Lamenting

Because it's important to talk about what's wrong

Hi all.

You all signed up to Sowing Hope for positivity and good news, and I am committed to bringing that to you. Today’s post will be a little different, and a day late because I had a birthday to celebrate (Hi 👋 undisclosed person who would not want me to share their birthday publicly 😁).

Before starting, remember what I’ve said before: the thoughts, opinions, and perspectives I share at Sowing Hope I share as a private citizen. I do not speak as an employee of the Board of Education or for any other organization. Okay, so I clarified that. ✅

My faith tradition as a christian has a history of lamenting the troubles in our communities and our societies even while we hope and do the work to bring the kingdom values of love, justice, and mercy to earth like they are in heaven. Today, I’ll share my concerns and frustrations as I weep and cry out to my Lord. That does mean fewer emojis than normal.

Photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash

If that isn’t what you signed up for—explicit reference of my faith journey and emphasis on what needs fixing—know I still love you and am glad you are here. This just might not be the post for you.

No hard feelings if you skip this post. My next post will be back to the main emphasis on positive news.

If you are still here, thank you for being willing to cover hard topics together. I will loop back to the positive and actions we can take together at the end of my lament. Thank you for letting me have space to get this off my chest.

Disclaimers

As I’ve stated before, I want to be transparent. Here are my priors:

• God is good, and his kingdom values of love, justice, and mercy are worth sharing

• Most people are generally good most of the time, despite inherent human flaws

• We excel together or we fail apart

• We can never give up on each other

Let’s get into the post.

Start local

Because everything builds from the relationships in our neighborhoods.

I am particularly broken by unnecessary loss of life. My community has lost multiple people recently because they were hit by a car. And when an average 4,000 pound vehicle (link) challenges a pedestrian to a dual, the pedestrian has no chance to decline and loses every time. I currently have a stack of police reports detailing all the wrecks involving pedestrians over the past few years.

It is an uncomfortably thick pile.

But we have to face them if I hope to get an answer to my prayer for relief for my neighbors. If I’m going to pray for rain, I better plant the field. The problem is the towns which should be the residence of people have been built for cars to live in. I don’t want to discuss why our towns were built with people as visitors and cars as natives or who lobbied for this perspective…mostly because I’m not up for it right now. But it is infuriating people are dying for lack of safe places for humans in our towns.

Before I move on, I do want to note the officials in my town have proven very receptive to feedback and have heard my suggestions while they work towards a safer community. A lot of it comes down to Tennessee Department of Transportation needing to okay changes because there are state highways cutting up our town where they have no business being.

Notice: That last sentence is just frustration; I have no reason to suspect TDOT is doing something wrong, and I lack the knowledge to say the highways are in the wrong spot…but it does feel wrong to have highways cut through pedestrian-centric downtown.

Barriers

If you’ve been at Sowing Hope long, you know I feel strongly in having strong relationships and open discussions with people who think differently than us (Topic of my Addition > Division post). New here? I want you to know that’s important to me. It’s why I so appreciate my readers (that’s you 👋) have different views than me, still read my posts, and especially give me feedback in comments and at Seeds@SowingHope.how so we all grow together.

I am distraught when my brothers and sisters believe lies that divide us.

I had a conversation recently with a neighbor. We just talked. He brought up a Robert Frost poem “Mending Wall”, how Frost said “good fences make good neighbors” (link to poem). I told him I felt the point of the poem was that good neighbors make good neighbors.

It isn’t strictly relevant, I just thought it was interesting.

My heart breaks when I hear neighbors convinced they hate someone down the street because their yard sign has a different animal or the flag they fly has different colors. I’m not saying all causes are equally noble. I’m just saying when I talk to people I continue to find we are much more complex and open-minded than the buckets we put each other in allow.

So my faith says I need to be a good neighbor.

• That means start listening.

• That means take actions.

• That means speak up for them.

National and international

These are the topics I want to avoid. At a family gathering, these are the family photos I feel I should hide because the loss is still too fresh for some of my loved ones.

Not for lack of confidence, though. I feel like avoiding them because I find they cause too much pain and strife when I bring them up. So…I guess we’ll talk about them now.

Presidency

Um…how can this be the way our conversation around the presidential election is framed? The last guy actively encouraged political violence (in stark contrast to how most of us oppose it like I talked about in Addition > Divisioncited before). He also consistently pressured elected officials to break laws to benefit himself, politically. His policies also gave mega-corporations more leverage to exploit average workers and line their pockets.

But we’re talking about the current president’s age?!

Don’t get me wrong, they both are old, and President Biden regularly jokes about it.

video

And it’s valid for us to talk about it because its important to question our elected officials. I just think its more interesting to talk about what someone does with their years of experience, not just how many days it’s been since their birth.

And what did each of them do with their experience?

The last guy

• Encouraged division and political violence

• Lowered taxes for the wealthiest and most well-connected among us

• Lots of silly tweets and demeaning comments about veterans

The current guy

• Used decades long relationships to build bi-partisanship to pass infrastructure investments, manufacturing development, and veterans healthcare (over 300 bi-partisan laws signed)

• Used decades long experience in how capitalism works to lower prescription drug prices, increase development of renewable energies, and make the U.S. more energy independent than we’ve been in a long time (…ever? Maybe, but I don’t have the data on hand to back that up)

• Gave us the first video I’ve ever seen of a U.S. president riding a bike

I hear you. I hear you. Yes, he fell.

But really? “80-year old man rides a bike, unassisted, and falls over when stopping. Don’t worry, he got right back up, talked to the crowd for a bit, got back on the bike, and kept riding.” and…we take away…that he fell? Just seems weird to me.

All this said, I have a problem when someone puts either of these men up on a pedestal.

I just also feel strongly that Joe Biden has been a good president and our country is better off because of it. And it is frustrating we complain about his age when I would argue that is how he has been such a good president.

International

Sigh…

We have two land wars currently going on because there are a few in our world who still think violence will get them what they want. Can we all just agree, though?

Killing civilians is not okay.

I’m not going to say much on this topic because 1. I’m very tired right now and 2. I’m really very tired right now.

What do we need to make sure Russia won’t attack another country? Probably for Vladimer Putin to know he will fail if he tries to invade another country. I’m not sure how to get him to stop inflicting pain and suffering on civilians in the meantime…

What do we need to stop the pain and suffering happening in the middle east? A ceasefire with all hostages being returned. But a ceasefire where there’s actually hope of lasting peace, not a fake peace that is only the absence of fighting. It’ll require an international effort to keep that peace and a lot of money to rebuild the damage. But everyday without peace is another day we lose lives we can’t get back with money.

Am I a foreign policy expert? No. Do I know if these suggestions would work? No. Do I know how to make them reality? Also, no. But I know my God expects me to be a voice to those who can’t speak.

So even if I don’t know, it doesn’t matter; I can’t be silent.

And end local

Actions

I told you I’d bring it back…so here we go. If you want to take some actions to make your community better, consider:

• Reaching out to someone who thinks differently than you. Extra good if they are lonely or could use some encouragement. Just show them love.

• Finding a concern or need your community has and trying to fill the need. You might find people need rain jackets or there is a safety concern needing addressed in your neighborhood. Just approach it with kindness.

• Share your thoughts in the comments (open to everyone).

Story time

This weekend, my niece performed in a talent show. She worked hard to prepare and she did great. But what I wanted to highlight is how supportive all the other students were: they cheered when people were called, laughed at the jokes told, encouraged those who were shy…they were good neighbors to each other.

Because we are a nation of neighbors, not factions of foes.

Enjoy your week, everyone. Thank you for sticking with me this week, and we’ll be back next week with more uplifting news.

Until then, don’t forget to be awesome.