A Note From Mom

Sometimes we need reminders of what our parents have seen in their lifetime and how it has molded them into the amazing, dynamic, and wise people that they are. (In my case, I should probably add "patient" to the list because they did, after all, raise me.) Anyway, here is note I recieved from my mom that I felt compelled to share.

Hi, Ya'll,

I just had to say something about the election. I know that you guys differ politically in many ways from me, although probably not in as many ways as you might think.

The first thing that I want to say is that the best of what our country can be is reflected in the speeches of the candidates after the results were sure, both Obama's speech and McCain's speech. I hope you had a chance to hear them. (If you didn't, they are on msn.com)

The second thing I wanted to express is the joy that I felt after voting on Tuesday. It wasn't the kind of "joy" that you see at an Auburn (or Alabama) football game when your team wins or makes a great play. This wasn't partisan. It wasn't the kind of "joy" that comes with winning the lottery - it wasn't selfish or amazed. This was the kind of joy that begins as calmness and peace, a surety that something that has happened is right, and grows steadily until it overflows in tears.

I sat in my car trying to understand why I was crying. A picture flashed into my mind. I was 16 years old and sitting in a school bus. Earlier that day the first few Negro students had been ushered into Lee High School in Montgomery. One of the girls was assigned to my Algebra class. She came in with her head lowered, not making eye contact with anyone. The mean-spirited teacher had not only put her in the front row but gone to the trouble to noticeably separate her desk from the rest of the class, saying to us, "So that ________________" (I won't repeat what he said.) We weren't allowed to speak to her, and she wouldn't meet anyone's eye, so I just tried with all my might to send thoughts her way, to let her know that there were others who meant her no harm.

As I took that school bus home, hatefulness raged all around us, and the most hateful shouted awful words and obscenities out of the bus windows at whatever people of color we passed. I didn't say anything, and I don't remember why. It was my first week at a new school and in an atmosphere I couldn't have imagined at our school in Okinawa, so maybe it was as simple as fear. Maybe it was as simple as knowing it isn't too wise to spit into the wind! I just sat there and cried silently and angered and grieved at the world I found myself in. This kind of bigotry and intolerance isn't a White problem or a Black problem or an American problem, it's a human problem.

But then when you are about to give up on humans, they turn around and show the other side! I'm not talking about the result of the election, although I believe that was right. I'm talking about the inspiring things that happened after that, like those speeches and like the good people in both audiences who were willing to applaud our higher ideals. As a 16-year-old in Montgomery, Alabama, I might have said that what just happened was impossible or that it was a hundred years off.

And there's one more thing (if you've stayed with me this long.) There is the personal side. There was someplace I needed to go, and I think I got there just in time. I'm glad the campaign didn't stop a few months earlier, or I might not have made it:
It's so easy to get drug down into the muck yourself, and sometimes I did. It is easy to rail against injustice and intolerance to the point where you are being unjust and intolerant yourself. It is easy to return hate and stereotyping with stereotyping and hate yourself. It's so much more difficult to try to rise above that, to turn to someone who is spouting things that seem to fly in the face of things you hold most dear and say, "Tell me more," "I'm not sure what you are saying," or "Help me understand what you mean by that, why you feel that way, why you think that..." To look for common ground.

By the end of the last 4 or 8 years I finally had become so distressed at the way the dialogue was headed that it finally occurred to me that it was this kind of talk itself, even more than the possible political outcomes, that was most dangerous. I think a lot of people feel this way. We had become so separated by dogma and rancor that we had lost sight of finding answers to common problems and almost blind to the ideal of understanding and working together. We had become like spectators on opposites sides of a football game. And I detested the hopelessness that I felt because of it. I finally decided that I would make it my goal to react to differences of opinion with an attempt to listen and understand, with an attempt to find the kernel of truth that can be found in almost any point of view, and with an attempt to find a small spot of common ground. I would try to stop labeling people and encourage others to do the same. (Hang in there with me, I've only just begun.)
I can't see it all myself. I can only be in one place at any time. I can only see through one set of eyes. I have only one set of experiences.

The flip side of this is a respect for my own thoughts, perspective, and experiences. The idea that one of us has to be right is a small, shaky foundation because it means that the wrong one might be you! The idea that we might both be right in different ways or to different extents results in a world of possibility and a solid, roomy spot to seek out the truth.

SO... let me share the positive thought that arrived in my mailbox this morning:

I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do.-- Helen Keller (1880-1968) American Writer

Love,
Mom