Of the many curious things that happened in 2016, I got a contact from a reader who disagreed with something I wrote. I think he was responding to a post picking apart one of Governor LePage’s “welfare reform” ideas. This reader told me, among other things, to keep drinking the Kool-aid.
Which happens to be one of those catch phrases that irritates the heck out of me, I mean, Jim Jones references?!?
It wasn’t a day I felt like being irritated. I should have waited until I was in a better mood, but I didn’t. I emailed him back and asked him if he ever noticed that the kind of people who used that phrase had exactly the kind of minds Jim Jones was probably looking for.
And I wished him well with the over-simplistic perspective.
Out of nowhere, my response entertained him. This reader emailed me back to apologize for being too rude in his initial contact and complimented my ability to stand my ground. After a couple more emails in the chain later, we became email friends.
It turns out that we do agree about some things politically and about others we disagree, which is okay. We’re both into music and swap links from time to time. He turned me on to Andra Day, and I cannot believe I hadn’t heard of her before!
I offer the song he shared and the story of its sharing as food for thought as we welcome a new year.
A little spur of the moment, Trish free verse for the new year, as well:
I hope the New Year finds us getting better at understanding
That we are in this together
Whether we like it or not
Sometimes that’s a good thing when you’re surrounded by faces
That are familiar
Or that are easy to accept as fellow human beings.
And sometimes it sucks that we’re all in this together
Like when it’s hard to believe
That guy saying all that stuff that pisses you off is
A fellow human being
Or that unkempt person talking to herself while she walks down the street is
A fellow human being
Or that woman on the other side of the world with her head wrapped and worried
About keeping her babies safe with all the bombs and the gunfire is
A fellow human being
And in the whisper that is our lifetime
We’re all in this together.
Each and every one of us.
Our inability to accept this reality is
All that is stopping us
From saving us
From ourselves.