circles

I always come back to: let's redefine family.  I remember a poem I found in high school about drawing a circle that includes.  We all need to belong to someone.  It's human nature to want to know who our tribe includes.  I think we are in more pain and we cause more pain when we are lost, without our people.

I was picking raspberries with my grandson.  We passed a honeysuckle bush with the bright, translucent berries.  They grew on the hill in front of Grandma and Pop's house.  I loved rolling down that hill, careening out of control on freshly mowed grass.  I remember noticing the berries and asking about them.  Pop told me to never, ever eat them because they would make me sick.  My little guy asked about the same berries, and I told him we never, ever eat them because they could make us sick.  I don;t even know if that is true.  But I felt joined to family for just a moment.  And maybe moments are enough.

I long for a close-knit family, with lots of interaction.  I seem to have that with my kids.  It takes a lot more work that what we're used to.  And we do have drama sometimes.  Not healthy, but healthier...I'll treasure healthier!

Feminism...I know that when a group of my friends invited me to go see a male stripper show, I decided not to go.  If I disapprove of the objectification of women, I have to extend that to men.  Then in the 90's male-bashing jokes became popular.  A male friend of mine explained why it was not funny.  I agreed, as long as women bashing was equally inappropriate.  But I started understanding the oppression of men.  It is subtle, but it;s there.  And it is the reason they oppress women, other races, people of other gender orientation.  Their souls are shredded, too.  It's all one big picture, if we bother to look, and to really see what is happening.

I think your friend is saying what I say.  Humans are good, kind, intelligent.  Violence destroys that, and allows us to become more and more inhumane.  Violence is the tool that destroys humanity.


OUTWITTED:

"He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout
But Love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle that took him in."


-Edward Markham