"Stranger in a strange land"
Exodus 2:22
Here I am one year later after the lockdown of 2020 and I am not liberated from this same feeling. I am fully vaccinated and yet only half the country is willing to do so. A new variant is stronger than ever still citizens are not willing to vaccinate and keep each other safe.
The news has a mass shooting almost every week.
There is a weather disaster weekly in one part of the country as headline news. I was naive to think I would escape this as I lived in the NW and then a heatwave hit last week.
Shootings by police of black citizens keep occurring. nationwide and the BLM movement is getting stronger.
Laws restricting voting are being passed. Remember that whatever is in the Constitution or Bill of Rights is ONLY APPLIED WHEN ENFORCED by the current politicians. example; voting for blacks etc
Assaults on airlines between passagers and airline staff.
Mental Health clinics have high volume of clients dealing with symptoms from lockdown.
There have been more attacks on Jewish and Muslim places of worship. Asians are attacked in the streets as "virus" carriers. Racial assaults are up as our neighbors are becoming our enemies again.
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I want to say I am willing on my 72nd 4th of July my eyes are open. I am grateful to be born in this country. I have freedoms here, not unlike other countries. I can speak my mind. I can be educated to and make my own conclusions unlike many women in other countries. I can worship my faith as I choose.
And today I can acknowledge that my country after 246 years has yet to fulfill the hopes and dreams of the Constitution and The Declaration of Independence.
The "American Dream" is not to have material things. a house. a car and lots of money. It is what they represent. It is to have equal access to work and equal pay, education, business loans, political representation, home loans.
We are still a nation of "becoming". who we are meant to be. We are now a country where a small percent have benefited from the dream and depend on the many to keep their dream alive.
My question to them is: it is amazing to see the poor and how grateful they are to be here with so little, especially the new immigrants, and to see many of the wealthy express so little gratefulness for the wealth they will never be able to spend in their lifetime?
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I choose to remain a "stranger" in this country if I stand for the ideals of my faith and the best of the ideals of the founding fathers. Justice and equality for all is about love. Love for one's neighbors.
Thank you to all Americans that believe and work and march for the dream that includes us all.
