Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Here We Are


We arrived in the USA on Wednesday evening and began a sprint through our days here in Missouri. Today we finally slowed down a little. There were no scheduled events or visits. My grannie lives across the road from my parents, so E and I moseyed over to see her. My mom and I ran a couple of easy errands in the small town nearby, and that was it. We needed a day like this.

A few people have asked me how it feels to be in America after being away and reading the news from afar. I'm not exactly sure how to answer that. With a whirlwind of a schedule, it's hard to really observe what it's like here now and process what I think about it. I feel a tension in the air with the elections so near. But it isn't just because of the elections, and it isn't just in the air. The tension exists because things are going wrong. It exists within me when I see a confederate flag proudly displayed on someone's home and when I know that if I say what I believe is good and true and right, it would be dismissed or scorned. I am not going to waste my words on people who will not listen, so sometimes I go ahead and keep my mouth shut. (But not always.)

I will and do say my piece when I can, when it might make a sliver of a difference. I'm not sure how effective I am, but I'll keep trying. If nothing else, I hope I can be an encouragement to those who are still here every day, fighting the good fight in the service of recognizing the value of every human being and the importance of protecting the vulnerable. This is what it all comes down to for me. Are we taking care of those who have the greatest need? Are we protecting those who cannot protect themselves? If the answers to these questions are no, then what is happening is not right. I am particularly concerned for children.

I'm going to leave it at that for now. I'll have more to say about his later, I'm sure. But for now I'm typing on an iPad and starting to nod off, so it will have to wait. Maybe it will have to wait until we get back home. Maybe from now until we are home again, I'll just regale you with stories of Very American Things we do, like going through the Starbucks drive thru and trying on taco costumes (I have a photo for that second one). Stay tuned to find out.

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