I have had so much to say in my silence.
Silenced by other peoples opinions on how I should think or feel. I have sat with it, wondering, when in my life I ever let that stop me from speaking. I came to the conclusion it is when people I love are now sitting on the opposite side of me. Perhaps I will lose some, while I peel back the mandated mask of facade they call love, I call conditions. This is a risk I must take not only in tip toeing around peoples delicate feelings, but also to reveal and cherish those who truly love me without conditions.
Recently I was watching an Instagram video on a wildly popular author that I used to idolize. A year ago I would not ever think my feelings or portrayal of her would ever change. In fact, I went on a limb calling her retreat as being the single most life changing event in self discovery, I had ever experienced. When actually, the discovery was, it wasn’t a discovery after all. It was a desperation of belonging and willingness to believe her words had more power than mine. It was an agenda with a fluffed up version of Christianity that was to fit the needs of idolizing thy self. Honestly, I kept feeling this truth often, and pushing it aside. I identified her story as my story. Until, one day it so wasn’t, and was so telling. This idolization of self was dangerous and dark. For months, I felt a guided push away from her. I would read things she posted and my spirit would rebuke what she said. Then, this day happened. I was watching her Instagram video being streamed from that same state I live in. She was literally whining and complaining how she didn’t feel “loved” in her community because they were voting a different way from her. She discussed how in the same community people want pictures with her, read her books, and like her. However, this poor girl, a white millionaire woman, with multiple New York Times Best Sellers, didn’t feel loved. She didn’t feel loved over other peoples right to vote. How does that the only qualifier of love?
For me, this was a breaking point. It wasn’t because of her political choice I was willing to no longer buy into her self-help Christianity. It was because this woman who I used to think was the epitome of inclusive, togetherness, was actually part of the divide. Did she know why all of those people in her community were voting the way they did? Why is the right vote ONLY about what she considers to be most important?
This struck a chord in me because weeks prior I felt completely betrayed and let down, by many I love or had at least liked, on social media. I had posted a reference in being kind to even those who vote a different way than you. I received a backlash of bitter disgust, that as someone as sensitive as I am, had a hard time digesting for weeks. I gently explained I didn’t know who I was voting for at the time because I had varied amount of policies to consider. I was told I was a homophobe and racist nearly because I considered not voting their way. After serving as a huge advocate for decades in social justice, choosing to work only in communities that were in need of such advocacy, and personally identifying as love, I was shocked to see such venom. Especially knowing many hadn’t ever spent a day in these communities helping others find housing, or employment, or food. Social justice suddenly became a movement that was no longer focused on togetherness, but on “who’s side are you on”.
I considered sending that author who had the privilege to stream from her million dollar home on the water, with her healthy kids, about how unloved she felt, a letter about perhaps she didn’t know the whole story for ALL the people. How my husband and I barely kept my son alive for years! How the CDC regulations on Lyme disease worked against us and nearly killed him. How we spent thousands of dollars out of pocket, on a prayer and hope. How when I left Connecticut a few months ago, the Democratic Party, I once felt completely aligned with, wanted to take my rights away from saying no to vaccines that could cause my son his verbal and/or physical ability or possibly death. I want to say, I voted for my son because I need to keep him alive. Mandated vaccines are dangerous for kids like him who aren’t “sick enough” for a medical exempts. Frankly, I wanted to say, how is it I can get an abortion in this country, but not have a say in my childs health. What happened to “My body my choice”? Suddenly that only applies to one sex and one part of our body? I wanted to say, I will continue to send you love and grace because that’s what we are meant for. I wanted to say thank you God we live in a country with the freedom of choice and the right to vote. I wanted to remind her that Jesus loves her, she doesn’t need to be filled by humans love. I wanted to tell her, the things she preaches against, was exactly how she made me feel. Alone. Not included. Not accepted. She did this by saying “if you love me you will vote the same way as me”, while negating everyone elses story. Including my own, that I felt torn between voting for my son, and being a “good person” she had taught me to be.
Not so ironically, it was the people I met at her weekend training that decided to unfriend me and write posts about how I should “f*ck off” or degrade me about my sexuality, Christianity, and my race. That I was no longer loved or a part of them for saying I didn’t know who I may vote for. This my friends, is what happens when we buy into a collective endorsement of divide. We lose the understanding and the depths of peoples hearts. We stop asking why, and we decide our agenda is the most important. We place people into “the right ones who care for people” and the one “wrong ones who don’t care for people”. Without asking the person who they care for and why?
Love should not come with conditions over a political stance, just as we should not over a religion, or a race, or a sexual identity, or parental views, or career choices, or what we do or don’t do to our own bodies. Love is saying “I see you and hold you” no matter what.
An easy answer for some may be I have changed. However, to live and experience life, it to not stay stagnant. What should remain the same if the love is true, is love.
True love stays. Facade conditional love can be left to the box on the left.
seekingup
Seeking Up 
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