Soapbox

Religious Freedom

    I don't think that term means what you think it means.

    What Religious freedom does mean is that the Amish get to drive around in buggies if they want to. It means that the Mormon's get to wear their special underwear, Orthodox Jews get to wear their yarmulkas and believe that God will get angry if they turn on the stove after sundown on the Sabbath. Religious freedom means that the Duggars get to have as many kids as that poor woman's body can crank out and Catholics get to believe that unbaptized stillborn babies are condemned by God for the sins of humanity to some limbo existence.
     Whatever. Believe what makes you happy… or makes you feel superior, if that's what makes you happy.
     That's your right.

    But if 'Religious Freedom" meant what the Catholic League, Bryan Fisher, Tony Perkins, the American Family Association, Rick Santorum and all their  friends and followers insist it means–  then we would all be driving around in buggies. Or wearing magic underwear.

   You and your church are free to believe that blacks are inferior and should not be allowed to marry white people. That's allowed in America, and there are still (far too many) people out there who feel this way. No one can ever pass a law to say that they cannot believe this, or that their church must ever allow a mixed race marriage to happen under it's roof.
     But imagine if a presidential candidate was touring the country shouting that allowing black and white couples to get married in any courthouse anywhere violated his religious freedom.
    Imagine he announced that the first thing he would do as president would be to un-marry  all the mixed race couples in this nation because traditionally, marriage was between two people of the same race. Or two people of the same religion. Suppose he said he would burn the marriage licenses of any couples where the parties practiced different religions… in order to protect the sanctity of marriage and strengthen families, of course.

    You'd say he was nuts!  You'd say his religious freedom ends at the tip of his own darn nose, which he should keep out of your religion. And you'd tell those Amish they could have your iPhone when they pried it out of your cold, dead fingers.

     Being told "You don't get to decide how the rest of us live our lives' is not the same thing as being told "You don't get to practice your religion'. For the Catholic Bishops and members of the far right to pretend that it is the same is ridiculous, demonstrates a breath-taking sense of entitlement, and is contrary to everything democracy means. Yet the  Republican party is by and large, backing them up, and the media is letting them get away with it.

     Now we have a televangalist from California telling his gullible, desperately seeking martyrdom followers that allowing other people to make their own choices in matters that do not impact the lives of any members of his church at all will mean the total destruction of religious liberty. He says it will end parental rights, will force pastors out of existence and may even "cost us our lives."

    Yes, he wants you to believe in the spectre of pogrammes of gay married couples on pink horses, riding through town burning churches and gunning down straight parents with their gay death ray. All because 2 consenting adults who love each other are allowed to get married.

   You know what really would  force pastors like him out of existence? If we treated "religious freedom" as if it meant what he claims it does. If the Amish had the same "religious liberty" to dictate his life choices that he demands over women and homosexuals,  this horrible man would not even  be on TV, getting  wealthy from preaching bible-based hate. Because the religious freedom of the Amish would mean that if  they don't believe in electricity, none of us get to have it.

Yep.
Pull. The. Plug. That sounds pretty good right now.

My life is out of control.

   Maybe not "meth addict driving backward on the freeway" out of control, but things just keep slipping away from me.
    I go to bed thinking It's ok, I'll get all that done tomorrow  and then tomorrow eludes me, like a wet, naked squealing toddler on a cookie high, leaving me running in circles.I wake up and realize-
It's Thursday already!
It's autumn already?
I'm 50 already!!
What the hell have I been doing all week/summer/life?

My life is out of control.
   My dog is 3 years old and he still digs in the yard, eats socks and goes absolutely apeshit when he sees that ceramic cat in the neighbor's yard. My husband says that I don't use the right voice with him, but I have used all the voices I've got.

My life is out of control.
    The weeds are taking over, and believe me, the ones in my head are just as difficult to uproot as the nettles and dandelions that spring up where tomatoes are supposed to be.
    And I never should have planted that tree so close to the house. Every year I look at it and say "Yeah, I"d better cut it down now, while it's still small enough to handle…" but it shades the porch so nicely… and oops- it's not small any more.
    Sometimes at night I lie awake and swear I can hear it growing, roots pressing against the foundation, seeking a way inside, waiting to strangle us in our sleep. I"m pretty sure the sole option left at this point is to sell the house fast to someone who doesn't realize that the only thing that is in control around here is that tree.
    Or pray for a convenient tornado.
    Except I haven't really prayed in over a year… unless all those muttered Oh shit's and Please don't let me screw this up's count… but I don't think they do count, because I'm still completely out of control.

    I never instituted a family game night. I meant to- on TV all the really good parents have Family Game night. And I never even forced my kids to play soccer! I know, right?! Everyone knows that kids are supposed to play soccer! Years from now my children will tell their therapists about this, and they will cluck their tongues in sympathy and increase their visits to twice a week.

My life is out of control.
    The Check Engine light has been on for over a year and I"m missing 2 hubcaps with no idea when or how I lost them.
    My coupons are all expired, lists largely unfollowed. I have a box full of brishes but never learned to paint, bought yarn but still can't crochet, because I just can't seem to find the time, or the willpower to do what it would take.
    I am a walking bundle of neuroses wrapped in the very best of intentions… which is a direct road to hell, so I hear.

Just completely out of control.
    Sometimes I have these intense dreams that seem like messages from the universe telling me what I should do with my life… and I always end up doing the exact opposite, because I hate anyone telling me what to do, even the universe!
    When I was 13 I realized that I was already too old to be a child prodigy at anything, which was really demotivating. Maybe that's when it all started to slip out of control.
    It gets to the point that every time the telephone rings I expect disaster: peer at the Caller ID and expect it to read "Traffic Accident" or "Unemployment" or "Broken Heart" instead of just "Out of Area". So many people who are so much more in control than i am get caught in such serious shit-storms that I just don't trust my own dry feet. So I watch the clouds suspiciously, even on sunny days, expect a good soaking any minute because my umbrella is always at home.

    They say that the longer the big fault lines go without a major quake, the more stress accumulates and the bigger will be the one that finally hits. I feel that the more days that slip by in dull, functional normalcy, the worse the disaster that's waiting for me…
…and I know it's waiting, because of course I have no emergency kit of bottled water, energy bars and duct tape, either in my basement or in my head! Surely the windmills of the Gods are grinding up a heap of trouble for the contented and the commonplace.

    I know that I'm skidding through life on black ice, and sometimes it's an amazing ride but I can't even enjoy it; see, I never got around to learning how to steer into a skid. So I slip and slide and spin through life,
    completely out of control.
 

… And then there's that moment when you finally come to terms with the idea that has been nagging you for weeks- muttering in your ear while you type, poking you in the ribs as you sit in your chair at open mike trying to decide what to read:
    No one really needs to hear your shit.

    Of course you need to write it. Sure you do. It's how you cope. Well, it's one of the more constructive ways you have to deal with things, anyway. You won't stop writing this stuff, because how could you? And really, why should you? Pour your heart out!

But nobody really needs to hear it.

    It's not about feeling unwelcome, and it's only partly about feeling unworthy. You just sit there, night after night, listening to other people and that voice keeps saying, What makes you think they need to hear what you have to say?

    What's the point of this anyway? Do you think that you have something important to say that hasn't been expressed a thousand times, both worse and better? Will your brilliant word juxtaposition  move people? Will your witty observations make some sort of difference? Change anything in any way?
    No, of course not. It's just … interesting. Just for fun. Except maybe it's not fun- or interesting- for them. How many people are just sitting there politely while you do your thing because they're waiting for their chance? Not hating you, but not really careing. Waiting you out.
    And as soon as I think of that-  then it's not fun for me any more, either. And then, what's the point?

    What was ever the point? Getting famous or something? No, just getting out, seeing some people, sharing some things. Fine. I remind myself that I can do all that without standing up there shouting "Hey, look at me! Listen to how cool I am!"
     Because of course-  I"m not cool. I'm ok. Worse than many but better than quite a few; a bit of an odd duck but that's alright. But week after week now, I sit and look at the papers in my hand and  think, "What am I doing?" Who am I kidding?
    Just because hitting the mike is what the other poets do doesn't mean I need to. I'm never going to publish a chap book or do writing workshops or travel around doing features.  I write my stuff for me. So why am I telling them?

    Emily Dickenson had it right. What am I doing, croaking my name to the swamp night after night? Swamp don't care. Why should they? They're all busy making their own noise. So say what you need to say- but to yourself.

    Some things go in seasons. They matter a lot for a while… and then they don't. For whatever reason. I don't go to church any more, for many reasons, and while I miss many of the people, I just feel that it's a season that has passed for me. And maybe this is one of those things.
I'm just not going to be hitting the open mike soon.

It was no grand event… perhaps
as quiet a moment as a president can ever have in public
but some things are in such perfect proportion that they simply have to be.
Some echos do not die out but grow louder on return
until, at the right moments
they ring like a bell.
Courage and truth spread roots,
lift branches, cast seeds to the wind
and the future grows.
My skin tingles at  the thought of him there,
living embodiment of the ripples spread from one small act.
Sliding quietly into the seat she took that day
in that same old bus smelling of  diesel and sweat,
of long days and hard looks
and the dry stone dust of walls suddenly cracked
though not quite ready to fall.

He looks out the same window where she once  turned her weary gaze
upon a world that seemed the same as  yesterday- but was not.
In a moment of quantum truth, the world was changing before her eyes
simply because she was sitting there
looking at it.
She was surrounded by angry people frightened of change
and she was just tired, maybe wasn’t trying to knock anything down
but she sat like thunder and woke the world.

And now here he sits, the circle completed,
the ripple returned to the source
the very change she wanted to see
through that soot-streaked window.
He is the echo that has become a new, ancient song,
looking out that window, now wiped museum-clean
yet still streaked with blood and resentment
wondering, perhaps, what  he may be changing
by some simple act at the end of a long day.
He is alone here, palpably so- yet no less surrounded
by angry people frightened of change,
and wondering how far his ripples will spread ,
peering forward,
hoping to catch a glimpse  of the change
he wants to be in the world.

They call themselves by many different names- pundit, anchor, blogger, spokesperson, surrogate, consultant. But their proper label, the name that truly describes their profession and the role they play in America is “Pusher.”

Yes, they are pushers, and they have a product to move, folks. The product they’re trying to get you to buy is anger- specifically, anger born from fear.

They are the merchants of partisanism, jingoism and racism- from the subtle music of racially coded dog whistles to the freight train thunder of hoods and crosses. They’ve also got homophobia, Islamophobia,  xenophobia, changeophobia, paranoia, ethnocentrism, self-righteous delusion, persecution and blaming the victim. Lots of exciting, brightly colored product with such entertaining labels but all containing the same base ingredients; the dynamite of fear and hate.
You name it, they have  little bag of it in their pocket, and when they see that you’re curious they’re always ready to dip their fingers in, touch them to your lips, give you just a little taste.
             You like that, huh?

They hang out on the virtual street corners of cable TV  and the playgrounds of online chatrooms and message boards, ready to prey on the ignorant and confused,  the worried, frightened and the disenchanted.
They sidle up to you in late-night email forwards and through talk radio while you’re stuck and frustrated in traffic, always ready to capitalize on your weakness, hunger, dysfunctional need.
They come on like your best friend, the only one who really understands what you’ve been through. They clap you on the back and say,
Man, have I got some great product for you!
Check it out: Biden is a communist, man! For real! A Nazi communist!
And he’s using drag queens in the Department of Education to try to brainwash our kids
so they all grow up to be gay atheists!
           You like that, huh? Yeah! That’s an even better high than that birther
dust I hooked you up with a while ago, am I right? Hey, only my best
product for you, my friend!

Like so many of the pushers who haunt the streets of our cities, most don’t sell this poison because they believe it themselves. It’s all about profit, folks. A gentleman has to make a buck, and dirty money spends just the same as clean.

And they sure don’t give a crap about the squalid emotional state of fear, division and self-loathing that having this kind of hate addiction brings. It’s not their fault if your emotional crack habit causes you to work against your own best interest and tears apart your community, bankrupts your neighbors, sells out your children’s future.
This is just the politics of capitalism, man, and Jesus loves the free market. It says so right there in the bible, right after the part where he said “Thou shalt not raise a rich man’s taxes.”

And once they have you hooked on that feeling that someone else, someone different than you is responsible for all the messed-up shit in your life: your dead-end job, the mountain of bills, your rude pissed-off kids, the freakin price of gas- everything wrong in this country is the fault of those others,  those weirdos… you realize that anger  actually feels much safer than fear, gives a much smoother high without the gut-churning afterburn of withdrawl that daily anxiety leaves.
And when you find that grabbing your pitchfork and storming the castle is a much bigger rush than sitting down and hammering out grudging, common ground…
…they’ve got you! You’ll come back again and again, pass it on to  your friends.

But pretty soon just the occasional  “socialist liberals are giving free stuff to lazy people” epithet isn’t enough to keep you going any more.
You need that outrage to get you through your daily grind, to take your mind off all your misery-  which you’re actually making worse by buying their product, but you can’t see that, because they whisper in your ear that it’s the kindergarten teachers teaching kids how to be gay that’s the reason why you can barely afford your rent.

Like the typical hard-core tweaker  who can’t see that the biggest problem he has is his habit, you can’t see that a few illegal immigrants washing dishes and picking crops isn’t the reason why you leave for work every day scared you’ll be laid off as soon as you walk in, but there you are at 2 AM screaming in all caps on a message board demanding that  we build an electric fence around America “with a moat!” before it’s too late.

It’s crazy, and it’s destructive, it’s eating you alive and it’s dragging the entire country down along with you. But who’s the real villain here?

When cops want to clean up the streets, they don’t waste too much time rounding up the dumb addicts. As dangerous and destructive as they are, the true evil is done by the ones who put that crack pipe in their hands and make sure they always have more even when they really want to quit.

The real criminals are the pushers; the merchants of suspicion and blame, the hate pimps who hawk their wares to the gullible and weak.  The ones who put on makeup and straighten their suits and look right into the camera with their brilliantly white smiles and tell America that we need to stop asking billion-dollar oil companies to pay taxes and start demanding that the single mom with 2 kids whose income is so low that she can hardly put food on the table- she needs to starts coughing up her fair share by God!

Just like all the other  pimps and pushers, the ones who traffic in human misery are driving luxury cars and flying first class, and living in gated communities, protected from all the division and discord they sell. They’re living quite well  from the spoils of rancor, by convincing the average man  that their lives will be better as soon as women stop getting birth control and can be executed for having an abortion.

The only way to stop them is to hit the streets ourselves, to step between them and their customers,  to stop them from corrupting any more hearts and minds than they already have.
We have to call the station and complain, demand our cable company take the station off their line-up, snopes back the e-mail chain, report the white supremacist and anti-semitic crap we see on social media. Call out the lies and offer the miserable addicts, whose habit enriches and empowers those pushers, the methadone of  truth.
Even if they won’t take it.
Also, as difficult as it is and even though it’s probably too late for many of them to ever get clean, we need to offer civility, common ground and a little compassion for people who, after all, may have been groomed since childhood to hate.

But most of all, we need to point our fingers and call the predators at the top of the food chain what they are: rage-pushers, hate-pimps.
The scum of the earth.