https://www.facebook.com/share/p/Yb6B1ByM34egnhr7/
This is a reprise of my 2 Phases of life, the second begins when we realize there is only 1 Phase
post from a couple of months back. This modification feels appropriate in light of the election result (truly I’m striving to avoid resentment and blaming; the One Side transcends the two parties).
I am reaching for something subtle and nuanced here. This platform isn’t always a great place for such things, but here goes.
You may have seen the meme of an Indigenous Native of this continent expressing dismay that occupiers of this land can complain about immigration ills with apparent sincerity. On one such post, a comment was made that the context has shifted because the Indigenous Native cultures didn’t live according to a monetary economy, so the impact of immigration is different now when those who are coming from a different culture that includes a lot of trauma attempt to fit into a new culture (I’m paraphrasing).
My response to his comment was my own attempt to find a place in me that doesn’t feed my resentment, but rather attempts to see the whole more clearly:
Strange that so many want to close the gate AFTER they came through it, and the reason so many come through the gate is because the situation where they came from became so toxic FOR THEM that they had to resort to activities that challenged their own sense of decency and wanted to come to a place of opportunity. They are mostly saying, let me come to a place where stealing and killing is no longer required for their family’s survival, and yet there are always a few of those who aspire to live better by coming here who can’t actually make the transition easily, even though the vast majority do.
It is true that the natives, ancestors of this land [before the Europeans came (who themselves were children of the Roman colonizers)] didn’t have an economic system that they held up as a golden calf, and today we do. Most of the ills we see with immigration are the result of people trying to make that golden calf system work, not a failure of the people themselves. I’m not saying that money isn’t useful, for sure it is; rather I’m repeating the well-known formulation: the love of money, that’s the root of all evil.
When money becomes a tool of division rather than communion, we get what we’ve got.
Left and Right, Liberal and Conservative, Democrat and Republican, are just two flavors of trying to live with the love of money. Which is the lesser cancer? Is that really the fight we want to have?
Let us embrace our roles as Stewards, Curators, and Scouts to discover a way forward that transcends both oppressive control and extreme individualism.