Thursday, December 10, 2015

Happy Hanukkah - The Fourth Night

Half the menorah is filled.

It looks vaguely unbalanced, and I am tempted to put the candles in pairs on either side of the shamash.  I like the image it conjures for me, that of the oil slithering down from the tip of the flame through the body of the beadle and out into the other receptacles, out into the world, spreading a message of hope and accomplishment and miracles and light.

As the political scene begins to unravel, as xenophobia becomes the new black, as a contender for the Presidency of the United States can suggest badges and banning and be taken seriously, I come back to these lights.

I'm gonna let it shine, this little light of mine.  Let it shine.  Let it shine.  Let it shine.

I've been repeating that to myself all day, as I cringe through Facebook and the local paper and Slate and The Huffington Post.  By moving Trump and his antics from the front page to the entertainment section, The Huff Post made a statement that I wish other news outlets would emulate.  Yes, he's the leading candidate on the Republican side, but that doesn't mean that he deserves on air promotion.

Couldn't the anchors make oblique reference to Trump's hateful speech and then move  "In New Hampshire today, Donald J Trump continued his outrageous and un-American campaign for the White House.  Because our network has a conscience, because we have read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, because we have studied history and understand the basic underpinnings of our country's birth, we will not be publicizing his rhetoric.  His words do not represent our better angels, the angels President Obama urged us to embrace back in January, 2011."

A girl can dream, can't she?

Did you see Tom Brokaw last night?  I tried to embed the link, and failed.  You can click through here, though, if you want to see a thoughtful presentation of hatred over the years Mr. Brokaw has been on the planet.  To his Hitler, Joe McCarthy I'd add Father Coughlin and FDR and the Japanese internment and sending boatloads back to Germany and the more I think about it the angrier I become.

I don't want to be angry. I want to take the time I'd spend on rage and direct it toward the Syrian refugees who will be arriving in Tucson later this winter.  I don't want to focus on the ugly side of America; I want to think of it as the kind of place the incoming refugees imagine it to be.

Humans of New York shows us that piece.  The tree in the Florida sunshine for a 10 year old's between-the-branches-adventures.  The peace to think only about milk and diapers.  The streets are not paved with gold, but they are not inlaid with IED's.... at least not yet.

I do not want to go there.  I do not want those thoughts in my head.  I want the Christmas pillows and the Hanukkah lights and the love of the season and my soon-to-be-arriving family to be bouncing around in my brain.  And so I bake brownies and hand them out to teachers and therapists and the homeless-and-harmless (or so his sign says) young man on the corner.  I wear my snazzy boots and smile at the compliments.  I walk around in a reindeer adorned sweatshirt and giggle back at the little ones who point it out to their all-too-often-too-frazzled-to-notice grown-ups.  

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.

It's all I can think of to do.

6 comments:

  1. The piece on Humans of NY, showcasing the refugees who are coming to America was very powerful. I was very happy to read the positive responses and people offering to help when they arrived. When did the US go off the rails like this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Did it go off the rails, Allison? Or are those of us doing not getting the publicity the fascistic speech is garnering.
      a/b

      Delete
  2. I cannot stand Trump, but I was thinking about it this morning while driving into the office. What infuriates me MORE are the people who follow him. He says whatever he thinks people want to hear. And he's pandering to the most hateful people in this country. The media makes it seem like there are a lot of people supporting him, but all it does is embolden even more people to follow him. I was so happy when HuffPo relegated that POS to the entertainment section, but I'm not even entertained. I wish he would go back into the hole he came from and let real Americans do what we do best--helping out others.

    I'm losing hope. :(


    Megan xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And if you lose hope and don't fight it you feed into exactly what he expects - it's easy to get the angry mobilized but not that hard to get everyone else to sit the situation out.

      I am furious with the media. I am sure that Hillary and Bernie had events today, yet an hour of Trump speaking to NH Police got MSNBC's attention. Free publicity - that's what Trump understands.

      I will never lose hope. Not while wonderful women like YOU are in the world.

      a/b

      Delete
  3. 'cringe through Facebook'
    sigh
    oh, yes!

    ReplyDelete

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