how we respond to such times as these, cuts to the very core of our moral compass, speaks to all that we say we value and hold to be true.

i say this as a citizen who loves my country and is immensely grateful to have been born and live here:

no amount of military might on display, or flags of red, white, and blue dancing in the wind, carried on waves of Pomp and Circumstance can distract or blind me to the horror and harm i am bearing witness to.

i celebrate the best of what my country is, but i am no fool and will not placidly condone or be indifferent to suffering through celebratory costumed pageantry.

what can be celebrated while families are separated – children in their most formative years separated from, taken from whom they most need and love, marched in formation or packed like sardines, sleeping on concrete with little food or water, kept from needed medications or humane health care, children watching children, some sick, some on death’s door, some dead?

what can be celebrated on such a day, other than what we might have been or what we may yet be if we are willing to stand up and speak out on behalf of those cruelly targeted and suffering at the hands of power?

may we yet save what’s left of our nation’s soul and honor its founding far from the shores of the tyranny it sought to be free from and free of.

~j

#TheLongArc #PlantingSeeds #MoralCompass #SitDownRiseUp #SpeakOut #immigration #camps #harm #suffering #EngagedBuddhist