We are losing our soul – and our humanity

Right now, I very much fear for our country.

I fear that we are losing our soul.

That we are losing our humanity.

That we are losing any sense of community, of commonality, of the ability to even think about working together.

I am not talking about the current leadership of this country, which lies and denies and denigrates, which seems so focused on partisanship that even the hint of cooperation is dismissed as cowardly.

I am talking about the regular folks like you and me, people who get up in the morning and care for their families and go to work or school, who run errands and generally focus on simply getting through whatever the day throws at them.

I see regular folks like you and me who are federal agents working for ICE and Border Patrol and HHS no longer acting with humanity, and wonder: What did it take to make you act this way? What did it take to turn you into the kind of person who separates families and celebrates doing so?

I see regular folks like you and me who work at the detention centers for immigrants, adult and child alike, who ignore and mistreat and abuse people desperately seeking a better life, and wonder: When did you lose your compassion?

I see videos of seemingly normal people attacking complete strangers for having the audacity to speak a language other than English in this country, and wonder: When your ancestors came here – and unless you are Native, trust me, your ancestors were strangers in a strange land once – do you think they should have been attacked because they didn’t know the right language?

I see videos of white people abusing people of color simply because of their color, and wonder: Have you always been a racist?

Where, I wonder, every single day, has our humanity gone? 

Where, I wonder, every single day, are our souls?

I know we have always had among us those who harbor hate, those who despise others simply for being different, those who think they are superior for (insert any reason you want). 

And I know that those people have always acted out, that they are capable of incredibly vicious acts, including killing those who are different.

And I am aware that in this time of instant communication, of course we hear about this hatred and these vicious acts much more frequently.

But I cannot lay the blame on the Internet.

I lay the blame squarely on us.

Because we are losing our souls.

We are losing our humanity.

Not our leaders.

Us.

We are the ones who are terribly divided. Who judge instantly and nastily. Who name call. Who denigrate. Who lie. Who attack. 

We are the ones who tell women, people of color, people with disabilities, people from other countries, people who have not, that they don’t matter. That we can treat them any way we want, that we can say anything we want, that we Do. Not. Care. One. Whit. About. Them.

Where is the grace? 

Where is the understanding?

Where is the compassion?

Think about it: 

Perfectly normal people doing perfectly normal jobs suddenly have become, or at least seem to be on their way to becoming, some kind of monster doing their perfectly normal jobs. 

Separating children from parents – and gloating about it. 

Denying benefits to people – and boasting about it. 

Declaring that sexual abuse victims’ stories don’t matter – and bragging about it.

Denying food to the hungry by cutting back on food stamps, and limiting what foods poor people can buy – No steaks for you!– and ignoring cries of hunger.

Denying clean water to the thirsty (how long has Flint, Michigan, been without clean water?), and shrugging it off. 

Haughtily telling people who are poor to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, even though they don’t own boots. 

Lying about who receives federal assistance and claiming, I did it all by myself.

Changing the name of earned benefits to “entitlements,” as though we who work don’t pay into our own Social Security every single paycheck. 

Who are these people who act like this? Where did they come from? 

You know who they are?

They are us.

Walt Kelly was right: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

We have become enemies to each other.

We have lost our ability to be empathetic. 

We would rather shout than listen, attack than understand, denigrate than lift up. 

We don’t agree with someone on something? Sneer at that person. Call that person a nasty name. Insult her intelligence. Denigrate his manhood. Claim to be superior

All of this is why, at this time, I very much fear for our country.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

We could be better

We could show grace and mercy to each other.

We could listen.

We could try to understand.

We could help.

We could remember that we could all be wrong.

We could remember that we are all on the same planet, and that none of us – not one of us – is getting out alive.

I don’t want to fear for our country.

I want to be the person … one of many and many m
ore … who can change the direction in which we are heading.

Who will join me?