Moura 2025 CE: Day 11

 I live in the United States. It is deeply distressing to see the changes happening in my country. I pray regularly for patience, courage, and for opportunities to resist the fascist movement rolling through the land. I am embarrassed by the president's behavior, disgusted with the behavior of his administration, and horrified by the failure of Congress to act to retain the balance of powers. One may say that it is out of character for me to post something looking at politics here.

I try to keep religion and politics separate. But given the current environment, I am afraid that freedom of religion is going to get stripped away. I am afraid that my family doesn't pass close enough for the 'normal' to keep the eyes of fascists away from us. I am a student of history and looking at what is happening now, I am deeply concerned that death camps are not that far away. And I know that I and my family would be on a list.

I am of German heritage and I was taught by my family that the rise of the Nazis was the shame of Germany. When my younger brother espoused approval of Nazis when we were in our youth, I decked him for it. I got in trouble with my parents for nearly punching my baby brother out, but he never brought up the topic around me again. With keen awareness that the Nazi policies and practices were based upon how the U.S. government treated the native peoples of this region, I have an equal sense of shame for the U.S. 

I have a history of calling out people in power for bad behavior. I have taught my sons to speak truth to power as well. It cycles back to the lesson that we've been instilling in the boys: don't apologize, do better. Apologies are nice, but empty words if no action is taken to repair the harm done. 

I also have a history of taking action for justice and using my privilege to raise up others who don't have the access to things that I do. If you are starving, I will not only make you a meal, I will help you find food resources and teach you how to cook. If you are naked, I will give you the shirt off my back and help you acquire clothes. I was taught that having privilege obliges you to help those who do not. I was taught that having privilege obliges you to be an example of how to wield the power that comes with it justly. 

I am not a saint. (Though Beloved considers me to be one and he's really sweet for doing so.) I am just a good person attempting to make the world more livable for all of us. As such, I do things like recycle, pick up trash whenever we're at the park, and try to practice sustainable living habits. I like to think that doing a whole bunch of little good acts equates to helping push back against the hate that surrounds us. 

Now, however, is the time to do more than my usual small acts. It is time to seek out the people who are being persecuted and form a shieldwall between them and the people harming them. It is time to scream in the streets, halls of legislature, and across the social media platforms that what is happening is wrong and against our consent. We must exercise our rights or we will lose them. And we must march to protect those who are in danger because the people in power will come for us next.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 10

 I was reading the meditation for today's date and it occurred to me that I have a fair amount to atone for. I have an anger problem and it leads me to say things that are sharp and biting. It doesn't matter if the cause of my anger is reasonable, my response to be acid tongued is not. Over the past year, while I wasn't well, I said a number of sharp things to Beloved. He graciously didn't take it personally, telling me "This is coming from a sick brain, I am not going to get mad." Looking back on it all, I feel about 3 inches tall for it and deeply ashamed that I was cruel to him. While being sick explains it and my anger also explains it, it does not justify it.

In my household, we have an expression. "Don't say you're sorry, just do better next time." The kids tend to apologize and then go right back to misbehavior. It is a microcosm of how the world at large operates. Which is why we encourage them to focus on deeds and restorative justice. If something is broken as a result of your actions, you try to fix it and if it can not be fixed, you try to replace it. When neither of these are possible, give a sincere apology and figure out with the owner of what had been broken is a fair compensation (which ranges from money to work on their behalf). As parents, we try to facilitate this process for our children.

I think restorative justice is more in line with Déa's will than punitive justice. Not all situations does the reasoning of how thamë was broken help to restore it. In fact, in many cases, explaining what your mindset was when things happened can just lead to more upset and a big fight. Teaching people to apologize by way of explaining themselves isn't that great. I've found it works better to give an expression of genuine contrition and focus on repairing the rift between oneself and the person(s) you've done wrong by.

Déa does not want us to suffer any more than necessary. As such, we're exhorted to act with love and kindness. Punitive justice has no love or kindness in it. It's based in a harsh eye-for-an-eye mindset. It takes the wrong doer and reduces them to a subhuman state which is used to justify inhumane treatment. It perpetuates a cycle of harm under a thin cloak of moral superiority. Both the wrong doer and the victim are harmed, and there is no resolution of the problem created. Also, there is no focus on addressing the root cause of the problem. It's awful and I am more than a little confident that Déa doesn't want that for us.

I have been working very hard to keep my anger and acid tongue in check. I have been striving to put kindness at the forefront of how I approach the world. If I can't help them, at the very least I can avoid hurting them more. It requires a lot of self questioning and careful consideration of how to act. But the alternative is just not right.