging scenario. 

Giving something to someone happens because something in you feels a kindred sense of humanity, and because you know that life is unpredictable and at any given moment, you too could find yourself hoping someone will be moved to help you. Those feelings are about you. Your actions are about you. 

This time last year, my husband lost his job. We were lucky. We were prepared for a rainy day. A lot of—most of—us aren’t able to prepare for a rainy day. We didn’t need help from strangers, but it was still worrisome and stressful. I can’t imagine what that worry and stress would have been if we hadn’t been prepared. We didn’t have to worry that if we needed help, someone might question whether or not we were worthy of that help, or that we would do the wrong thing with it. 

I don’t typically give money to strangers—mostly because I hardly ever have any cash on hand, but also because I know for every kind person around me who thinks I did a decent thing, there will be twice as many who think I’ve been a fool. Every time I see these folks, I have that feeling gnaw at me—that kindred humanity and the sense that it isn’t my job to decide who that person is, it’s my job to decide who I am. 

Children often have that naive innocence that tells them people who need your help are always worthy. My daughter has been in the car with me when we come upon these busy street corners, and she has asked me why someone is standing there. I tell her that they’re standing there because they need help. Her response: “We should give them some money, shouldn’t we?” 

I don’t want to teach my daughter that helping other people might make her a fool. I don’t want to teach her that we should only help people if we know they “deserve” it or can be trusted to use it in the way we think they should. 

Of course, I don’t want to teach her that it’s okay for people to con or take advantage of us either. But in that moment, when she sees someone needing help, I know I will be much more at peace knowing that her inner debate about whether to give someone money or help is about the feelings she has and not whether we should or shouldn’t help our fellow humans based on their worth. I will be happier knowing her decision is about who she is and not who that panhandler on the street corner is. 

When we hand over a buck or few to a stranger, that money is gone, and we will likely never know how the person used it. The thing we will know is who we are and that the action of giving defines us, no matter what happens after that.

As far as that panhandler goes, it’s not my job to address whether they actually go to a car at the end of the day and drive home with a couple hundred bucks. It’s not my job to address whether they go out and buy meth with it later. That’s Karma’s job. 

My job is to recognize that I sometimes let the judgment of others dictate how I respond to that feeling of kindred humanity when I see someone ask for help. And it’s my job to decide whether I teach my kid informed empathy, or bitter judgment. I also have to help her understand that someone is always sitting in judgment of our actions, and it’s only normal to be impacted by that. Sometimes, we’re going to allow our need to be accepted by others to keep us from doing what our hearts tell us. 

We’re going to make mistakes with our fellow humans and we’re going to have to develop our own strategies for meeting all of those feelings about kindred humanity and the need for acceptance with our own truth—either in the moment, or as soon as we are able. 

I always feel like it isn’t right for me not to help someone—not because of who they are, but because of who I am. It’s a feeling I can’t shake, and when I actively ignore it because I might be seen as a fool, that feeling morphs into something else. Shame. When I don’t accept my own feelings about what seems right, I feel so much guilt and shame that I can’t bring myself to make eye contact with the human I am consciously ignoring. That feeling isn’t about them. That is ALL me. 

It’s okay to fail at being a good human. It’s okay to fail at empathy. There will always be another opportunity to help someone in some way. Whether it’s seeing someone begging at the corner of the Walmart parking lot and guiltily driving on by, then buying one of everything on the list of needed items for a local food pantry, or reading a stranger’s heartfelt plea on Facebook asking for programs she can access to give her two kids Christmas because her husband lost his job and deciding that I can spare a little bit of what I have so she can maintain some level of normal for her kids. 

I have no idea if the man I passed up on the parking lot got help or not. Unless he’s a “regular,” I’ll never know. I don’t know if that woman from Facebook and her husband are responsible with their money or have trouble holding down jobs or not. 

But I know who I am, and at the end of the day, it’s myself I live with. I may be a flawed human who doesn’t help every time I can. I also might be a fool when I do. But I’m only a fool in someone else’s eyes. In weighing the importance of being true to myself against the insignificance of someone else’s judging my empathy as foolishness, I think it’s way more important to be able to look myself in the eye. 

Triggered and under threat

So, here in Arkansas tonight, there are a bunch of parents weighing their options. They’re considering whether or not they will send their kids to school tomorrow.

They’re not debating because their kids have spiked a fever or had a bout of vomiting. They’re not worried their kid has a cold or the flu and they might pass it onto some other kid. 

They’re thinking of a threat made online about a mass shooting that could happen at their kid’s school. They’re trying to decide if what is most likely just a really awful joke could actually be real, and if it’s worth keeping their kid home—just to be on the safe side. 

For the first time, I have a child in school. So, I’m one of those parents. 

People make bogus threats to schools, places of worship, companies, government agencies, and organizations every day. No one can ever predict which one of those threats will amount to anything. 

I worked in a synagogue for two years. On two different occasions we evacuated our building because of bomb threats. Luckily, they were just threats.

I’m not keeping my kid home. It’s not because of some principle like choosing not to live in fear or anything noble like that. I’m playing the odds. The threat is non-specific. It included the schools in Kentucky, which were under threat today. I haven’t heard any reports of a school shooting there today. 

I think my daughter and her classmates are going to be fine at school tomorrow. 

But I’m still pissed. I’m pissed that a threat like this could be credible. I’m pissed that any of us have to weigh our options when it comes to whether or not our kids will be safe from being gunned down while they’re learning how to write their name or how to do algebra. I’m pissed that nine days into kindergarten my daughter already knows where to hide from a bad guy at her school.

And I’m pissed at anyone who isn’t pissed that this is an acceptable reality in America. 

If I can believe polls the majority of Americans—including gun owners—want common sense gun reform. So, I don’t know why nothing’s been done. 

In this free country, I have to worry that my kid might get shot at school. In this free country, I’ve stopped taking her with me to the most convenient grocery store, and I avoid going there myself on the weekends now, because wouldn’t that be the most likely time for a shooting? 

Many of us are trying to be more aware in public places. Where are the nearest exits? Is there someplace close to hide or get under cover. 

The big argument against common sense gun reform in America is that we will be giving up some of our freedom. 

Aren’t we already doing that? 

Use your words: Media fail

Something has really been bothering me about the media, and today I just had enough with it. 

I often find myself annoyed by those who talk about the world becoming too politically correct, and too concerned with offending people. In my view, much of what gets labeled as “political correctness” is just common courtesy and human decency. 

That being said, I do feel like there is a dangerous trend in our media. Regardless of liberal or conservative bias, I find myself wanting to scream the same words to media outlets that parents often use when trying to help tantrum throwing toddlers express themselves—use your words! 

The specific trend that bothers me most—today—relates to sexual violence—especially its victims and perpetrators. 

When I was about seven or eight years old, my parents were watching the evening news, and an anchor was reporting on rape. I didn’t know what the word rape meant, so I asked. My stepfather immediately slapped my face and told me not to say that word, leaving me horrified and stunned. 

When I eventually learned what the word meant, I still didn’t understand its power. And lately I’m beginning to wonder who slapped the faces of journalists and writers who cover these crimes and made them afraid to use their words. 

The most obvious recent case that has raised such ire in me is that of known sexual-predator, child rapist, and pedophile Jerry Epstein. There—I used all of my words. 

In media reports, Epstein’s victims are frequently referred to as “underage girls,” “underage minors.” The words you’re looking for are children and little girls. It does not matter how close they are to voting age, being able to drive a car, or even wearing a real bra. His victims were children. 

Most reports also talk about “inappropriate behavior,” “sexual massages,” “trafficking,” and “recruiting.” The words you’re looking for are sexual predation, hand jobs, and exploitation. And while the criminal justice system’s view is more narrow, victims view anything that qualifies as sexual violation of a person in order to derive personal pleasure as rape. 

Today, I even read that despite Epstein’s apparent suicide, the investigation into his crimes, and those who knew of his “penchant for young girls” and helped “recruit” his victims would continue. The words you’re looking for are that the investigation of those who knew of his pedophilia and helped him prey on children will continue. 

The Epstein case is only one example of how the media—in what is at best a misguided attempt to prevent triggering other victims, and at worst a complicity in perpetuating rape culture—hurts victims, and thwarts justice. In today’s media, you rarely see or hear the word rape. Instead, you will hear sexual assault. You rarely hear victims described in ways that remind you they are humans—they become generic terms like “alleged victim.” 

Maybe at one point it seemed to make sense to use the blanket “sexual assault” term to describe sexual crimes, because there are so many ways in which a person can be violated besides penetrative rape. Every kind of sexual violation is criminal. But this kind of blanket term doesn’t posses the same power as the word rape. Since sexual assault might include someone pinning me to the ground and penetrating me by force or simply putting their hand on my backside, there’s room to dispute the severity of an assailant’s actions, and therefore the impact of those actions on the victim. 

I promise you, in the mind of the victim, there is no difference. Sexually violating another person is a rape of their psychological peace just as surely as it is a physical action. Penetration isn’t required.

When we allow ourselves to become squeamish about using real words to describe real horrors, we send a message to those who commit these crimes that what they’re doing isn’t so vile and horrible. We send a message that there is some kind of gray area when it comes to the life-long impact on a victim. It allows the wider culture to accept truly horrible actions as just part of the norm. 

When we can’t use the word rape, rapist, pedophile, or predator when talking about these crimes, it’s easier to put those thoughts out of mind. 

When we fail to identify victims in human terms, they become nothing more than empty vessels. They become the equivalent of the windshield someone broke. 

When we minimize these horrific acts, euphemize their perpetrators, and dehumanize their victims, we give an already entitled patriarchal culture permission to pass off these crimes as “locker room talk or antics” and “boys being boys.” We allow victims to be viewed as acceptable targets because of what they were wearing, where they were, or just because something about them attracted their rapist’s attention—maybe a bare shoulder because they wore a tank top to school.

The sad thing? This is only one example of how language in the media allows humanity to be viewed as little more than collateral damage. 

We allow the media to minimize crimes and to dehumanize crime victims, civilian men, women and children killed in wars, blacks profiled by police, and our fellow humans who happen to be gay, lesbian, transgendered, Hispanic, Muslim or refugees. The word you’re looking for us people.

Use your words. 

Estrangement: When love gets pushed off a cliff.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines estrangement as : “having lost former closeness and affection : in a state of alienation from a previous close or familial relationship.” The key words for me in that definition are “close” and “familial.”

Most of us have some element of wonkiness in at least one familial relationship. We have a sister that always acted out, and made family time miserable. We have a father who doesn’t understand the career path we chose, or agree with our politics. Maybe we have a sibling who we feel picked on us when we were growing up. 

Wonkiness doesn’t have to end a relationship. Sometimes, those rifts and rough edges make us stronger, more persistent, and more self-aware. Maybe they even make us better people, because we learn what we don’t want to be ourselves. 

But sometimes simple wonkiness goes over a cliff. Sometimes, the actions of a family member cross too far over the line, and we find ourselves picking up a figurative hammer and a box of nails, and boarding up all the windows and doors to that person because it’s the only way we know that we can keep them from causing harm. 

Merrimam-Webster defines a boundary as: “something that indicates or fixes a limit or extent.” The key word for me in that definition is “limit.”

We all have a pain tolerance level—the point at which stimuli pushes us beyond what we are able to withstand. It’s very much like a boundary—a boundary or limit to what we are willing or able to endure. 

At times, people we dearly love push beyond our boundaries, limits and tolerance for emotional and psychological pain. Maybe they don’t mean to, but sometimes you can tell someone they are hurting you, and they don’t stop. It’s as if they know you’re on the edge, and they willingly push you over. 

Estrangement is that cliff. 

Not every cliff is beautiful. 

A friend of mine recently expressed some really deep pain and uncertainty about very important familial relationships that are fractured, and radiating pain to loved ones around them. I could really feel for her. She happens to have suffered a significant loss of a loved one, and that loss contributed to the fractures within her family. 

We’re raised to respect our family relationships, and to try and retain them, but very seldom does anyone talk about the reality that retaining some relationships can come at too high a cost. We don’t talk about the reality that some relationships and even people we dearly love can create toxicity in our lives, and that line or boundary is so ignored, and so disrespected that there is no easy resolution. 

People can change. Life experiences can teach us how to better adapt to situations and develop a thicker skin and better coping mechanisms. We can learn from our mistakes, and understand our role in causing pain to other people. But those things don’t happen if we cannot self-examine, and develop self-awareness. 

This begs the question: If I don’t choose to stop hurting someone I love, do they still owe me their loyalty, forgiveness, and unconditional love? If you have experienced estrangement with a close family member, you know that there’s not always a simple answer to that question. And in some instances, the closeness of the familial link prompts others to wonder if your position is unreasonable. 

In families where mental illness, trauma, abuse, or life altering events are intertwined with the relationships in which we develop our sense of self, it’s incredibly easy to get lost in the gray areas. We are conditioned to accept that someone we love doesn’t have the emotional skill set to have appropriate relationships with others. We allow their painful histories to justify their hurtful behaviors, and tell ourselves that they don’t mean to be that way, and they cannot help it. And we often allow the same patterns of transgressions and harm to repeat, in turn damaging our own development, our own growth and our own ability to create and maintain loving and successful relationships as well. 

So what happens when someone we love crosses that invisible, but visceral line where there is no return? 

You have to look yourself in the eye, and you have to make a choice. You can understand that if you go back to the relationship, everything that led that family member to push you past your limit will happen again, and the same scenario will play out over and over. You can distance yourself, limit contact, and try to establish boundaries, and limits. But if those approaches aren’t livable, and that person continues to ignore your limits, you sometimes choose to close the door and walk away. 

From the outside of the situation, others may see your attempt to rescue yourself as rigidity, a failure on your part to be the bigger person, and a sign that you have forgotten the good about your relationship with that person. 

Everyone’s situation is different. We’re often told that forgiveness is not for the person who hurt us, but for ourselves. I haven’t always understood that idea, or believed it. I haven’t understood how that applies to me, because I assumed forgiveness was a “one size fits all” idea. It has taken me at least half a lifetime to understand what forgiveness looks like for me, and I know it must look different for everyone. 

Someone I should have been able to trust abused me and violated me. I don’t owe him anything, but I also don’t have to look back at every moment of my life and paint it with the brush of that pain. I can pick out the things that weren’t awful—the things and memories for which I am grateful—and I can live my life and my truth with love and dignity. Another loved one hurt me many times, and it took me forever to recognize that, and to feel strong enough to establish boundaries and limits. It was a very important relationship, and irreplaceable. I fought hard to retain it, and to honor it, but even while I sobbed and begged her to respect my limit, she pushed me over my cliff. She’s a part of everything I am—the music I love, the stories I read, the memories through her eyes of other people I have lost or never known. 

No matter the distance I have placed between them and myself, these people will never be extracted from who am, and even who I still may become. My forgiveness is knowing that some relationships cause harm and end, but I don’t have to define their entire history by the most painful moments, and I don’t have to forget the good in order to honor my own boundaries, my own limits, and my own tolerance for pain. 

I don’t know what happens when you cut ties with someone and you must face that severance down the road. Most of us who find ourselves estranged from a loved one never planned to be in that position. The answer to that uncertainty is like forgiveness—it’s different for everyone. Maybe some of us find our way back. Maybe the other person changes and the relationship can be rebuilt. But we don’t all get that. We don’t all bridge that distance, because in doing so in the past, we so often have found ourselves teetering on that cliff. 

Everyone has a path, and we all have hurt someone along the way—even people we love. Just as we need to learn what forgiveness looks like for ourselves, we need to understand that it may look very different to someone we have hurt. 

I don’t believe the universe sends us requests for forgiveness, acknowledgment and gratitude like recurring bills in the mailbox. I am not expecting some kind of eviction notice. We can give those things one time and honor our familial ties. But when those ties cut the circulation off between our dignity and attempts to establish reasonable boundaries, we can’t be expected to overlook what’s happening indefinitely. 

We owe no one unlimited opportunities to push us over the cliff. 

Dig if you will the picture...the whole picture.

I have been thinking about something for a while now, and I just haven’t been able to process it, and make it into something palatable.

We live in a world where what people think about us is actually more important than if people know us and like us as we truly are. I have read about the links between social media and depression, but while there is no question anyone who “exists” in social media should do so with the full understanding that what we see about other people is only part of the real story, this idea of projecting a certain image of ourselves is not really new.

My five-year-old just finished preschool, and we’re staring down the barrel of kindergarten. Nothing is easy. Just last week, we went to kindergarten roundup, and my daughter has zero filter. It happens to be that a handful of her preschool classmates will be joining her at her new school. It also happens to be that one of the little girls in her class doesn’t particularly want to be her friend, and my daughter was eager to share this information with everyone she met. Each time, I felt the fire in my cheeks as she revealed this information so matter-of-factly. At at least two points, I took quiet opportunities to explain that we shouldn’t talk about the situation.

“Why,” she asked me. And the truth is, I really don’t know. So, I told her that even if it’s true, people don’t like to hear that. Again, she asked why. I still didn’t have an answer that made any real sense, so I just told her the truth. Grown ups are dumb.

Sure, it isn’t relevant to everyone that another child doesn’t want to be friends with her, but is the truth really such a terrible thing? Is an unpleasant or uncomfortable situation really the death knell of one’s social existence? Is saying what we really feel, think and believe chasing people from our lives whom we should be fighting to keep?

At one point, the importance of projecting a certain facade or image to exist within specific dynamics probably seemed like a good idea to someone. Everyone knows you don’t talk about politics, religion or money—although I would argue plenty of people don’t care so much about that last one. Everyone knows that you should only talk about certain things in whispers so things don’t get around. Everyone knows that openly asking for help is a sign of weakness. Everyone knows that it’s more comfortable for everyone else if nobody knows you have any problems or challenges.

And all in the name of maintaining social connections on which our lives depend, we isolate our true selves in fear that the friends we’ve collected through our public identity will see the truth and shun us.

So, we share our happy moments, our beautiful photos, our vacations, our accomplishments, and our triumphs. We carefully manicure these moments, and curate an existence that allows others to both feel comfortable about who we are, and possibly a little envious.

We watch for “likes,” “loves,” and “lols.” We’re sad when we don’t get the responses we were hoping for, even though a smiley face on a screen is about as real a commentary on who we are as the pretense that we didn’t take the photo we posted twenty times, crop out the stranger’s elbow that accidentally got in, and then enhance it with a filter.

Some of us crave that interaction so much, that we are devastated when we don’t get it. And then there are the people who see all of these amazing and dazzling moments everyone else is experiencing, and they question the value of who they are, or even their own lives. Now, realize, I am not saying our vacation photos drive other people to self harm, but for someone whose self image and self criticism are as unrealistic as the rest of us only posting the bright side of life, we probably aren’t a great source of comfort.

We swab the lens on our lives to make everything more acceptable, more beautiful, and more beyond the real. And no one is any the wiser.

Or else, we don’t. We don’t sugar coat life. We don’t pretend everything is easy. We don’t pretend to have an inauthentic existence or life. We acknowledge that getting our kid through preschool was challenging. We acknowledge that we lost our job six months ago, and we’re just getting back on track. We acknowledge that we started running again and cut out soda, but stress made us backslide. We acknowledge that we’re real people, living real lives, and even that we don’t always see the world around us with the same eyes. We say ‘uncle’ when we’re struggling and we hope one person we know might understand and be able to lend an ear, a shoulder, or a hand. We share an unflattering photo or moment with our kid, and we later realize we made a mistake—and we say so.

I don’t want a perfect life or a perfect existence. When I scrapbook a trip, I include the blurry photo of the castle in case I never get to see it any other way again. I am okay if people know I struggle, because if they have seen me at my worst, they know how incredibly hard I have worked and fought to dig my way out. And isn’t that just as worthy of a triumphant selfie or cake, as everything going according to plan? I’m okay with telling the story of our first trip to Ireland, and how we got to see almost nothing, because of an agricultural disaster, and illustrating it with photos of some kittens who were playing on the grounds of a hotel at the Giants Causeway as I regained my composure over the disappointment. Things like that make real life stories. They make us who we are, and they challenge us to try again, or even to look back and find the good in a moment that wasn’t so good at the time.

The Turoe Stone-County Galway. The worst photo has the best detail. 

I don’t want people to like me because I pretend to live and breathe the same way they do. I don’t want my daughter to tell everyone some kid from her class doesn’t want to be her friend, but I do want her to understand that is going to happen, and that she should never try to be anything she’s not so someone who doesn’t like her will.

Our lives are made up of all of the perfect photos, and the blurry ones. Leaving something out because it doesn’t reflect perfectly to others is only leaving out the possibility that someone else needed that moment—that seeing that moment gave someone a chance to say “Me too, I thought I was alone, but now I know I’m not.” That picture is always going to be worth a thousand words.

“We’re all stories in the end.” We just don’t always see it.

Almost three months ago, a friend asked me for help. She was writing her story, and she wanted me to help her finish it. I admire, respect, and adore this woman for so many reasons—her tenacity, her vision, her strength. When I think of her, she’s so much of what I always wanted to be. I didn’t know how I could possibly help her write her story. It seemed too important—too beyond me.

But in spite of how doubtful I was that I could help someone like her with what I saw as such a personal, and monumental task, I couldn’t say no.

As we began the collaboration, we often kicked off each session chatting about ourselves, and sharing each other’s histories. Our backgrounds are quite different in many respects, but we share some painful experiences.

I go to her house to help her tell her story, but often end up telling some of my own. We read through bits of her manuscript in order to build upon what is already such a rich and colorful story, and as we talk about moments in order to paint our picture, we trade parts of our lives we typically don’t share with others.

One day, she asked me if I had ever considered writing my own story. I quickly brushed off the idea, because in my mind, my story is not so unique, interesting or special. In my brush off, I alluded to the fact that when I blog, I occasionally share the general idea of parts of my life that help me explore the ways in which we deal with trauma, abuse, healing, family dysfunction and human foibles. But I can’t imagine anyone caring to read the details of my life—the nitty gritty.

I think many of us look at ourselves and don’t really see the whole picture. We don’t see ourselves and the things we have been through or accomplished in the way others do. It’s as if we just aren’t able to see ourselves or our experiences as enough—as worthy.

I know I do this all the time. It’s first nature. I constantly believe nothing about me or my life is equal to anyone else’s. It’s always less, and every time I share even the slightest detail, I feel embarrassed that I allow any of us to take up emotional space—anywhere.

Another friend recently shared the details of her very personal loss when she was pregnant. I identified with so many of the feelings she shared, and I responded to her story. Even in doing so, I was quick to discount my own experience, because even though I had felt the pain of loss, I also felt my own experience was barely worth mentioning, simply because in my eyes, I had been through so much less than she had. What right did I have to hurt? This friend is another amazing woman, whom I respect and admire, and am humbled and grateful to know. In spite of her own losses and pain, she digs deep into her being and does everything she can to make the world a better place everyday. I let far less get me down, and I can barely juggle getting my daughter out the door for school and remembering to return library books.

I am not looking for anyone to argue that I am wrong about what I see when I look at myself, or my history. But I do think that there is a sadness about the way many of us look at ourselves and see less.

I mentioned my writing friend’s vision as being something that I admire. When she looks at people she sees things other people don’t. She looks at people and asks herself what their story is, and how she can share it. And what’s even more amazing is that she knows sharing other people’s stories is a gift to them. I know this from personal experience, because it’s a gift she gave to me a while back.

She was a driving force behind a story about my daughter that gave me an opportunity to see her in the way others see her everyday. In our day to day lives with our families, we often end up missing sweet moments, because another moment didn’t turn out the way we hoped. We get stuck in the business of our own worries and forget to step back so we can see the picture more clearly. We may not even realize or believe that there is a picture to see, or a story to tell.

Just for one day, I wish that every one of us who looks at ourselves under a cloud of mundanity or unworthiness could see our lives and stories in the way my friend does. I wish we would look at our lives—even in our worst moments—and instead of being afraid of how painful or how dull the next moment might be, we would wonder what happens next. We would wonder about the next page of our lives in the same way we might stay up late at night,  trying to get through just one more chapter of that book we can’t bear to put down.

I don’t have that vision. I don’t have that belief that my own story is worth reading. But we all need someone in our lives who does, and who is willing to show us we’re wrong.

The lies we eat will starve us all: why I march, even for those who disagree with me

There’s a quote I try to remind myself of, everywhere I go: “We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry.” Thinking about it reminds me that I may not understand the pain someone else is experiencing, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real, and pain often undermines a person’s capacity to see the truth in front of them.

It’s not always easy, especially when someone’s pain has allowed them to believe in things that cause pain and harm to other people. As humans, we have something that other animals do not—a very well developed ego. It’s easy to think that when we look at the world around us, ours is the only true picture.

This matters, because this blindness has brought humanity to a dangerous crossroads. We’ve been here before, but some of the possible outcomes are more dire this time—for all of us, even for those who can’t see it.

On Saturday, I attended the Women’s March in my neck of the woods. This is the third year I have attended one. I also sign a lot of petitions and send a lot of emails to the elected officials who represent me.

I’m not suffering. I have a great life. I have just enough to do a lot that I want, but not so much that I don’t appreciate things when they are special. I’ve suffered abuse in my lifetime, but I survived, and I’ve healed. I admit, I didn’t get the justice I might have liked, but I hope and believe that Karma will step in someday.

So if I am good, why do I go to marches? Why do I pester elected officials? Why do I think anything around me is wrong?

Well, I can tell you that I don’t do it for myself. I do it for my daughter. I do it for the children of people I will never know. And I do it because I am in a place where I am able to see the pain of other women—other human beings—and I want better for them, and for all of us. For me, going to a march or gathering is a privilege and an opportunity. It’s a chance to listen to people from many different backgrounds and circumstances talk about their experiences, their struggles, and yes, their pain. These people who are gracious enough to share without malice the hurts inflicted upon them, and the different painful experiences they have encountered don’t owe me an education on the subject of women’s rights or human rights.

It isn’t their job to instruct me on the discrimination they have faced, the hardships they have suffered, or their life experiences that are so different from my own. But I see it as my job to learn anything I can, because I believe them, even though I have not been in their skin. Believing and seeing their pain doesn’t make me special. It doesn’t make me an activist. I’m not trying to be anyone’s hero. I just care. I care to help someone else. I care to set that example for my daughter.

That same need to care about people with whom I find common ground and agreement is the reason I can see the pain of people with whom I disagree. Now, there certainly are people who aren’t suffering, and for whatever reason, they can’t or won’t see other people’s truths or care about them. But based on the current climate of fear mongering, heightened racial tensions, political friction, and outright hatred, I think a lot of the hole we have dug is the result of pain.

And “we all eat lies when our hearts are hungry.” Right now, there’s a very large group of people in the world who are so hungry, they are willing to swallow down any hateful and terrible lie about others that is placed in front of them.

It has always been this way.

According to the Gospels, Jesus was brought to trial for a number of crimes. Among those crimes, he was accused of sorcery and using the power of demons to exorcise people. He was also accused of breaking the Sabbath and claiming to be King of the Jews. He was deemed guilty, and crucified.I am not able to attest to his guilt or innocence when it comes to breaking the Sabbath, or claiming to be king, but I think we all know that the accusations of sorcery and using demonic power were lies. Those present, ate those lies anyway.

In seventeenth century Massachusetts, more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft. The accusations included everything from women cursing children, midwives practicing dark magic and sacrificing babies to the devil, being responsible for the deaths of farm animals, and making poppets—dolls—that could be used to inflict pain on others by different methods. Obviously, the accusations were lies, and in several cases, the accusers and their families had something to gain by telling these lies. They were eaten up, and nineteen innocent lives were swallowed along with them.

Fast forward about 200 years, to a massive refugee crisis, in which millions of unwanted immigrants are trying to come to America. They’ve suffered unthinkable hardships, starvation, disease, oppression. They don’t share the prevalent faith. They’re unskilled. Nobody wants them. Many believe they don’t have anything to contribute and will be nothing but trouble.

Hundreds of thousands of those refugees are so desperate, they take dangerous, and often low wage jobs that nobody wants. They are openly unwanted and despised.

A few generations later, the descendant of one of these terrible refugee families would become one of the most beloved presidents our country has ever had. But at the time the Kennedy family left the Irish Famine behind, they were one of the millions from which Nativists strongly believed we needed to be protected.

The millions of other Irish immigrants were the laborers who built bridges, roads, and infrastructure that is still the backbone of America.

Today, we face many crises, and are in the midst of some of the most hostile political, racial, and socioeconomic friction in our history.

My oh so clever sign. 

We have hard working Americans failing to make ends meet, let alone achieving the “American Dream.” Workers whose families have been struggling for generations have long felt their struggles and pain were being ignored, or doubted. Many of those families and individuals have been starving for almost as long as there has been an America. They can’t break even, and they never get ahead. They don’t have savings. They can’t afford decent healthcare. The hunger they live with has cast them into the depths of starvation.

“What about me? Nobody is feeding my hunger. Nobody is trying to help or save my family and me.” Their inability to feed themselves leads to a sense of feeling that if they can’t get help, nobody should get help. Anybody seeking to make an even playing field through fighting for healthcare, equal pay and income equity must be lazy, untrustworthy, just sponging. Anyone trying to come to America is a threat. Anyone who doesn’t look, talk, believe like me or speak my language will overrun the “rest of us.”

Of course, these are all lies. The majority of the people seeking refuge or equal rights want exactly the same things these starving people want. They want their own pains and hurts to be acknowledged and healed. The majority are not looking for more than they are willing to earn or pay for themselves.

But “we all eat lies when our hearts are hungry.”

Some of us fight, march and speak out—not because we ourselves are hungry, but because we see the hunger of others, we know the danger of the lies that are being served to them, and we have seen the terrible things that can happen when those lies get eaten. We also see that the people serving those lies have an agenda that doesn’t include ending the hunger—or even easing it.

When someone tells you something outrageous, there’s a reason, and you can usually learn the truth by discovering who benefits most from that outrageous statement.

We are choking on lies.