Hope

 

white roses - a fragile flower

It is a difficult thing to have one's reality bubble burst.  To have the story one has been telling oneself suddenly be exposed as just that - a story.  

To be forced to face a reality that one did not think existed, instead of staying in the protected bubble that one was living in.

I've talked about how I have been confronting my reality bubble of being a white female in a society that skews towards privilege to white folk.

It has not been easy to confront my attitudes and I have been working diligently at doing this for a very long time.  I keep peeling back another layer of attitude, only to find another beneath.  Not so much bubble as onion...

In part I wonder how much my voracious reading - of anything and everything - helped me to become aware that not everyone lives in the same reality.  Stories of other cultures, other people having different experiences, surely were a factor.

At Sunday School we were told to follow the teaching of Jesus - love.  Love was the answer.  Always.

Having families from two quite different cultures also helped.  On one side, German identifying, trying very hard after WWII to 'fit in'.  On the other, French Canadian, feeling marginalized by those maudit anglaise.

Then having really exceptional teachers in school.  Teachers who taught how to think analytically.  Were honest about history.  The White Man's 'Burden'.  The kind of people who colonized this and other countries.  In elementary school we were told the 'story' of the British Empire - upon which the sun never set.  High school brought a more nuanced view.  A more inclusive view.  A more liberal view.

The ground kept shifting under my feet.  And then a trip to Europe - Sweden mostly - where I lived for about four months, not being able to speak the language.  Learning how to communicate anyway.  Learning how to get lost.  Learning how to ask for help from strangers.  And was helped.  Mainly because they were intrigued by this young person, who looked like she belonged, but obviously didn't.  

I learned that by and large people are very peculiar, sometimes in very specific ways.  And that while some people can be incredibly generous, they can also be very closed minded.

To people who are struggling today, trying to figure out how things have managed to go so terribly 'wrong', all I can do is say - don't lose hope.  Don't give up.  Keep working towards the change you want to see happen.  There will always be people who disagree on things.  But that doesn't mean that it is time to give up.  It is time to work harder.

Build a bigger table, not a wall...