Brave, Anyway

Tag: vote

  • Be Strong Right Now

    Be Strong Right Now

    I struggle to be at rest when I don’t have things figured out or when I am overwhelmed. I don’t have to know the answer, but I need to at least identify the next step. What is the next right thing to do?

    All week, my thoughts have been disorganized and full of feelings. Sadness. Despair. Frustration. Rage. And just as I was trying to focus on God and church and a sermon and peace this morning, I opened an email about our schools partnering with the city to remember the lives lost here 3 years ago – asking that “we reflect together on the essence of #VBStrong” – and it really triggered me.

    The hashtag #VBStrong seriously pisses me off. We should not have to be strong. We are capable of taking steps to prevent the situations that result in these stupid hashtags.

    I went back to my journal entry from three years ago and realized that absolutely nothing in this city or this country has changed.

    Why can’t we start being strong in the areas that could help prevent these things from occurring? Why can’t we be strong when we vote, supporting candidates who support mental health care and background checks and reforms? Why can’t we be strong about a commitment to finding a compromise on gun control? Why aren’t we willing to put our strength into finding a compromise that shows that our commitment to life and quality of life is more important than our commitment to allow anyone to own any kind of weapon? Why are we just perpetually stuck in an argument about what we can and can’t have and what medical conditions we will and won’t help with, and then relying on each other to be strong when the guns we won’t give up end up in hands that kill our family members and our children and our neighbors?

    We should all be horrified by and convicted by The New York Times Sunday Review cover today.


    Our belief that gun violence won’t impact us personally may have been the original reason we were quiet, but at this point we must all accept and admit that our inaction and our selfishness and our obstinance got us here.

    I am done with all the reasons for not talking about it right now, with all the reasons this is really mostly a mental health issue, and with whining and indignant quoting of the second amendment. Those are the actions of cowards – people afraid of losing money, people afraid of losing votes, people afraid of losing power or control, people afraid that they have been complicit. News flash: you, we, are complicit. Our inaction makes us complicit.

    I don’t live in Texas and I have no idea if I agree with all the man’s politics, but I cried this week when I watched Beto stand up and call a thing a thing and call liars liars. There is no longer any right or appropriate time for these sorts of things. People – children – are being gunned down every day in schools, grocery stores, churches, movie theaters. I am so proud of this man in the moment captured in this photo.

    Maybe he wants votes. Maybe he’s a Dad and heartbroken. Maybe both. Likely both. But this took some guts. He has a hell of a lot more courage than most of us – and we stopped him a hell of a lot faster than we stopped an armed 18-year-old in a classroom up the street.

    I am a believer in the second amendment, the purpose of which was to ensure our ability to defend our country and our homes in the event of a tyrannical overtaking of our land or government. But we cannot be so afraid of compromise on finding regulations that we allow our own countrymen with AR-15s to tyrannically overtake our schools and our churches and our grocery stores and our peace.

    Today Audrey and I visited Horton’s Cemetery to talk about what Memorial Day is really about, to honor the memories of such brave men and women, and to pray for all those who mourn. Some fought in World War II, some Korea, some Vietnam, some Iraq. Some were drafted and some volunteered. Some died young and some died old. I read the words of Abraham Lincoln etched in a wall of stone there: “Honor to the Solder, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country’s cause.”

    Albert G. Horton, Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery
    Albert G. Horton, Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery

    What did they actually fight for? It wasn’t for our right to own an AR-15. It was so we wouldn’t need to live in fear of evil people who would wield weapons such as that against us.

    We need to be strong right now and actually take steps in the direction of making America safer. We can march. We can write. We can donate. We can vote differently. We can speak differently. We can open our hearts and minds to finding compromise. We can try something. We can try anything.

    In the words of David Hogg, a student survivor from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School: “I can respect you have a different opinion than me on guns but I can’t accept that we can’t do anything to save our kids.”

  • It’s All Of Us, Too

    It’s All Of Us, Too

    It’s complicated.

    How I feel about Biden and Afghanistan and the world is complicated.

    Biden really screwed up.

    Why are we still even in a country that we invaded because we wanted Bin Laden? We got him a decade ago. No answer anyone gives me will suffice because the truth is – outside of heated moments just after 9/11 when I really wanted retribution – I have always kind-of been an isolationist, against our country’s crusade-ish tendencies and angered by the thought that young men and women go off to fight in wars that aren’t ever about what politicians say they are about. I support our troops 100 percent. The people who get to send them out to do their bidding? Not so much.

    Every president in my lifetime, maybe every president ever, has blood on their hands. The blood of 13 soldiers and hundreds of Afghans this week, the blood in Beirut in the 1980s, and the blood of the people living under the Shah we put back in power in the 1960s, and the blood of Kansans during their own civil war in the 1850s, and even the blood of a half a million U.S. citizens who’ve died from a virus we lied about and didn’t protect people from.

    It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback. I don’t have all the information and I’ve never had to make decisions of such magnitude, but it just seems like we could have done some things differently. I don’t think we could have pulled such a large number of people out of any turmoil-filled country without casualties, but that doesn’t make what happened this week feel like less of a fail. Colin Powell quoted No battle plan survives contact with the enemy and perhaps that’s why we’re here today – failure to accurately predict and plan for all possible outcomes.

    It’s heartbreaking, learning the stories of these soldiers – kids really – who were in a land very far away, helping to save the lives of strangers and trying to protect themselves and their comrades. It was all the more poignant for me this week because we were traveling around DC seeing federal buildings and museums, monuments and memorials. I was in my element – a history buff talking about the accomplishments or inventions of great Americans, some well-known and some unknown, in ways that I hoped would be interesting at 16 and 10. But as I looked down the wall of names etched in granite at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, it struck me that those were the names of my Dad’s comrades. And that he was a young soldier once, in a land very far away.

    “All of these people died?” Ella said. Yes, tens of thousands of people. It was a long war and it was the first televised war, where the American people had a small glimpse into what happens when they send their sons off to war. There was a lot of conflict about whether or not we should stay the course but one of the lessons I hope we learned is that it doesn’t matter whether or not we agree with the decisions of our leaders, we must always always always support the young people they send out into the world – who dedicate years of their lives to serving our country and our people, and who are committed to freedom for people everywhere.

    The girls at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

    Just like everyone else on social media, I know pretty much nothing about what really happened this week and all the factors that led us to this point. And yet still I can’t shake the feeling that we could have done better. Maybe I’m all up in my feelings, but Biden really screwed up this exit. I won’t defend someone I voted for simply because I don’t want to admit that my candidate isn’t perfect or I was wrong. Our votes are complicated, or at least mine sometimes are. The truth is I’d vote for Biden again, given the same choices – my vote was for health care and against a man who abuses women. But I don’t feel good about it today.

    As I stood at the wall staring at tens of thousands of names, I said a quick prayer for all the people who loved them. Their lives were forever changed – because of the decisions of politicians, because of evil in the world, and even because of the ballots cast by voters. I believe all of us will one day be accountable for our votes (or lack of participation in that regard), and I feel that responsibility today. It’s not just presidents who have blood on their hands – it’s all of us, too.

    Help us, O God, to remember that we are Americans, united not by race, or religion, or blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all. When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you: Forgive us. When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone: Forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve: Forgive us. And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ. Help us to share, to serve, and to seek the common good of all. May all people of goodwill today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy, and a more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet. And may we never forget that one day all nations, and all people, will stand accountable before you. ~ Rick Warren, 2009

  • Lingering Disappointment

    Lingering Disappointment

    You should never ever tell me how you voted. This is the conclusion I’ve come to. In order for us to coexist peacefully or for me to not be disappointed in you, I cannot know that you voted for a candidate who would not support my daughter. I cannot know that you voted against my daughter.

    I logically know that no one voted against Audrey. In fact, I’m one hundred percent positive that she never crossed your mind as you voted. And yet, she’s one of the two most important people in my life, so I cannot do anything – especially vote – without her at the forefront of my mind.

    As a cancer survivor, it’s incredibly important that Audrey always have health care. I’m a believer that health care is important and necessary for all people, but it’s truly critical that those among us who have battled or who are battling serious diseases or conditions receive care from childhood into adulthood. That means the parents of the most vulnerable need access to affordable health care and coverage, and that those kids who are the most vulnerable have access to affordable care and coverage as they move into adulthood.

    Maybe Audrey will be waiting tables when she’s 26, trying to finish grad school or medical school or law school. Maybe she’ll be an artist or a missionary or fixing cars. Whatever she wants to do, whatever she’s called to do, she will need access to health care. Which means she likely needs to be a cube dweller (and maybe not focusing on her calling), working in a job that doesn’t need advanced education, or she needs some form of the ACA to be in place.

    I want my child to have the same access to health care as anyone else’s child. Not only is she deserving of that as a human being, she fought very hard for life.

    So we can disagree on things like the second amendment, climate change measures, and taxes – but we cannot disagree on health care without me harboring a grudge against you and wondering if you really care about Audrey. Because no matter why you cast a vote for a candidate, I see your vote against Audrey.

    And maybe that’s not fair and maybe it’s mean. But it’s how I feel, and it feels good to give it a voice. I am longing for the day that America is a country where health care is not a partisan issue. Because sometimes I feel like West Virginia in the 1860s.

    How It Started and How It’s Going

  • “Nobody Likes Me”

    One thing experience has taught me about narcissists: after a “nobody likes me” moment they will show up the next day with an even greater view of themselves and how much they contribute to the world and how smart they are.

    That poor me moment yesterday may have been an actual moment of clarity or a premeditated moment designed to manipulate – but the outcome will be the same. Lack of accountability, deflection, blame of others.

    It really is crazy how our country is in an abusive relationship with an elected leader. An old meme keeps coming to mind – something along the lines of narcissism is one of those conditions where everyone around the actual patient is treated.

    I just wonder how long it will take millions of people to see they’ve been blind to manipulation, and how long it will take the country to recover from this four years. Can trust amongst our nation’s people even be re-established? This massive triangulation setup with Republicans and Democrats is out of control and by design – the vast majority of people aren’t far left or far right, but somewhere closer to the center.

    But this is what narcissists do. They play people against one another. They say something didn’t go well for them because of what you did or did not do. They play the victim if they start to suspect they are being questioned, and try to make people feel sorry for them. They occasionally throw out a humble statement about themselves, but that has a purpose and it’s to encourage people around them to compliment them – because compliments are manna for the narcissist.

    Once you know it, it’s such a predictable cycle. And yet not a cycle anyone can stop as long as there are people who don’t see the narcissist for who and what they are.

    So those of us who see it are stuck. Stuck, wondering how people don’t see it. Stuck, feeling sorry for the people who don’t see it. Stuck, watching insecurity and fear and ignorance drive people to keep giving an audience to a liar.

    But we’re also stuck in truth. And we’re free.

    Here’s hoping enough people in this country vote to make the choice to break up with the President of the United States. And screw that it’s not you, it’s me crap. It’s definitely him.

  • Frustrated: Voter Suppression

    Frustrated: Voter Suppression

    When two large cities like Lexington and Louisville – one with 350K people and the other with 600K people – each set up only one polling place for their entire city, and it closes at 6 pm, many people can’t or won’t vote.

    That’s called voter suppression.

    Very simply, thank you Wikipedia, voter suppression is a strategy used to influence the outcome of an election by discouraging or preventing specific groups of people from voting.

    It sounds like something that would happen to other people in other countries. Countries that aren’t democratic. Countries with rulers who rule by force or nefarious practices. But it’s happening in America. Here. It happened literally yesterday.

    People who can’t take the day off or work from home, who punch a time clock, who rely on public transportation, or who can’t stand in line for hours are less able to participate. That means the people we’re electing don’t really represent all of the American people – they represent the vote of the privileged population. And that’s one of the reasons our government is so out of balance, and also out of touch with much of America’s people.

    Every single citizen deserves the opportunity to vote. While the state of Kentucky did allow votes by mail they – we – have to do much better. We have until November to figure it out.