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.