Just Bury "Me"!

Every day is a challenge in America. In this country, that most of us consider to be the greatest country in the world, we are being whittled away. We are being diminished. We are becoming a nation fraught with financial difficulty, divided by politics, decimated by violence, and assaulted by cynicism and despair.

I am no “Chicken Little”. I don’t think we are all going to implode and the world is going to suddenly end. I don’t think a meteor (…but we DID see one last night!) is going to smash the Earth to smithereens and end all our problems.

What is happening is worse than total destruction. It is the diminishment of our spirits that is the villain. It is the constant bickering, the ongoing disagreements, the sense of escalating events over which we have no control that is destroying us from the inside out. The inability of our leaders to take charge and guide us to better solutions and even our own unwillingness to accept direction keep us from moving forward. At the heart of all our trouble is an insidious black space called; “Me.”

We’re losing our faith in our teachers, the church, political leaders and each other. Instead of working together for the greater good, we all clamor to be heard. In our own community, touted repeatedly as the 7th wealthiest county in the United States, we have entire neighborhoods living in poverty. Worse than ignoring those poor communities are the people who shout, “Those people have a right to live any way they want!” Does anyone really suppose people WANT to live poorly? Are we truly saying, “People have a right to be poor?”

I’ll tell you what’s happened. That black space named “Me” has distorted our thinking. We no longer have the empathy to understand the condition of the poor and rather than face our own shortcomings and admitting we are part of the problem, we hold ourselves blameless for the homeless, the underprivileged and the poor. That black space named “Me” ignores the violence and the loss of life due to murder, rape and robbery.

As a blogger, I feel a responsibility to each person that reads what I write. I attempt to engage, ask you think a little differently and see life a little differently. I use my personal experiences like a tool to help convey the depth of feeling and how I got here. I am not trying to stir up controversy to create a buzz, but rather, a result. I read this article: Ranting on Websites May Just Make You Angrier and it led me to ponder a host of other thoughts. It also made me wonder what we could do to change headlines like these:
Two Teens, 14 and 17, Arrested for Shooting and Killing a Baby in a Stroller.
Baby Girl Shot 5 Times During Diaper Change Dies
Ohio Teen Killer Smiles at Victim’s Families in Court 
Three Quantico Marines Dead Following Shooting

We can’t just talk about the “good stuff” and we can’t ignore the “bad stuff”. We have to work together to create improvements that benefit us all, not for personal gain, not for fame or recognition, not even for future generations. We have to work together for a better set of circumstances for all of us, today.
Oh! I guess all of us is : “You” and “Me”!