empathy

No, You’re Not Imagining It: 3 Ways Racial Microaggressions Sneak into Our Lives — Everyday Feminism

~ paxgirl ~ Leave a comment

We are NOT Post-Racial. Hard to look at? I'll bet it's harder to be on the receiving end-ALL the time.
We are NOT Post-Racial. Hard to look at? I’ll bet it’s harder to be on the receiving end-ALL the time.

I posted this piece on my Facebook page as well. The truth and civility with which it was written are stunning.  I encourage you to read every word, even when it feels a little uncomfortable, even when you recognize that there might be things that need to change in your paradigm, the worldview you were raised to find acceptable, and/or your own behavior.

Thanks to Everyday Feminism and Anni Liu for the amazing essay.

Peace, friends.

Click the link below to read this eye-opening piece.

No, You’re Not Imagining It: 3 Ways Racial Microaggressions Sneak into Our Lives — Everyday Feminism.

Speak up, even when it's scary. Staying silent so as not to 'rock the boat?' Another Microagression.
Speak up, even when it’s scary. Staying silent so as not to ‘rock the boat?’ Another Microagression.

An Invitation.

~ paxgirl ~ 5 Comments

At an event last night, a poem was read that resonated so strongly within my heart that I had to share. I contacted the poet this morning and got permission to post the piece. Even though these words were written by another, they put into words feelings I couldn’t have articulated nearly as well.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve been working, going to school, and standing through a year that tried its best to knock me down. Moments like last night, listening to a beautiful soul read this poem, are like raindrops that wash me clean. I hope you are as touched by Oriah’s words as I was.  I’m glad to be back.

Peace, Friends.

The Invitation by Oriah

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

By Oriah from her book, THE INVITATION (c)1999. Published by HarperONE,
San Francisco. All rights reserved. Presented with permission of the
author. http://www.oriah.org

“you are the weakest link”

~ paxgirl ~ Leave a comment

never too late to fix the chain.

“No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger that its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise.”

-Marian Anderson

The chain is no stronger than its weakest link. Our national (for me global chain, you know I’m not fond of borders) chain is full of ‘weakest links,’ those who are keeping people down, and by doing so are denying themselves their own flight into true freedom.  Some I consider to be in this category (but great news! If they stop doing it, they return to shiny, unbreakable forged steel immediately):

Anyone who still uses the antiquated and antipathethic “they just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps” pontification.  The people they’re talking about don’t have bootstraps, or boots, or the means to acquire them. Anyway, they don’t need boots so much as compassion.

*Try buying boots when you’re followed and given the evil eye the second you walk into a store.

*Try buying boots with the food stamps you’ve been forced to use because you left an abusive husband and brought 4 kids and a cat with you and you’re all sleeping on a cousin’s screened porch.

*Try buying boots when you’re ashamed to go into the store in your unwashed clothes -can’t do laundry because you don’t have running water.

*Try getting a job to buy boots when you don’t have clothes to wear to the interview.

*Try buying boots when no one in the store will talk to you because you are clearly homeless and as such you are assumed to be schizophrenic or alcoholic, or both, but you’re just another college-educated victim of the sub-prime fiasco and lost your home.

Continue reading →

All are Welcome

~ paxgirl ~ 2 Comments

I wonder every day about people who are angry at others who see the world in a different way; about those who are offended by the beliefs that don’t line up perfectly with their own; about those who can somehow justify a bias toward people whose skin is a different hue, fellow humans who worship in a different house, those in poverty, anyone who speaks English with an accent, those who want to marry but legally cannot, and (insert any other subgroup of humanity here); about righteous indignation in general.

Does this acrimony stem from fear? “If she can believe that so strongly, then maybe I’M wrong/bad/stupid?”

Is it born of a need to feel superior? “Your wrong-ness validates my wonderful-ness!”

Can insecurity be the fuel? “If YOU are beautiful but don’t look like me, maybe I’m not so cute after all.”

There is a church here in Orlando called Hope Unites. It is part of the UCC, which from what I gather, is based upon the “Come as you are” philosophy. A church that pays more than lip service to “All are Welcome” (straight, GLBT, brown, white, black, any denomination) is my kind of house.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if every house, every dinner table, every school, church, and country club had an “All are Welcome–and Celebrated!” sign at the entrance?

hmmmm….wait a minute….here I am wishing everyone feels like I do. Am I guilty of exactly what I was pondering in the beginning of this musing?

Peace, friends.