I Wonder

My Dear Friends,

I wonder why I feel so discombobulated.  Don’t you just love that word?  It feels like what it means, right?  Every morning I awake hoping as I check the news services, a habit I am going to break any day now, that during the night the Good Fairy has worked his, her, they, them magic and people have come to their senses. We have stopped violating each other physically, verbally, emotionally, psychologically.  

Honestly, I do not understand. It seems only minutes ago I was reciting the pledge of allegiance and singing the Star Spangled Banner in my Brooklyn, N.Y. classroom of mixed Americans and immigrants.  Everything was far from alright. We were in the midst of World War II. That was a time we came together against a common enemy.  Is that the problem?  If we are all potential enemies to each other we no longer have a common one. Was I just another kid who drank the Kool-aid? I wanted to give everyone who was suffering from the forces of evil… the Nazis and Japanese War Lords… a free ticket to the land of the free and the home of the brave. After all, when my father was a young boy, he had had a ticket (I’m sure not free) from somewhere in Eastern Europe to the Statue of Liberty. I am definitely a product of The American Dream. What happened?

Somewhere along the way we humans are losing our ability to adapt. Evolution, development, dare I say, maturity is all about improvisation. Isn’t that how a bunch of single cells became a Brontosaurus? (check out a new book by Steve Brusatte, The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs)  

I do not want to join the growing parade of naysayers.  I would rather believe any situation we humans find ourselves in is yet another opportunity to create a different, and dare I hope, better world. Please don’t roll your eyes any further back into your head. You will lose them. I realize it is not going well anywhere.  But that doesn’t mean I am down in the dirt ready to holler UNCLE.  (see Debbie Reynolds as The Unsinkable Molly Brown… she is inspirational)

Far from it.  I am happy to sing along with the former Washington Senators Baseball team in the movie, Damn Yankees

I have heart and hope mixed with a healthy serving of reality. I am in great company. Here are recent posts from my newest best friends, Mary Pipher and Reverend Nadia Bloz-Weber.   

They prove to me the most important element of what one human can do and be for another…

NOT ALONE! 

Love, Sally-Jane ❤️