From a post in my local Next Door Neighbor responding to my caution in supporting a new Hobby Lobby being built in The Villages, FL:
“I’ll do Hobby Lobby because I like the store. How they treat their employees on health plan is not a concern of mine. I also don’t follow up whether my steak house uses a rancher who pampers his cattle. I just eat the steak. Getting involved in all that extra stuff is ridiculous to me.” ——-John Brodeur
One hundred and twenty five mass shootings already in 2023——-nothing changes in policy nor do Americans take to the streets. A principal in a Tallahassee school is let go because a parent complained that the sculpture of David by Michelangelo was pornography. The work was shown as part of a sixth grade class in Renaissance art. My Little Free Library was stolen from the end of my driveway, the second to be taken in a year. My neighbor allows his chickens free run of our property after asking him to keep them on his land; my flower beds chock full of native plants are being dug up.
I want to give up, to leave the world of clueless humans.
An adobe casita in the desert of New Mexico. Wildflowers and cactus for a lawn. A scarred wooden table with a chilled bottle of white wine. Deep, peaceful breaths as the sun rises and sets. The vast mountain vista on the horizon. A bed with a warm comforter under an open window. A pair of worn jeans, a soft sweatshirt, no shoes. Hair unruly and way too long. No way to see my lived in wrinkled face. Yes, I will move to this place, away, away.
But…wait just a minute…
I stood at the local government offices after the Nashville shooting of six with a sign asking what can be done to stop the culture of gun violence in America. Most who passed me did not look me in the eye; some gave a thumbs up, some invoked the Second Amendment. I got a couple suggestions that made sense. It appeared, an assumption of course, that people did not want to get involved.
I cannot give up, but I want to. It is hard to stop caring about the fate of the planet or what happens to the disenfranchised, or having my heart wrenched out with another senseless killing of a child. I am tired, very tired.
The smell of sagebrush is enticing, but maybe, just maybe, things will change. Gotta’ be here if they do.
I admire your strength. I am not that strong. I made a decision recently that if I cannot change these awful things (and really I have such little influence in this money-controlled world) that I will "save myself" and do little local acts of kindness as often as I can. I even turn off NPR news. I am not strong enough to bear the pain of all of the misfortune, misdeeds, misunderstandings, misinformations and - as you pointed out - total lack of responsibility and morals. I am reminded of Bob Dylan's song With God on my Side.
I vote that you take a stand from your place of peace in New Mexico.
Namaste, my friend! Thanks for standing up for what is right.