Mother's Love - why it's important

 I want to address my decision to name my blog Mother Love will save the world.  It sounds hyperbolic, and I guess it is, but I believe it is true.  It's complicated, however, and the statement does not imply things easy or without pain.  Love, after all, is painful because life is painful.  

For those of you out there who think that life should be easy, and everyone should have everything they want all the time, and life is not fair if those things are not true, I say you are not dealing with reality.  I would also point to Original Sin, but if you don't want to bring the bible into it, check out the animal kingdom and observe the pain, killing, suffering that comes with their lives.  Nature on this earth includes joy and suffering for everyone.  This is not heaven, and if you don't believe in heaven, then why do you think it should be here on earth where death is inevitable.  You can say that is not fair, but it won't change the reality of it.

I gave birth to a bi-racial child.  He has suffered from political and cultural forces imposing views on who he should be. However, when I look at him, I don't see race, I see the complete person that he is.  He has my blood and DNA as well as his father's.  He is his own person born from me, someone of European descent.  We love each other regardless of the dangerous nonsense pressing in upon our lives. That's why I think mother love can save the world.

Doing God's Will - Getting there

 I've been thinking today about being out of work -- again.  Within the first few hours and days of being abruptly removed from the job you have toiled over for a certain number of years, you are in shock.  It reactivates any PTSD from which you are already suffering, and I am suffering from a bit.  One may even be tempted to despair, and for a few brief moments, I did.  

Today I am having some thoughts about alternate ways to survive, some using ordinary skills I have never used before to generate income, and some using skills well honed by academic degrees and almost 20 years of dedication.  

But, another thought has occurred to me (one that has pinged in my mind innumerable times), and that is that God sometimes has to give you a kick in the butt by allowing people and circumstances to occur that appear to be to your detriment in order to force you to go in another direction.  This has happened to me a few times in my life, but this time Jesus really has forced me into a corner.  He's been telling me for years to write, but I was too afraid to do so. I took menial jobs rather than write, and now that I have been relieved of another menial job, why not write?  It's fear of one thing or another.  

For those readers who don't believe in God or His ability to "speak" to someone, it's not that I hear an audible voice, but that events, prayer, people, voices in media, books, articles, posts, etc., are placed in my path for me to think about, mull over, and use for discernment of God's will.  My will is a loose cannon; God's will is a guiding light.

Does anyone relate to my experience? 

Daring to be me and to say the truth of my life

 Okay. Here goes. After decades of being afraid to talk about my experience, I am going ahead with this blog.  I see that my profile has had 120 views.  I'm amazed at that number since I did nothing but write that profile.  Then I chickened out and didn't continue.

What has changed?  I just got laid off because of the Chinese virus, and I feel like I have nothing to lose. What else?  I'm just sick and tired of hiding and feeling ashamed. It's complicated.

My son is in his 40s now, and is also out of work because the NYC Broadway theaters are shut down until next year some time.  Who knows when?  Thank you, mayor DB and governor AC.  The economy is falling down around our ears, and we all have to hide from force of nature that is there waiting for everyone to react to it in some way.  Mostly not death.  

If the reader is turned off by my attitude toward the CV, then that's your right.  It's my right to say how I and my family are affected by it.  I was able to work until now because I was in a medically-related field, but because the shut down in my state will probably go on for months, and the people who work there are doing so remotely, there is no need for me now.

But that is not what this particular blog is about.  I want to talk about race and how I was affected by the political forces in this country.  My entire life was changed by those forces.  I made peace with my inner being and truth, but I look around 50 years later and find that my actions count for nothing.  

In high school, some nun must have talked about Martin Luther King, Jr's movement. From my diary I know that I became preoccupied with race in my junior year, 1965. I was so obsessed (a more accurate word?) that I fantasized about marrying a black man and having a son who had "Christ-like eyes." Typical of a teenage girl, I romanticized people of African descent as so many white women did and still do.  Why?  It's complicated, but part of it is a girl conflating a desire for love and family with the mistaken belief that by marrying a black man they will help save the world.

Let me say that after many years of experience before and after marrying an American of African descent (and dating men of almost every race, color and culture), that belief is wrong headed.  And, it's an insult to the humanity of people of African descent.  Each black person is an individual as unique as every other individual on this earth.  They are not a cause or a way to assuage guilt.  Believing otherwise is to fall into your own psychological trap and the trap of race baiters who profit by the misery of this country.  Marry whomever because you love them and it's a good match regardless of race or other differences; however, keep in mind that marrying outside your own familiar race or culture will present a challenge to the marriage.  You can still have a good marriage.  It didn't happen for me, but it had absolutely nothing to do with either race or culture, but my husband's addictions.

That's all for today.  You may post a comment, but only if they are respectful.  I will remove them if they are not.  You can email me with your thoughts by clicking on the link provided.