shame on who?

Good evil red blue her they/them god sinner savior.

The great unifier and the great divider: Shame.

Shame is the tea in which we steep. Shame is the broth made from bones and roots we wrested from the ground. We both live there and try to love from there. What an impossible task.

Shame on you for not doing/being/seeing enough. Shame on you for supporting ABCD. Shame on you for relying on ABCD for survival. The system rewards shame (it went viral). It punishes from a place of shame. It tries to decide our value. Who decides who is lesser? Who deserves to have their families torn apart? How can we worship so wholeheartedly at the altar of power and belonging at the expense of others’ humanity?

As an adopted person, I am too familiar with shame deciding who raises me – who loves or values me. What is the value of demonizing people - to slake our thirst from a poisoned well - even if most of us have decided they “deserve it?” What a slippery slope.

I say this with no moral high ground. With the knowledge that I have given money to war criminals – with partially opened eyes that did not want to see. With the knowledge that I have supported racists and bigots, and yes – been one myself. I say this with the direct awareness that I am and have been a part of these problems many of us have espoused as “other people’s problems.” I know they are not.

It’s not true that any one of us gets to sit up on a mountain and play judge and jury. It is true that all our choices have consequences, and that the entire world (universe?) will suffer those consequences together. And the choice now is whether we choose to see that connection or try to build an even stronger religion on the crumbling foundation of our hatred.

Hatred is dirty fuel. It clogs the heads and minds. And here’s the thing: it runs out. It doesn’t last. If Gaza were here in our neighborhoods, how many of us would see the value in spitting hatred on those bleeding around us? Have we constructed a world that tells us the only way us can sleep warm at night is if our neighbor dies in the cold? What then? Does your house feel warmer now? What about your heart?

When they come for “their” children next, will you hug yours tighter? Will you cry with or for them?

Who will pull the trigger?

Where will the bullet land in the end?