I don't know why I'm having such a hard time writing lately. I give the excuses, busy, new job, tired. Part of it is true, it's hard to find the time lately, and often when I find something that I want to write about, Bruce or someone else has already done it, so then I have to find another subject, and do the research, and find the discipline to actually sit down and write. But I think the real reason is that blogging is draining in a lot of ways. I can't seem to summon the sort of outrage I once felt when our country did something un-American like legalizing torture, or fencing in our borders. Five years ago, I would have been shocked and angered, but we have crossed so many lines in the last few years, that these outrageous things that happened last week seem like a normal progression in the history of our country. Some people have spoken about the Battered Wife Syndrome, Americans being so used to seeing our Constitution violated, that we are numb and feel powerless to stop it.
My sister is having a baby today. She is bringing a new life into this world, and the child will be born into a country that recently made it legal for our intelligence services to torture and indefinitely detain another human being. This is not the same America that my sister and I were born in, the time could not be more different from the 60's. The fact that my sister is having this baby today is kind of crazy, her doctors told her years ago that she was sterile, and even in-vitro didn't work for her. She long ago gave up using birth control, it was not necessary, and nine months ago at 43, my sister experienced the biggest surprise of her life. The fact that my sister is in labor right now is a miracle.
But I don't believe in miracles, do I?
If I did believe in miracles, I would be expecting Jesus to come down from heaven right now and deliver us from these un-Christian people who are running this country. It would be great to believe that Someone had the power to intervene and stop the war in it's tracks. I wish that God would send us a sign that would make us wake up and pull together to stop the planet from warming. But God has already sent us these signs, one of them was named Katrina. And in that terrible sign, there were other warnings, not just the one told us that weather patterns were changing, but warnings about poverty and inequity in this country of great wealth. There was a warning about the insatiable appetite the country has for petroleum, and what a disrupted oil supply might do to our economy. Our response to these warnings was not to level the playing field to make economic equality achievable for all, but to blame the victims for their own poverty. We had a taste of oil shortages, and our response was to press for drilling in warming waters and melting ice caps. And the poison that causes this severe weather, oil, is still in as much demand as it ever was, and the need for it grows every day. We don't need Jesus to tell us that war is immoral, we don't need the Bible or the Koran to tell us that greed is a sin when others have so little, we know these things are true. If Jesus comes back to tell us these things that we already know, maybe we will crucify him one more time, or even worse, call him a liberal.
Today, I have a birthday to celebrate, the birthday of my tiny nephew, Field. For his first gift, I have to find my outrage again, that his home is polluted and fouled, that many children his age will not get a proper education and that it might be that his first baby vaccinations might contain mercury and endanger his brain. I have to find that anger and fight for a country that still believes that every child can have good health care, and have the opportunity to make a decent life for himself. For this child, we must stop the immoral conduct of war, and create a safe and peaceful future for him and those others that are born today and tomorrow. To achieve this, not only must I find my anger, but I must also learn to believe in miracles, that everything is possible, and that the human race desires to move forward.
