Thoughts & Prayers

Thoughts & prayers are NOT enough. Not when more moms & dads will bury kids this week, & more sons & daughters will grow up without parents.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) October 2, 2017

I agree. The truth is, people who “think and pray” agree too.

Thinking is rarely the end of a story. Before we so much as twitch a finger, our mind has translated synapses into a biologically discernible command. Skyscrapers are built on blueprints, science progresses via theory, love is born in an intentional nudging.

The most monumental of movements begin as a single nearly-passing thought.

Did you know Einstein cobbled together the foundation of his greatest theories while riding a boxcar and…thinking?

I understand Elizabeth Warren’s sentiment. I do not understand the assumption that people of thought and prayer are ignorant masses unable to carry out a reasoned conversation or engage in meaningful action. Instead of talking or encouraging an open dialogue, politicians have resorted to division and shallow-minded battle. Of all the politicians in our government, I’m genuinely pressed to find one willing to genuinely think and invite thought.

Despite popular opinion, Americans are not born with an “R” or “D” branded on our bellies. We aren’t born with our minds set in cognitive concrete. We are not born automatons.

Yet, here I sit in a country divided cleanly into “Right-wing”, “Liberal” or “Kook Fringe”. Why are we all in these lines? Why are we so simply defined?

Because life is easier when you just get in line.

Thank Apple we have our cell phones while we plod forward and back in the same orderly, straight row. From time-to-time chaos blasts its way into us tossing everyone into an unrecognizably scattered mess. It doesn’t take long for us to find our proper category, though. Within days we’ve forgotten the murdered, raped, hated, abandoned, marginalized humans we were all so eager to fight about. Within days we’re back to black and white arguments defined by lobbyists and morons for generation after generation.

The Republicans don’t deserve your loyalty. They’re cowards and liars and thieves. Their top priority isn’t justice — it’s making sure you feel safe. The Democrats don’t deserve your vote. They’re only there to fill seats Republicans lose.

Instead of mocking thinking minds and praying souls, I’d like to challenge anyone who reads this. Put down your distraction for moment. Take a deep breath and look at who stands at the front of the line you’ve been in for so long.

If you do, I’ll think you’ll find the people organizing us have no clue who you are. I think you’ll realize we need fewer lines…and more tables.

Do you hate or fear people who disagree with you? Your politicians do.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the collective American people turned their wrath toward those who deserve it? Wouldn’t it be grand if we finally toppled the most incompetent horde of idiots in our midst?

We can. We can change the conversation by changing who get’s the megaphone. I’m tired of choosing between an incompetent megalomaniac and a perverted mono-syllabic jackass.

Conservatives are not at war with Liberals. Gays are not at war with Heterosexuals. Whites are not at war with Blacks. Why then, do our politicians fight like bitter children over a modest inheritance?

Because life has become a football game. The news is given to us with spectacular, whirling, 3-D graphics. Our intimate beliefs are summed up by cowboys on YouTube. Our most precious traditions are marginalized for the sake of easy unskilled comedy. It’s so easy to stand in line and hope the guy at the front knows what he’s doing.

He doesn’t. She doesn’t.

We need to think. We need to pray. I think if we do, we’ll soon discover our lines are illusions built by angry lunatics to tabulate voter blocks and solidify bases.

“I want to know God’s thoughts – the rest are mere details.”
― Albert Einstein