*(Quick note – please click the Podcast link in the email below if you want to listen to our latest program with Kristin Aurelia. Thank You & now back to our regularly scheduled blog) …
She Said ~
At times, the words come unrestrained, unbothered by the confines of subject matter. The slippery slope on which they glide and float out into the atmosphere is unrestricted. During these times, my words are unpoliced and the urgency to communicate is unparalleled. I’m afraid this is not one of those times. These words are not floating onto the page and my fingers are not dancing across a keyboard.
Instead, my head is heavy with disillusionment. My heart is weighted by the anchor of a new reality. Inked in black and blue are the confessions of a doubting daughter, friend and member of this worldwide village.
The comfort of my quilt of hope lays muddied on the ground and the glittering stars of optimism have been extinguished. Stripes, once clear demarcations of a past not to be repeated, erased.
There is no light, not a porchlight, nor a street light or a guiding light. Instead, the spark is housed within skin and bones and a beating heart. The embers of refusal are fed by stubbornness, a will to survive in spite of the circumstances.
For me and perhaps for you this will be a new calling to laugh and love and have difficult conversations with family, friends and strangers alike.
He Said ~
“Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete.”
Once again, I turn to the words of Mr. Serling for courage. Recognizing and excusing the situational attitudes of the feeble-minded takes temperament and compassion. These days I find writing an acutely arduous task, which most times I welcome for its therapeutic and expulsive values. So, during days like this, I instinctually turn to the echo of inspiring voices. Those who lift us from the wreckage and provide a safe place to land.
I sincerely hope these quotes provide sustenance during these mystifying moments:
“Thinking about profound social change, conservatives always expect disaster, while revolutionaries confidentially expect utopia. Both are wrong.”
— Carolyn Heilbrun
“You have to quit confusing a madness with a mission.”
— Flannery O’Connor
“Perhaps…the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“The trouble with all these far-right and far-left mentalities is that they can encompass only one side of an argument and are congenitally incapable of holding two opinions in their heads at the same time.”
— Truman Capote
NEXT WEEK we will get to hang out with Cool Doug at Night (thanks to Sammy Rae & her friends)!
Did You Know? In 2020, Joe Biden won among Latino men by 23 percentage points: 59%-36%. The latest estimate for the 2024 vote among Latino men is Trump winning by ten points, 54% to 44%. This change of 33 points on the margin is a rather extraordinary shift in four years’ time.