Can You Hear Me Now

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

Tao Tzu

I recently finished reading Luis Alberto Urrea’s The House of Broken Angels. Like most books I read these days, I found it in one of the many Little Free Libraries scattered around my neighborhood. Thankfully, I live among some very literate people and it is never difficult to find quality reading material. In fact, for every book I return to a Little Free Library, I come home with another two or three to add to the pile on my night stand. It is becoming a bit of a tribble issue, but I can think of far worse troubles to have.

Luis’ book revolves around an extended Mexican-American family and the birthday of its patriarch, Big Angel. Big Angel is dying of cancer and he wants to gather his large family around him for one last party. Like all families, this one has its share of dysfunction, resentment, anger, unresolved problems, and sadness. There is also a lot of love and it is that love that keeps them together no matter how fractured they may appear to be.

The Call to Love

On November 17, 1957, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a sermon at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church that included this passage:

And this is what Jesus means, I think, in this very passage when he says, “Love your enemy.” And it’s significant that he does not say, “Like your enemy.” Like is a sentimental something, an affectionate something. There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. I don’t like what they do to me. I don’t like what they say about me and other people. I don’t like their attitudes. I don’t like some of the things they’re doing. I don’t like them. But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them.

As I have made very clear in the past, I am not a supernatural god kind of guy. I am a higher power guy and much of my higher power is encompassed by love. I am also a big believer in like and it’s a great relief to know that I do not have to like the people I am compelled to love.

This notion was ever present in Big Angel’s family. There were many people who were very hard to like and yet Big Angel extended them the same welcome he did to those he was closely tied to. Everyone was unconditionally loved simply because they existed.

Putting the Fun Back Into Dysfunction

I come from a very dysfunctional family. You name the dysfunction and I can point to one or more of us who embodied it. Whether it was abuse, rage, apathy, escape, or addiction, dysfunction was always there and we learned to either live with it or run as far away as our feet would take us — sometimes both at the same time.

While I had a very close relationship with my late brother, Bob, that was not always the case with my four other siblings. While I tried, and still try, to maintain a civil relationship, it has not been an easy task. Relationships are complicated!

Still, we are family and despite my hesitance to get too involved with the worst of its craziness, I have never fully cut it out of my life. I have never said, “I am done with this nonsense” and stuck to it.

Case in point is my youngest sister. She and I are very different from one another. I am the flaming progressive while she is die-hard MAGA. She wears Trump sweatshirts, attends his rallies, is anti women’s right to choose, consumes right-wing media like I do salsa, embraces evangelical Christianity, flirts with conspiracy theories (don’t get her started on contrails and government mind control), and mourned the death of Charlie Kirk as if he were a brother. Needless to say, we are on opposite sides of the fence on just about any social or political topic.

Despite all these unlikable aspects of my sister, I do and will always love her. While there are necessary periods of silence and stepping back, I am not afraid to pick up the phone to ask her, “How are you doing?” I listen to her struggles, offer empathy when empathy is required, laugh at the craziness of our family, grieve the loss of our mother and brothers, and try to be a decent big brother. We may never get much closer than that, but that’s enough for me. I continue to look for the things we have in common and work around our many differences.

I have no requirement of our relationship other than kindness and respect. She can hate who I vote for and what I believe in, but I will not willingly be someone she feels compelled to hate. The same goes for my side of the equation. I offer her the same respect and kindness I ask for myself.

Like a waterfall
tossing its diamond droplets high into the air
or stars on a moonless night
like the voice of a friend when lonely
or the extended hand in a time of need

An unsolicited gift
a kindness unexpected

One thing that leads to another
and another
until the line between here and there
before and after
is less than a puff of air

Rising to the Level of Love

Linda recently came upon a frightening ICE confrontation a short distance from our house. While she missed the worst of it, her Gen-Z friend was there almost from the beginning and videoed her face-to-face encounter with an ICE agent. It was a very tense, brave situation and Linda’s friend’s language was filled with four letter words and shaming language. It is not an easy video to watch or listen to and the friend later apologized for her in-the-heat-of-the-moment reaction.

Despite my abhorrence for what ICE has done and continues to do to Minnesota (I will believe the so-called end to the surge when I see it), I felt very uncomfortable with the anger the video captured. I do not condone what the agent was doing, and probably did many times before this encounter, but he should not have been treated as he was. He is a human being and should be shown the dignity that all humans deserve. I don’t have to like him, but it’s necessary that those of us who are vehemently opposed to his job still love him. No matter how much they attempt to “other” us, we must not allow ourselves to “other” them. As the old saying goes, “hate the sin, love the sinner.”

Sidebar. As a young Gen-Z woman, Linda’s friend has lived through many horrible events in her short life — COVID, two Trump presidencies, the killing of George Floyd, etc. I do not fault her for feeling angry at what the world is throwing at her generation.

Of course, love is not a reason to stop fighting what ICE is doing. Push back with love and love will find a way.

You must give yourself to love if love is what you’re after. Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter. Kate Bush

More from Dr. King’s sermon:

Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

That is my goal from all this ICE mess — to rise to the level of love at the times I feel compelled to fall to the level of hate. Rising is so much harder than falling, but then, I have always appreciated a good workout. The easy way out is rarely a path to lasting growth.

Broken Wing Angels

It is not easy making good choices during difficult times. All too often we let misguided passion or self righteousness get the best of us. I am certainly guilty of that. You don’t have to look far to see my many failures to love.

It is my hope that putting this into writing helps me to find love when love is the last thing on my mind. Whether it’s feeling unseen by a sibling or coming face to face with authoritarian evil, I hope to find the strength to sing rather than shout. Grant me empathy, kindness, and strength when I feel drawn to an angry, hateful voice.

It is important to remember that we are all angels no matter how broken our wings.

Thank you for reading.

Between sunset and dawn’s bright rising
as darkness wraps the world in a shroud of opaque
the moon child awakens
stretching, reaching
taking into his hands all that is gratefully given

In strength and possession
in the rightful claiming of blessings bestowed

When all else fades
dimming
when all else retreats and cowers
the moon child shines