By 11:30 a.m. last Friday morning I’d washed the dishes from the previous night’s dinner, installed a new washing machine and unclogged the bathtub in the kids’ bathroom.
I’d also taken our sweet dog, Lucy, for a walk, listened to my daughter read her college essay and written postcards to seven of our California representatives, expressing my outrage at their votes to not certify our election after a violent mob of their supporters stormed our nation’s Capitol, defecated in the halls, murdered a police officer and attempted to hang our vice president and assassinate the speaker of the house.
Such are the dreams of an everyday housewife.
I grew up in a house that paid attention to politics and voted Republican. I remember waking up on the morning of Nov. 3, 1976, to my dad shouting us awake with the words, “Pack your bags! We’re moving to Canada!” Jimmy Carter, a Democrat peanut farmer from Georgia had won the presidential election and it was the end of our country.
When I voted in my first presidential election, I voted for Ronald Reagan. Beyond the influence of my conservative-leaning parents and having grown up in Montana and Wyoming, I can’t give you a good reason for that vote. Shoot, back then I thought everyone from California was either a crazy hippie or a chardonnay-sipping snob. But I was 18 and Ronald Reagan was the Republican on the ticket, so he got my vote.
When I arrived at college eight months later with a REAGAN-BUSH ’84 bumper sticker on my 1975 Chevy Chevette, a new and much more liberal college classmate took it upon herself to peel it off my car in the middle of the night.
Can you imagine? Someone trying to take away my political expression?
I was outraged.
Today, my political views are unrecognizable from those of 36 years ago. I have been fortunate to live in big cities on both coasts, as well as small towns and even remote communities in our heartland. The more friends I made and the more life I lived, the further my views moved from conservative. But even as my beliefs changed, my resolve that “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes” and trying to see the world from their perspective would lead us toward understanding and, if not agreement in all things, maybe something that would look like friendship.
Sadly, that strategy isn’t working for me lately.
How do I find common ground with members of the mob I watched descend on Capitol Hill on Wednesday?
I don’t know.
How do we try to understand — walk in the shoes of — our friends, neighbors and relatives who supported and continue to support that mob?
I don’t know.
How do our leaders find “unity” when 147 of their colleagues voted in agreement with the thousands of people who had just terrorized and threatened to kill them?
I don’t know.
How on Earth do we try to move ahead with people who hang nooses, beat police officers with the pole of an American flag and wipe their feces on the walls of our country’s Capitol? How do we find unity with the elected senators and representatives who continue to support those people because they want their votes in the next election?
I don’t know.
My thoughts, like so many of the emotions many of us have felt over the past week, waver between sorrow, anger, bewilderment and hope.
There is sorrow in watching friends and family lose the values we thought we shared. There is anger in watching the violence that took place last week and that threatens our way of life. There is bewilderment in trying to imagine the path that has led millions of our fellow Americans to abandon their faith in our country and place all of it in one man.
And there is hope. Hope that our democracy will withstand this assault. Hope that truth and justice will prevail. Hope that good will win over evil.
But hope only comes with action.
Today, I hope you will join me as I look to the leaders, activists and champions in our community who have been doing the work of hope for a long time. A friend of mine, Beth Foraker, who is an inspiration to many, suggested the following. I hope you can find hope and action in her guidance in moving ahead:
* Stay aware and engaged even if it hurts your heart and sickens you. (Caveat: self-care is real and necessary, so make time for it).
* Hold elected officials who encouraged the insurrection accountable. Vote against them, donate to their opponents, text bank, phone bank and send postcards.
* Hold corporate America accountable.
* Join a grassroots organization that represents democracy and the ideals you believe in.
As we work to do everything in our power to make sure those seven California Representatives aren’t re-elected, as we continue to call out lies, as we continue to express our outrage in ways that are productive, I will add one more item to the list above.
Whenever I can, I will temper my anger with the words of St. Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
— Shelley Dunning is a Davis resident and a mom of four. Reach her at [email protected].
Related
The Link LonkJanuary 13, 2021 at 04:13AM
https://ift.tt/3q9SkLW
Humble Pie: Trying to find … uncommon ground? - Davis Enterprise
https://ift.tt/2CPpHAw
Pie
No comments:
Post a Comment