Is it that you don’t know?
Don’t understand?
Or is it something more?
Are you uninformed?
Misinformed?
Willfully ignorant?
Or is it pride that
keeps your ears sealed,
That implores you to ignore
Those who know more than you do?
Instead of learning from them,
Being curious.
Respecting them.
You feel wronged, right?
The human need for payback
burns brightly.
Or is it just
Partisanship’s tight hold?
Your side’s always right,
theirs, a story told of endless wrongs?
We chose this chaos,
This fractured, bitter song.
Is it satisfying to see institutions
torn down by a wrecking ball,
Though you don’t fully understand
why they exist,
what they do,
or how their absence
will impact your life?
Or do you think it won’t?
Empathy requires us to ask:
How will this impact those we love
And those we don’t?
How will it change the world
our children will inherit?
Empathy requires humility,
a willingness to
listen,
learn,
adapt.
And, most importantly,
a willingness to change our minds.
Why do you refuse to listen to expertise?
To those who have spent their lives
Learning
Growing
Solving problems
For the greater good of our society
The good of all humankind
For your own good
All because a politician wants revenge.
Can wisdom thrive where knowledge is ignored?
How have we come to a place where
Caring for the poor,
Loving our neighbor,
The exercise of free will,
providing for the least of these,
(in other words, living like Jesus did)
Is wrong?
When empathy’s lost, where does the darkness begin?
Where does it end?
When a policy harms anyone, it harms everyone.
The chaos they cause
harms us
and benefits them.
Erasing history
harms us.
Destroying public health systems
endangers us.
Concentrated executive power
imprisons us.
Unraveling checks and balances
sets us up for fascism.
All of us.
Is it that you don’t know,
a simple, vacant stare?
Or is it cold indifference?
For in that choice,
A chasm vast and deep does grow,
Where ignorance and apathy
forever interflow.
- Lesa Brackbill
Even So, Joy 