That is No Way to Live

In a world gone mad, it is easy to be frustrated, negative, and fed up with the insanity occurring daily around us. As much as most of us would like to be free of the quagmire of insolence, arrogance, superiority, and disenfranchised benevolence we are too often subjected to, we often unintentionally and unknowingly become part of the problem by joining the mayhem. By joining the name calling, the divisiveness, the righteous/self-righteous indignation, and hateful rhetoric, we internalize the insanity and become a supporting prisoner to the frustrations and negativity we would like to end. As a result, we make our lives more miserable and less functional for ourselves and those we care about most. We rob ourselves and in turn family and friends of happiness and eventually humanity. That is no way to live!

So, why indulge in the insane foreplay that leads us to despair, distrust, disillusion, and frustration? It’s simple – it is the only game we know and feel comfortable playing. The only way we know to be relevant is to insert ourselves into the game even if we do not like the rules of the game being played. In a world where everyone wants to be heard but no one knows how to listen, we sometimes take more issue with opposing opinions than we do with the issues themselves. For the sake of having a stake or word in the game, we are willing to sacrifice what is most important – our friends, family, humanity and happiness, and for what? For the possibility we might convince someone we are right?

I have been as guilty as anyone, but lately, I have come to realize when all this nonsense is said and done, all that will truly matter is the friends and family left in my corner and those who accept me in theirs. Therefore, although I remain on social media, I have stepped back in hopes I don’t alienate the friends and family I have left – they are by far more important than anything I have to say. The name calling, the divisiveness, and the hateful rhetoric has left me drained and apprehensive about opening Facebook. I may be alone, but I am ready to feel human again and once more look forward to hearing from friends and family on social media without the constant badgering personal and political warfare. Again, I may be alone, and it may be a personal thing, but listening to the constant complaining and bitching (my own included) has left me tired and longing for more positive interactions.

That is the only way to live.

JL

©Jack Linton, October 19, 2020

HB 1523: Mississippi is Better than This!

HB 1523 is discriminatory in that it singles out a select group of people, and it is contradictory to legislative claims that it protects the religious rights of Christians.   The religious right of a Christian is to love God and his fellow man, and HB 1523 protects neither of those rights.  The bill is little more than a cynical and biased shell game enacted by individuals with selective Christian beliefs.  The idea that such a bill could surface in what a growing number of Mississippians were beginning to hope and believe was an enlightened 21^st Century shows that cynicism and bigotry in the state legislature and the state as a whole is alive and well.

If Mississippi legislators truly intended to protect the religious rights of Christians against the participatory sin of doing business with sinners, why didn’t they include adultery, murder, theft, bearing false witness, lying, cursing, coveting, breaking civil laws, laziness, divorce and deceit in the bill?  Could it be that some of those sins hit too close to home and are therefore exclusionary sins?  Legislators can quote the Bible and talk about religious rights all they want, but unlike the Mississippi legislature, the Bible does not single out homosexuality as the only sin.  If it did, HB 1523 might have some merit, but it does not.  Sin is sin; therefore, all sin falls short of the glory of God.  How Christian is it to place hatred of sin above love for the sinner?  Shouldn’t Christians, even Christian legislators, focus on love and witnessing and leave God to focus on sin and judging?

HB 1523 promotes a perpetual state of conservative self-centered sameness; the idea that everyone should be cut from the same template as the writer of the bill and those it claims to represent.  This does not mean the writer or supporters of this bill are bad or evil people; they simply dance a full beat off center, fearful of the changing world around them.  They live in a continuous state of self-flagellation of their human condition powerless to reason beyond their inherited convictions of what is right and wrong.  Their soap box of fanatical righteousness is nurtured by an astute conviction that their beliefs, even when fractional, are beyond reproach as they go about the business of molding the world in their image.  They embrace their phobias as a covetous crusade for their definition of the norm which often disqualifies their understanding of reasonable discourse.  Their belief system is frequently fragmented and soft core, leaving them prone to react angrily even violently when cornered, confused, or contradicted.  They live in constant fear of becoming irrelevant, and it is that fear that ushers them ever closer to irrelevance.

Although Mississippi’s past speaks volumes about its intolerance, Mississippi in the 21^st Century is better than this!  Shel Silverstein said we should look at one another only if we first turn out the lights.  With no light to reflect the pigment of our skin or the brother or sister we choose to stand at our side, we are all the same.  It is time we turn out the lights in Mississippi and see our brothers and sisters with our hearts.  It is time we turn on the light in our hearts, and see each other through God’s eyes.  It is through that light that we can conquer the intolerant fear that once again threatens our great state.  HB 1523 is a serpent that should be crushed under the heel of Mississippians unified in supporting the humanity of all people, and in due time, it will be.  No one outside the state will believe this, but Mississippi is better than HB 1523!

JL

©Jack Linton, April 5, 2016

 

To Save America, the South Must Rise Again

Ignorance and hate are killing America! While the black man blames the white man, and the white man points back at the black man, America trembles under racial siege on the brink of self-inflicted collapse as a nation. As a people, we appear helpless to turn the tide, but if America is to survive someone must be willing to step forward and initiate the healing process. Someone with courage must take that first leap of faith to right our great nation.

Our obsession with judging our fellow man rather than trying to understand him as well as our penchant for creating smokescreens to cover the real issues are ripping out our hearts and trampling our souls. We live in an enlightened time, yet we stand guard at the gates of yesterday protecting a past that has little to offer but distrust, anger, hurt, and alienation from our fellow man. We live in a society of non-discriminatory intolerance. We live in a society often unwilling to acknowledge the truth behind its sins or that it has sinned. As a people, we are quick to cast blame but slow to take responsibility. Regardless of the color of our skin, we have embraced intolerance to the point that it has become our norm, and it is that intolerance that now lays siege to all we love and care for as a nation.

America does not have a black and white issue. America has a distrust issue resulting in the disenfranchisement of both blacks and whites from reaching an amicable understanding and solution to their problems. Inevitably, the omission of trust leads blacks and whites alike to resentment of one another and even to violence. As a country, distrust permeates every aspect of our lives. We distrust anyone who has a different lifestyle, different belief, different skin color or different ethnic background. We would rather alienate someone outside our understanding than risk contamination by a new understanding. We would rather cling to the past than risk the uncertainty of embracing a new future. We would rather desperately hang on to dead ideologies than to open our minds to healthier more altruistic ideas. We would rather sacrifice our future and the future of our children than acknowledge the soiled truths of the past. We would rather defiantly rally behind a symbol that stands contrary to the civil rights of all men than exercise tolerance and understanding.

I have long regarded criticism of the Confederate flag as an injustice that was little more than a smokescreen or scapegoat for much graver issues, and I admit, I still hold to that opinion to a great degree. I believe it is simple minded madness to advocate pulling down historical memorials, monuments, name sakes, and individual freedoms that can be linked to the Confederate cause or any other offending historical cause, to do so is to eradicate history, which is a dangerous disservice to all. However, I believe removing a divisive symbol from local and state government institutions established to represent and serve all people is not too much to ask. Therefore, I am of the opinion that the debate over the Confederate flag has been ongoing for too long, and it is time for resolution. It is time we recognized that any injustice directed at the stars and bars pales to the injustices it symbolizes for many fellow Americans. Regardless of where you stand on the flag issue, the distrust and division the Confederate flag has caused in race relationships in America is unquestionable.

I have said this before, but racism in America goes a lot deeper than a flag or even the color of a person’s skin. Racism in this country is an adult disease without regard for race or class that is forced on our children who in turn become adults and force it upon their children. This perpetual cycle of collective cultural ignorance exists in our communities, our schools, our churches, and our government, but although it grows and is often allowed to fester in these places, none of these is the root of its ugly beginnings. Racism begins at home with the mamas, daddies, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who intentionally, unintentionally, or out of ignorance feed it to children.   Children are not born into this world hating! Children are not born into this world caring if another person’s skin is white or black! Children are born into the world only with the imprint of God on their souls. It takes a misguided nurturer to wipe that from them and replace it with hate and prejudice. The homes of black and white Americans alike are where racism is cultivated, massaged, nurtured, and molded into the disease that now threatens the very existence of our great country.

I am not black, so for me to say I completely understand the black man’s feelings toward the Confederate flag would be untrue, but even as a white man, I can see the hurt, distrust and division this symbol of the past causes so many black men and women. Although I am a proud Mississippian who sees the Confederate flag as a symbol of the valor of men who fought and died for a way of life in which they believed, I am not proud that way of life included enslaving people due to the color of their skin. Slavery in any form is wrong and condoning it even as a part of heritage is a slap in the face to all that is decent and right. For that reason, the time has come to lay our past to rest.

The time has come to remove the Confederate flag from our local and state government buildings. Such an action will not resolve racial tensions in this country, but maybe it will act as a sign that at least in the South, we are finally ready to embrace the future rather than the past. To help right America, it will take the iconic courage of Southerners to take a leap of faith and show the rest of the nation that we are ready to find a way to live with our fellow human beings regardless of the color of their skin. God blessed many of us to be born Southerners and for a select few, he blessed us as Mississippians, but he blessed all of us as Americans. It is time to stand together as Americans and not stand divided by the color of our skin or by ideologies that no longer matter. It is time for the South to rise again, not in defiance, but in compassion for our fellow man. We do not have the means or the power to right the wrongs of the past, but we do have the means and power to lay aside the past and live together as brothers.

JL

©Jack Linton, June 26, 2015