What a morning! I have been watching a series of videos on my computer that have given me some things to ponder over. I have thought that it was important to share, but haven’t had the time to do so. You know how you hear something or see something and you think that there must be a lesson. Now how do I figure out a way to let you know how I feel or how you feel?
The first thing I watched this morning was a speech by the governor of Arkansas. Sarah Huckabee Sanders told a story about how she had, as a young girl, walked through a terrible place called the Yad Vashem in Israel. Her father wasn’t sure that it was the right time to take her through but walked with her hand in hand. He told her that at any time she felt uneasy to let him know and he would escort her out. This place is a museum that illustrates what terrible things humans can do if there is no one to stop them. She was 11 years old when she visited this place and at the end, after signing her name, she wrote, “Why didn’t anyone do something?”
I listened to her and was transported back to an evening when Lorraine and I listened to Delia and Danny tell us about their trip through a museum in Southern California. This place is known as The Museum of Tolerance. We listened to them as they described their experience, especially how they felt when they were separated from their children. These two places were very similar and both were very sobering. Both times I was very interested because they told of the horrible things that can happen if good people sit by and allow evil to enter. Some of you may be feeling the hair on your neck standing up. But I ask you to hear me out.
Let’s take this past election. The names that were thrown around were painful to hear. I listened to one politician and another calling their opposition names that my mother would have washed my mouth out with homemade soap. I thought there must be a rule about what you can call your opposition in an election. I still can’t believe the hatred that is spewed on a daily basis. Words have consequences. I know what some of you are thinking, it happens on both sides right? Depends on what side you’re on? But there is one thing I know today and that is, this is a different time.
These times transport me back to my youth where my mother would determine what was allowed and what was considered blasphemy. Both my two older brothers learned what homemade soap tasted like at a young age. Being the youngest son, I could learn from them what was allowed and what was determined to be forbidden. That is not to say I never said a forbidden word, but I was always aware of my mother’s teachings. Usually right after one of my brothers would tell my mom on me.
After my first son was born, I could remember my mother’s teachings. I would like to tell you that my brothers and I never said a word that couldn’t be said in church, but that would also be stretching the truth a little too far.
My mother was not a learned woman. She dropped out of school as a young girl because she had lost all members of her family in a freak accident. As mom would describe it, a used car salesman had come by to flirt with her older sister. He had been drinking a little too much and ran off the bank of the irrigation canal and all drowned except for her and her father.
After that, he had kept her out of school to pick fruit or work in a packing shed so that he could flirt with the ladies that stood on a box to grade the fruit as it passed by her station. The only time I ever heard my mom say anything mean about her father or any of her siblings was when she told about the car salesman that drove the car into the canal. As I write this, I cannot remember anything she ever said in front of her children that could not be said in church.
I write these stories about my mom and family and think about how God always directed her life. She always wanted her boys to be observant to the Bible she read every night. But we were four boys who needed to follow our own way, by making our own mistakes. We loved her and dad and always hoped that they were proud.
As for our leaders, I keep thinking about all the names that one candidate calls another. Using the kind of names that bring so much pain confuses me and is frightful to a man who was taught that we are all equal. I don’t believe that my scribbling changes anyone’s opinion, but perhaps the reader who was taught as I was that names HURT will understand that to give power to another without thought of winning or losing will understand that we are all here but for a moment. Would we be better off if our words carry greater understanding?
I ask as the truth of anything is but the truth of one. I’ll never understand why someone would use words that carry so much weight to make their point if the answer is in front of them all along. Use tolerance with courage in your everyday life and perhaps we can learn from the past. We are here for only a moment and your response to any question I or anyone can understand is the response to how you would wish life to be. Please remember what Sarah (also my mom’s name) wrote when she was 11. “Why didn’t someone do something?”
God Bless.
