An Open Letter to Senator Patty Murray

[Senator Patty Murray, Senator from Washington since 1992, is the Democratic co-chair of the "SuperCommittee," the group tasked with reducing the deficit. This letter was sent to her via this comment form on October 2, 2011. I encourage Washington residents to add your own voices.]

Senator:

Since your appointment as co-chair of the “SuperCommittee,” you’ve probably gotten a lot of mail. No doubt a lot of people are trying to get you to move in one direction or another. After all, the decisions of your committee will likely decide the immediate financial future of this country. I am sure you know the responsibility lying on you. As a longtime supporter, I am writing to you regarding potential spending cuts that your committee may recommend.

It’s become clear that raising taxes is necessary, so long as the taxes are only on those people who actually have money, the richest. But cutting spending will be needed as well, for political purposes as well as practical ones. But what to cut?

Many Americans are calling for cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Others are advocating cuts for defense spending.

And that puts you in a tight spot, doesn’t it?

Senator, everyone knows that you have worked hard to bring contracts and Federal money home to Washington State, and everyone knows that a lot of what you’ve brought home is defense spending, and everyone knows that you’ve gotten a fair amount of money from Boeing and other major defense contractors. So while as a Democrat you’ve staunchly defended Medicare and Medicaid, you also have a vested interest in supporting Washington’s economy, specifically by bringing home Pentagon contracts.

Let’s consider, though. When we spend money on weapons, what do we get? Death and destruction. Ideally for our enemies, often for unlucky bystanders, occasionally (war being the chaos that it is) for our own. If the weapons are used at all, of course. I think all but the most bloodthirsty and xenophobic will hope and pray that they never will be.

When we spend money on health care, what do we get? Life. People living, working, thriving, and (let’s be direct) voting. And health care is something we definitely will use.

In these times, can we afford to build bombs we hope we’ll never drop, missiles we hope we’ll never launch? In these times, can we afford the luxury of war? Or should we bend our efforts and our treasure to the necessity of life?

The answer is, in part, in your hands.

Your longtime supporter,

Paul Christiansen

Cure the Sick

Recently it became clear that certain parties vying for the highest office in the United States feel that health care is something to be earned, not something freely given. Dr. Ron Paul essentially advised that anyone who could not afford care be left to die, and the crowd in the room with him evidently agreed. It has since become clear that this is no hypothetical for the congressman, as his manager in his 2008 campaign, Kent Snyder, died of pneumonia, uninsured. Reportedly a preexisting condition made purchasing insurance too expensive for Snyder.

Dr. Paul’s recent words on the subject:

“That’s what freedom is all about: taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to take care of everybody…”

He didn’t quite finish his point, as there were too many people applauding.

Palliatives

Every morning I climb out of bed, pull on some clothes, and fire up my computer. I check my email first — I work online, and keep in touch with my Quaker business via email, so this is a must. After that, I usually skip over to the Seattle Times website, to see what a mainstream newspaper has to say about the headlines; then I visit my favorite liberal/radical sites: AlterNet, for that note of hysteria; Feministing, to keep my white middle-class male self in line; and finally Sociological Images, to teach myself how to see the world with clearer eyes. As I mentioned earlier, I check the National Hurricane Center’s website during storm season.

Then I read the comics.

The Storm

From June to September, I have a regular practice of checking the National Hurricane Center webpage to watch for storms. I’ve done this a few years now, and every time I see another hurricane coming, I find myself wondering: is this the one? Is this the holy storm that will hit us so hard that we’ll finally see the light? Katrina shone some light, made us see the wretchedness our society has papered over, made us see the poverty and contempt that creeps through our culture like a cancer. Then Katrina blew itself out and we looked away. So every time another alert goes up on the NHC website, I ask: will the wrath of a wronged, forsaken god finally come down on us? Will heaven finally stop pulling punches, truly lay us out, make us change?

And then I do this: I hope. I whisper, “Make it this one. Do it. Break us. Shatter our cities, open our eyes, make us see. Hit us. Hurt us.”

There’s a storm brewing; I hear there hasn’t been a storm like this since Gloria, or Bob, or the “Long Island Express.” This one is called Irene. It could tear up the whole coast, whack every city from Savannah to Boston, roll right into New York Harbor and hit that city as it has not been assailed in generations… no, not even ten years ago.

I was talking with my friend Jay, of whom I’ve written before. She lives in DC, and I said to her, “I’m glad you don’t live in New York.”

Saying this, I stopped. Jay’s not in New York, but Phoebe is; she’s an old flame of mine, I’d hate to see her hurt. And Jo, to whom I owe so much, is in Boston, which may suffer just as badly. In fact Irene is going to pass over every woman I’ve loved in the last five years.

Which made me wonder: do I only care if someone I’ve had a crush on is in danger? I actually have people all along that coast. Friends. Family. So many people I love in so many ways, from Atlanta north.

It hit me then: every single person in the storm-path is loved by someone.

If even one person dies, then someone’s heart will be broken.

I was ashamed then. I still am. Ashamed of quietly calling for a killer storm on everyone else, whispering prayers for divine judgment so long as they didn’t touch me or mine, not seeing or not caring that any deaths would rend someone as much as I would be rent if Jay or Jo or Phoebe or anyone else were hurt. Here I was, just months ago, saying how we are all connected. Here I was, just days ago, teaching myself to see everyone as people, so I can take the next step and love them as neighbors. And here I am today rooting for a city-breaking, world-changing storm to hit the next town over from my friends. I’ve drawn a circle around the people who matter to me and said, “Take the rest.”

We all do it, of course, not that it excuses me. Everyone has that circle, and beyond it we rarely raise a finger. Oh, sometimes we do, when a quake hits Haiti or a storm smashes New Orleans. But we don’t care enough to change the world’s ways — our ways — that put those people in the path of the storm to begin with. They are outside the circle.

But Christianity is about drawing one big circle around everyone ever created and saying, “This is who we care for. No one gets left out. No one is unloved.”

Hard, yeah. Likely impossible. But it’s written plain right there in the law: “Love your neighbor. Love the stranger. Love your enemy.” If we don’t… well, then, the man from Galilee won’t even want to know us.

Then I remember that the One I follow is mercy and forgiveness incarnate, and that we absolutely get points for trying.

Irene is not the wrath of the One. If there’s anything heavenly in this hurricane, it’s in the hope that people will help each other. Not just this week or this year but all the time, in advance and ever after.

And if there’s no such thing as god, then absolutely nothing changes. If there’s no one watching us, we’re still watching each other. If there’s no reward, then helping just for helping’s sake is all the more beautiful and selfless.

Hurricanes will come. They aren’t the wrath of a heaven too long ignored. There won’t be a god-storm that opens eyes. If I want eyes opened, then I have to speak up.

So.

What will it be? Will we turn away from each other? Will we leave each other in the lurch again, forever look the other way?

Or will we face this storm and all storms? Face it together? Together as a community, as a country, as one people? Shall we again disappoint, or shall we rise to meet our promise?

Take my hand. Make the circle. Bring everyone in.

People

Here’s a simple exercise:

When you’re out in the world, look around you. See who else is out and about. Then call them what they are: people. Practice naming them as people.

It helps if you start out by ignoring everything you know about them. First to go should be appearance. Nice clothes or shabby? Doesn’t matter. Different skin, different hair, different eyes? Forget them. Young, old? Irrelevant. Ugly or attractive? Not a factor. Male or female? Beside the point.

It’s hard, truly hard. (I said it was a simple exercise, not an easy one. This is why we have to practice it every time we go outside.) Society has trained us to place people in categories, boxes really, which is why it’s so important to practice getting away from that. Because people are not boxes and do not conform to our expectations. When I see a black man, I don’t always think “criminal/dangerous” — but I have thought that, in the past. This despite the fact that such a snap judgment is a) ridiculous and b) goes against everything I’ve been taught by my parents and my faith. Society insinuates its lessons, despite all counter-instruction. I’m getting better. Even as I frequently manage to dissociate “black” from “criminal,” however, my brain still performs the snap categorization that permits such a false and discriminatory judgment in the first place: when I as a white man see a black man, my brain says, “black man.” When I see another white man, though, my brain says, “man.” Until I can change that, I am still racist.

Note that even just “man” puts people in boxes, though. The oldest divide in the human race is between male and female, a split we now know does not have a clear line, but a split regardless. Here I fight not just my socialization but my genes (and hormones!), for my brain has a deep predisposition to focus on young attractive women. Women, however, are far more than objects to look at, and far more than sexual targets to be desired.

Possibly the most important if least-frequent label to remove is “annoyance.” People bother me a lot, talking when I’d prefer silence, intruding on my time when I’m hurrying, interrupting the tasks I’ve set myself. They cut in front of me, they block my way, and (when traffic is involved) they may even hazard my health or life. Seeing those people as people is perhaps the most urgent part, because to see them as people may head off conflict. Harboring anger or resentment for someone permits our minds to denigrate, disrespect, and ultimately dehumanize someone who is, after all, a relative, no matter how distant. Dehumnanization is what permits all forms of violence, mental or emotional or physical. In fact one might say that to see someone as a problem or an annoyance is the first act of violence. Everyone who looks at another with anger has already punched that other in the face.

So I strive to pull back from all the labels I place on the people around me, and only call them “people,” nothing more specific. “Person,” I tell myself. “People. Person. Attractive person.” (I haven’t perfected my technique yet.) “People. Person. People. People. People.”

That’s the first step, pushing through the mass of labels and boxes and preconceptions to the point where you recognize human as human. This first step then enables the next. Once you have trained yourself to set aside all that you see of the people around you, appearance and action, then you need to remind yourself of what you can’t see, but is definitely there: hopes. Fears. Dreams. Love. Anger. Joy. Wisdom. Mistakes. History. A future. In short, all the stuff that makes a soul a soul, all that makes you, you and me, me — it makes them, them.

Look. Call them people. Fold up your boxes and put them away. Remember what you don’t see. Then take the last step, and love these your neighbors as you love yourself.

Entitlements

At present we here in the United States are in an interesting situation.

This whole year our elected representatives have been wrangling over the budget — first with the showdown over the shutdown, and now with the debt ceiling high noon. And much of the discussion has centered not on bringing more money in, but cutting the money that’s going out, usually focusing on “entitlements.”

There has been discussion of cutting all Title X funding for women’s health on the basis of “no taxpayer money for abortions,” even though none of the Title X money goes to abortions at all. There have also been proposals to effectively defund the Environmental Agency, specifically making it illegal to regulate greenhouse gasses. And most significantly there have been “bold” proposals for cutting or even effectively privatizing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security over time, never mind that these measures would almost certainly increase costs for the poor and elderly and thus completely gut the main mission of those organizations.

Note that many of these issues are still in contention — some guaranteed not to pass, others being used as bargaining chips. Both parties, however, are agreeing to major cuts in the so-called “entitlement programs” that (mostly) benefit older and poorer folks; the difference between the parties’ positions is only in how much they’ll cut, not if. Note that the parties are also united in deregulating major industries, such as banking and telecommunications — again only differing in degree. And while President Obama has proposed raising taxes, he had the opportunity to do exactly that some months ago and, quite simply, didn’t — meaning that the parties, in deed at least, are also united on cutting taxes.

Self-Defense

There’s been talk about self-defense in American political/social discourse all my life. It has been a limited talk, however, dominated by limited ideas.

Usually when we talk about self-defense, we are referring to defense of one’s person, family, or property against theft or assault. There is a second and broader strand of “self-defense” talk, concerning the defense of a country, usually either the United States or Israel. Finally people speak of defending rights.

What all these usually imply or assume is that there are evil people who would harm us in a variety of ways, and that the natural recourse of good and decent people is to defend themselves violently. Almost all references to “self-defense” that I can think of regard a violent response to a violent affront. Usually there is some connection to the Second Amendment or to the military. Handguns come up frequently. The speakers usually identify as conservative.

Yet there is a far broader definition of self-defense that is equally valid, and far broader means of self-defense that just the violent resort. (I will not say “last resort,” for when the violent resort is available, it is almost never used last.)

Giving

I am depressed.

I mean that both about my life in general and about me, today. It’s genetic; I can see traces of problems on both sides of my family. I could also attribute it to a biological father who left me and my mother when I was young, or a stepfather who meant to teach me to avoid ego and instead taught me to avoid self-worth. I can blame brain chemistry, an awkward and isolated childhood, my social life, lack of light in Seattle winters. But ultimately blame leads nowhere, least of all to solutions.

For me depression means lack of energy, lack of interest, feelings of hopelessness, and above all a bitter self-loathing and self-sabotage. I can remember feeling sad with no cause when I was very young, and I can remember taking out my frustrations against myself. I learned emotional masochism, making myself feel worse through guilt or making my life more difficult, so that at least I would be in control of the amount of pain I was feeling. Since I was a storyteller from almost my first word, this meant my heroes would all prevail against vicious odds, but pay the price, suffering serious wounds in the moment of victory. They would then live out the rest of their lives maimed and meaningless.

It took twenty-odd years, but eventually I went from telling stories about it to doing it myself. I was a cutter for a year and a half, and I have nearly a score of scars visible on my arm.

One night I tried to go further. I knew a high place, and I intended to jump off it. Something or Someone stopped me, but it was a struggle. I contemplate suicide to this day. I won’t do it. But I think about it. Living is not easy; it’s like going through life in heavy chains, forever constrained by the bonds and by the sheer weight. Everything is a little harder, a little worse, a little more painful, and self-destruction to one degree or another is my constant companion. This is what depression is.

Yet for all this, my case is light. Many days I have no symptoms, and I can live like anyone else. My case is sufficiently mild and sufficiently idiosyncratic that I have never considered medication. I have never trusted any method that would rely on me alone. I am too good at self-sabotage to be solely responsible for my own health. If I chose to take medication, I could just as easily choose to not take it, and frankly, knowing myself, I would stop at the worst possible time.

Besides, I have a cure.

It is not a quick fix; nothing is. My cure is more Sisyphus than silver bullet (and while it works for my mind it couldn’t possibly work for all mental illness). And it is less easily weighed, measured, and dosed than any pill. My cure is other people.

When I look into a mirror, I see flaws, failures, a useless lump of flesh that cannot–will not–accomplish anything that is worth the oxygen it consumes. This is because mirrors lie. We look into them and see what we expect, out of our pride, our misery, or our mediocrity. It takes someone else, someone who loves us for who we really are, to tell us the truth and do what no mirror can: show us our real selves.

Sometimes one person is a strong enough force in my life to bring my mind into balance for a time, by herself. I’ve already written of Jay, who helped me through my addiction to cutting. She didn’t do it herself; she couldn’t have helped me unless I was willing to be helped. And I could not have done it without her to help me. So we owe each other the victory. And Jay isn’t the only one who’s been so stabilizing for me.

Hanging my sanity on one person works, if it’s the right person… but only for a time. If nothing else it’s tiring for them. I try to give back, but I can’t always, not at the right time or in the right way. And even strong relationships of mutual support will eventually end, one way or another, because everyone dies. So the only way I can make my cure work is by drawing on many people, and the only way it’s fair is if I use the strength and stability they’ve given me to help them in return.

I have often wondered why, in the One’s big plan, I was born under such a shadow of depression. And if there is no grand plan, I’ve wondered what use I can make of my illness, how I can make it serve me rather than the reverse.

Now I know.

My cure is the world’s cure, or the beginnings of one. The support I need–and the support I hope I can in turn give others–is the support we all need. I just need a little more of it. No one can go through life alone. Every great hero we’ve ever heard of had a hundred helpers; even Jesus of Nazareth needed family and friends. I have said, “We are one.” This is what I meant. People supporting other people and being supported in turn. Those who have–be it money, power, or in my case just a better view of who I am–supporting those who have not. And then, as all such stories go, the balance shifts, and those who were needy become those who give. Many times it is love and truth, as with me. Sometimes it may be a larger act, perhaps those who have money and power giving to those who need it more, and getting back what they most need: forgiveness.

It all begins in weakness. It begins by saying that we need help, then by asking as I have asked. It is a renunciation of power, a confession of vulnerability, and for many of us it is the most terrifying act of our lives. But do as I have done. Say, in your weakness, “Please. I need help.”

You’ll be amazed, as I have been amazed, at who comes to your aid, and how. Then in time you will become the one to give, so listen to your neighbor’s whispered cry–”Please. I need help”–remember your own weakness, and give to them in the same measure as someone gave to you. And so our weakness becomes our strength.

This is the story of all family, of all community, of every union and every alliance, the story of all democracy, of all humanity. Asking for help and giving it, not once but always, giving back what’s been given, day in and day out. It is the story of all hope.

Give and ask and give again, world without end, forever and amen.

Tax Hikes

Over the past few years, the University of Washington has been raising the cost of tuition. This year the university has taken the additional step of accepting 150 fewer in-state residents as freshmen, since out-of-state students pay much, much more. This is because the State of Washington has typically paid the rest of the in-state tuition cost — but now the state will only pay 28 percent, down from 72 percent. The state has been cutting funding for the university so drastically — $204 million less this year, not to mention another $278 million in cuts to other public colleges — that the UW in essence cannot afford its primary function of providing a superlative education at a reasonable cost. (A new proposal to allow the school more latitude in setting tuition may help, but I foresee more tuition hikes — which comes to the same thing.) This means that a Washington high-school student with great grades but nothing else will now find it rather harder to get the world-class education heretofore possible — or, to put it another way, telling our children to get good grades so they can get into a good college will be true only if we’re speaking to rich kids, and a lie the rest of the time.

This cut in state support is a tax.

The traditional definition of a tax is money taken by the state under duress, but is this much different? The state is not taxing money, but futures.

The state is also cutting funding for the Washington State Ferry system, once one of the jewels of our public transportation system, by $30 million, meaning that there will be fewer runs and (probably, in time) fewer boats. I know many people who rely on the ferries for many reasons, including islanders who have no other way of getting home. The cuts to the ferry system will inevitably fall on their shoulders in increased ferry fees, more difficulty in travel and commute, and a strain on their time.

This is also a tax. A tax on islands, perhaps.

The state, furthermore, is cutting 17,000 people from the rolls of Washington Basic Health, the lowest-cost health insurance available in the state, to the tune of $108 million. As those 17,000 people were on Basic Health because they could afford no other coverage, this essentially puts them out in the cold with no protection at all. Speaking as someone whose only insurance for the past two years has been the grace of God, I can understand the fear and dread of those 17,000 citizens, who have committed no crime other than being poor in a state that apparently considers poverty worth punishing.

This, too, is a tax. A tax on lives.

These taxes I’ve described strangle people. They steal hope, they steal days and years, they steal breath from bodies. Considering that here among our residents (I need not name names) we have several people with enough wealth to wipe out the state’s deficit and not worry about the check bouncing, and considering we have companies (I need not name names) that make more profit in a quarter than Basic Health costs in two years, and considering that this wealth has not been taxed, I am forced to conclude that there’s one more tax in effect here: a tax on souls. The state government, through its actions and its failures to act, extracts a portion of every soul resident in Washington. This tax policy that lets money go by while putting lives at risk is no less than criminal, and it tarnishes everyone in the state — the politicians for proposing it, and we the citizens for permitting it.

For our own sakes, for the sakes of our leaders, we should end these brutally punishing taxes on the poor and the sick, these levies on those who just happen to be living in the wrong state at the wrong time, and take our taxes from something that — despite appearances — is relatively plentiful: the money that’s out there.

I understand that governments cannot do everything. But if that is true, why must it take its pound of flesh from those who have so little, rather than from those who have so much? I understand the desire to retain one’s property. But does one’s right over property extend to hazarding the lives of your neighbors? I understand that the citizens have reason to distrust the state government with the power of taxing money — I’ve watched one state-sponsored, tax-funded megaproject go up despite the explicit disapproval of the voters, and now I’m watching another roll in without any voting at all. But to respond to such injustice and betrayal by withholding taxes is to punish a dispute between children by starving them to death.

We can do better. We must do better. Yes, there must be reform. Yes, trust must be regained. But when we cut taxes on our wallets we impose taxes on our neighbors. What matters more, our money or their lives? The whole history of human morality cries out, “Life first.” If we cannot help our neighbors through that form of community called government, we deserve neither help nor neighbors.

Tax your thinking on that, and make your choice.

Divisions

[Note: This was written on April 22; it's taken this long to get up in part because of The Filter.]

I have just watched a deeply troubling video of a brutal beating. It shows a transgender woman under attack by two women in a Baltimore McDonald’s. The violence is horrifying, and seems to never end; every time the attackers move off for a moment, they come back. The McDonald’s employees largely do nothing, instead recording the attack on a camera phone; one employee does try to stop the beating, but after a brief time he seems to give up. The pummeling doesn’t end until the attacked woman begins to have a seizure, her blood smeared on the floor, and the man recording the incident warns the attackers to run before the police arrive.

First let me state that the footage is not always clear. The video makes the violence plain, but does not reveal motivations, show what is happening elsewhere, follow the incident all the way to its conclusion, or even provide a clear recording of what the people are saying. All that can truly be understood from the video is the flying fists and the blood on the floor. So my analysis here may be flawed on several levels.

This whole incident cuts across so many divisions in American society. Let us count the chasms…

What first leaped out at me is that the attackers appear to be black while the trans woman appears to be white. I say “appears” because again the footage is not always clear; it is difficult to judge race from a blurry cameraphone video — again, we encounter the limits of anything filmed — but also because the racial lines in this country are themselves increasingly blurred. The attacked woman could identify as white or as Hispanic or as almost anything, which underscores the futility of ever judging by skin tone. But this doesn’t mean that we can dismiss the racial element. There seems to be greater resistance toward non-heteronormative identity and presentation from some in the African-American community. I also note that one of the people to interfere in the violence is white, and while again motivation is unknown, a yelling match between an older white woman and a younger black woman will inevitably have some racial overtones.

A second thing that struck me is that both people who attempt to intervene are older than the attackers, while the bystanders seem to be younger people themselves, setting up an age-imbalance dynamic. Speaking as a teacher, I know that younger people do not always react well to being yelled at by older people, or even just being told what to do. I also note from long personal experience that bullying by young people is always more effectively opposed not by adults but by other young people. While this battering is obviously on a different level entirely, the age of the bystanders makes me wonder: if one or more of the younger employees or customers had even spoken up, would the attack have continued so long? The tacit approval of their peers and the presence of a camera might have added to the vitriol of the assailants.

A third divide worth noting is that of citizens vs. authorities. The bystanders warn the attackers to flee before the police come, indicating that the bystanders have more sympathy for the assailants than for law enforcement. The bystanders also make no move to call for an ambulance at first, as this too would draw official notice, until they realize that with the woman’s seizure they have entered a new level. The racial element returns here, and I may also note that trans people may not always welcome the police, either.

The most obvious division, of course, is between heteronormative and transgender women.

The most fundamental divide, however, is “Us vs. Them,” sameness vs. the other, which runs through all the rifts discussed here.

It seems to me that every act of brutality, from this small-scale viciousness to the most dire genocide, hinges on drawing that line between “like me” and “not like me,” and then cutting off those “not like me” from any common feeling. Those “like me” I will protect; those “not like me” I will attack, or permit to be attacked. We are people, They aren’t. And you only have to be good to people.

This incident teaches us all too viscerally of where that line of thinking leads us: it makes us into victims or villains. It leaves us bloody on the floor, or with blood on our fists, or — most likely — watching idle from the sidelines, inactive and yet just as complicit. There are no other options if we divide the world into Us and Them; every act of human violence has happened because people allow people to suffer what they would not suffer themselves.

This incident also teaches us that all our problems are interconnected. We cannot separate the clash of heteronormative vs. transgender from the clash of race, age, class, or power.

And finally, just as all the problems are entangled — just one problem, really: dividing people — then this incident teaches us that we must be united. I write this on both Earth Day and Good Friday. Just as those two occasions are far more connected than you might think, we are all more connected than we realize. Earth Day reminds us that all the people in the video have more in common than they have differences: the same genetic heritage, the same needs and hopes and aspirations, the same oasis home on the Pale Blue Dot They are all human. Good Friday suggests that — now that what’s happened has been done and cannot be undone — then the absolute best possible outcome from this terrible deed would be all the women, attackers and attacked, becoming friends. If these blows do not lead to an embrace in the end, then the attack’s last tragedy rolls around: it cuts the chasms deeper, and hurts all involved again.

I’ve written of what weapons do to us, the harm they inflict in both directions. That is true even if the weapons are words, or fists, or feet, or power, or paychecks. Harming anyone does damage to the harmer. So I mourn for what the attackers did, both to another person and to themselves. And I mourn for the bystanders who let it happen, as I mourn every time we stand by.

All the problems we face are aspects of the dire knot, humanity’s self-division and civil war. All hope we have rests in our reunion. Unless “Us vs. Them” becomes “Us and the Rest of Us,” we can’t even begin to face the catastrophes we’ve brought on our heads, because we’ll still carry the cracks in our hearts, the cracks that will widen to chasms and divide us yet again.

So speak with me now:

All our woes are one. All people are one. All the earth is one. I must be a friend to all my foes, and they must be friends to me, or everything we have and everything we are will always live in risk.

We are one.

We are one.

We are one.