Random thoughts on Four S Words

Sad

This is a sad moment in the U.S.—so many people support hate, and it’s discouraging. How do you combat that? The bad excuse that they just don’t realize what they are doing makes no sense in a time when you literally have all the info at your fingertips. No. Hatefulness is real and exists in your own neighborhood. This is profoundly sad to those of us who have always assumed that people are mostly good.

Sacred

Over Easter weekend, many people in my part of the world like to stand beside the road with crosses to express their beliefs. I’m fine with that, though ostentatious displays give me the pip, and why would you use an instrument of torture instead of something that represents Jesus’s good works? But—none of my business how other people do that.

What really got me was that some—ok, a lot, since I live in Missouri–were also wearing MAGA hats. This sent a confusing message. Either they don’t understand what Jesus preached, or they don’t understand what that red hat stands for. Those two things are mutually exclusive. To take what they consider a sacred day and cheapen it boggles my mind.

Again, none of my business how others do that, but I have a feeling if I stood beside the road with a bonfire and a pentacle, I would not be well received no matter how much fun I was having or whether I was wearing a red hat or not (spoiler: I would be wearing a pointy black hat and I would be having a blast.)

Scam

I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer or the brightest bulb in the chandelier. It could be that I’m even a few peas short of a casserole, or maybe the butter has slipped off my noodle. I don’t claim otherwise. But even I can spot the obvious scam being perpetrated here.

Speak–or maybe even Sass

The best time to speak up was 8 years ago, but the next best time is today.

For the past ten years or so I’ve worked mostly online. I edited for a virtual education provider and I did freelance fiction editing—still do. I also write which is a solitary sport. So I tend to stay in my corner and do my thing. I’m not fond of crowds. I can fake it for only so long and then I have to hie me back to the forest.

And the world did ok.

But this moment calls for every voice—even those of us who really, really, really don’t like to do it.

Confrontation can be peaceful, but should be assertive. We have to call out the bullies, the racists, the misogynists, and the brutes among us. We should have been pointing and laughing at them all along. We didn’t because—well, as we say in the South, Bless their hearts. And so they feel emboldened by our silence. Just telling them they are wrong is a good first step.