Have you ever noticed how many so-called “truths” get passed around on a single topic? The so-called truths regarding the separation of children from parents at the border is dizzying. So many excuses used to justify inhumanity.
I suppose we could chock it all up to the blind men and the elephant story. Each touches a different part of the elephant and when recounting their experiences they argue about what an elephant is according to their own “truth”…For the one who touched the leg, it is like a trunk of a tree, to another, the tail felt like a rope, yet another thought the ear was like a banana leaf…and so on…
Or could it be that this spoon-feeding of lies as truth could signal something more sinister?
As I pondered all of the posturing, the anger, and hopefully the solutions, I remembered that today is the summer solstice. It is the longest day of the year. And with it comes truths far less confusing and much more consistent then what we are fed in daily media.
The earth orbits around the sun on a tilted axis. In June, our hemisphere is at its greatest tilt toward the sun, bringing light and warmth. It’s the opposite south of the equator, where June 21 marks the shortest day of the year.
Here in Wisconsin, today we should be getting between 15 to 16 hours of light – through the rain, of course.
Tomorrow, the days will begin to shorten once more, and the nights will grow longer until the winter solstice. Yet the promise of the return of the light will hold us, and we will celebrate, each in our own way or not at all, and that is a truth with which I can live.
And here is the truth I cannot live with. 2300 + children have been separated from their families with no clear path for reunification. Our walk towards inhumanity continues. Until we stop it.
Photo compliments of Joreen Knafelc.
This piece aired on WDRT’s “Consider This” June 21.
let kindness win 