More Inconvenient Truths

                                                   

  Recently I once again heard the term, “inconvenient truths.” It has troubled me since. I am awed by our propensity to avoid moral responsibility in the face of these truths.

  Anyone or anything different from us is foreign and therefore bad. Is not the truth that we are afraid to allow change because it will somehow dilute who we are? How weak must be our core if change would destroy us?

  Our youth are maimed and die on foreign soil because we disagree with the ruling elite when all that truly exists is something different than what we choose. We are somehow threatened by the presence of conflicting ideas and government process.

   We bathe daily in the fear of immigration because zealots would attack our home ground. As that fear dries, our minds harden to common sense and decency for those who seek the same goals as us, freedom to work and worship and pursue happiness without oppression.

  Innocent people lie sick on the doorstep of medicine. Yet many of us would deny them basic care.

  Our youth fall in the educational ranking of a changing world yet we ignore the reality that we have handcuffed our teachers. Rather than educate, we would test, ever checking on our failure.

  We deny loving, law abiding, productive couples the same rights as ourselves avoiding reality for the sake of our own self-centered fear.

  When we stand in that voting booth we prove time and again that our driving force is what government can do for us or ours. We speak clearly of our disdain for those who have not risen to our “level” yet would do nothing to lift them up.

  Some have said that this is a Christian nation. Having grown up in the Christian faith, the message that I received as a child has held steady.  That message is that we should love our brothers and sisters as ourselves.

   The only fuel that “hate” needs is fear and ignorance. Love requires courage. Love demands sacrifice. Love lifts us above our petty groveling into the air of saints and Saviors.

  Each day, as we rise, I believe that if our most ardent prayer is to find love for all mankind in our hearts then we might find the cure for a poison that would destroy us all.

  We must always be guided by prudence and common sense. It is our duty to protect and defend against all evil. Even still, when we direct our energy at seeing evil through the lens of reality rather than fear our path will be true.

  In our deepest heart we know our fear rules most of what we do and say. I can only hope and pray that in the end we will accept the most inconvenient truth of all; we as humans have let fear win out over love and for that we must often live in turmoil of our own making.