Friday, February 2, 2024

February 2--It Is Way Past Time to Change

One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving. 
--Paulo Coelho

    I live in Wichita, Kansas. We made national news recently with the theft and destruction of a beloved Jackie Robinson statue from League 42, a nonprofit "dedicated to bringing the love of baseball to the youth of our city." Some pigs chopped off the statue at the ankles, hauled it off in a pickup, chopped it up and burned it. Fortunately donations are flowing in to rebuild and replace it. 

Episcopal priest Stephanie Spellers describes the story of domination emerging from our collective self-centeredness:

When you see cultures based on White supremacy, misogyny, environmental exploitation, consumerism, oppression, and domination, you are actually seeing the fallout from self-centrism. Entire systems, institutions, and societies are fully capable of this sin, as when a group places itself at the center and expects the rest of humanity and creation to support its singular prosperity.

There is no possibility for right relationship if one powerful group protects and sustains itself over and against all others. From there, it’s just too easy to construct binaries and hierarchies of human existence. Our group is good; all of you are bad. Our group belongs on top; we have to keep you low. Our group owns these resources and knows the best way to use them; you will only receive what we give you. Other members of the human family become objects and tools to be acquired, controlled, used, and discarded.

    The destruction of the statue is hateful self-centered White supremacy at its grossest. 
        Leta


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