Somehow

The morning is grey and the air is still - the temperature sits at 58 degrees fahrenheit and experts say it will move to 68 degrees at the coast.  The southeast and southwest are burning with heat at triple digits.  Today is Friday.

It's the end of the month - we are officially into the second half of the year and it is hard to believe six months have passed.  In the past week, huge and small decisions were made for society and for individuals.  Somehow, we are to balance all the things that need to be managed - personal, family, community, society going through huge shifts.  Somehow, the illusion of freedom seems to be lost as people forget the need for discipline in order to truly be free.  Somehow the many things people do to prepare for disaster, individual and collective, don't seem to work (as evidenced by the news reports).  Somehow, we live on - and do so in pain.

There is no doubt about the fact that humanity has reached its limits and critical decisions need to be made about what really matters.  Yes, race matters.  But more importantly, our capacity for caring and love really matter, too.  After all, what does it mean to be alive as a human being rather than a radish?

It seems we have forgotten in all the frenzy of survival in today's world.  In a recent discrimination case involving a trans male, it was profound to hear the story he had to share about having lost his job.  As it turns out, the employer had not done anything to cause the loss.  Even in his own version of events, it was clear that he had made the choice to walk out;  yet, he had a narrative that entirely blamed the employer and was insistent that his loss was deserving of half a million dollars (at the outset).  By the end of the process the anger turned to self-reflection as he learned about the information that the employer had in its possession, documented by statements not just from co-workes but from customers who had encounters with an angry, arrogant, and hurtful person:  himself.  It took an entire day to compost and bring a more balanced narrative into the awareness of this man.  And in the end, there was a resolution - but it took time, it took a way for the man to see himself through a different lens brought by someone not directly in the dispute.  It took very direct communication that was not easy.  Somehow, the narrative for this young person deepened and it was obvious that a shift had taken place - a calmness and quiet surfaced, and a resolution was finally reached (for far less than half a million dollars).

The point here:  people need time, need to slow it down, need to allow the events that demand attention every day to be a part of a different kind of pace.  Healing, seeing, understanding - all take more time that many currently give.  Somehow, there has to be a way.