When Does It Begin To Matter?

These times simmer us all along a story of eventual boiling, critical massness, whether we acknowledge the kitchen exists, or the stove, or the fire underneath the pot or the pot or…

We can say it doesn’t matter, that we can’t make a difference by raising our voices, but how else have we made changes without shedding blood? And don’t we want to avoid that one in particular? Would we rather send troops to corrupt wars, pat them on the back with a grin, say our prayers repeatedly, send out all the best energy and hope it all works out well enough or could we maybe consider speaking the truth to established “time-honored” realities gone stagnant and toxic? Especially when those traditions quickly boot their once-revered boots, now seasoned veterans, into a purgatory of loss, of benefits soured and help non-existent. Why would anyone perpetuate such? Could we maybe ask ourselves why we see no point in voicing our protest of these wars, but have no problem supporting the send-off of troops? What perversion of truth are we embodying when we embrace such twisted contradictions of love? We can’t make a difference with our voices united in opposition to corruption, but somehow we can make a difference sending young folk to their confusion if not their deaths?

And while we’re at the love shore: Why are we so in love with our dramas, our many ministrations for the injured and the cornered more than we are in love with preventing the injuries, the agonies, the worries about loved ones entrenched in “time-honored” dead end ventures? While we should never abandon our love for the wounded, it’s a vastly wicked farce of love to embrace futility of voice while clinging fiercely to our weapons of warfare and all the seeming heroics inevitable. We bind soldier to soldier on fields meant only for greed, their scuffle to keep each other alive somehow proving one man or woman can get another’s back in the sands of murky foreign purpose. We tell ourselves it justifies the futility of it all as we grin and play the romantic charade game of hide the truth. Can we not encourage our youth to occupy our own soil here in these anorexic lands where we starve out soulfulness minute by minute everyday? Not in some distant land where our presence creates enemies and problems.

It’s like some sick roundy round with value, with preciousness itself. It’s like we don’t want it. We’d rather injure it, send it abroad into suicidal zones of alleged honor, duty and freedom before doing the most effective thing we can do to protect what we love, to further love itself. See, if we are real warriors, we speak the truth to centuries of corruption. We stand our ground, refusing violence. We question the powers that be and we do it endlessly until the reign of corruption ends, occupying truth, insisting on a fierce love that refuses the same old delusions and capitulations to overwhelming corruption.

When will it begin to matter? We must embody visionary compassion and believe we can turn a tide in love, for love, as love.  How is it that our hands wielding weapons have more power than our voices and changed lives sending out energy, uncovering truth, discovering purpose that embraces what matters, birthing and nurturing love? It is not so. Don’t believe there’s no point because if you believe there’s no point in questioning and refusing the military status quo, then your belief in everything else is vulnerable to corruption.

Meanwhile, not one part of the human expression, not one movement of the body is without purpose and the fact that all the world is mostly ignorant of this truth is why we are where we are today, on the stove, working our way up to an ugly boil, refusing love itself. So, when? When does it begin to matter? And when do people realize we’re the difference between the devolution of any remaining noble American vision into mindless compliance with corruption and the resurrection of a vision worthy of all people.

What once stood on the edge of lands noble occupying and raping honorable purpose, what once proposed a lie cloaked in freedom remains to this day a machine killing innocence, but we can wrest it from the darkness. What once devoured our indigenous humanity, savagely claiming superiority, now gulps us all down. And no ancient revisionist history will redeem what is now. Only what we choose now, only when we embrace how much it matters now, only then will we stand a chance of avoiding devastating loss.

[Note from Ruth: This is an outpouring of frustration about the war machine the USA is and how many citizens are trapped in an unthinking, unquestioning compliance that feeds that machine. This is also my protest of the notion of patriotism as that which does not protest wars or question the machine devouring lives.
To be even clearer: I do not believe we must all stand on a stage and scream about the injustices in the world or be damned. However, if you’re a world leader, I might give you hell for not stopping certain atrocities. I’m also speaking to those with the heart to speak up who’ve become sedated by a numbing culture. But advocacy is best advanced by those with the vision to do so. We don’t all have that vision and that is how life has wired us. Our lives must be lived in truth and love and it is exactly that living that is a beautiful protest in and of itself. We’re meant to be in unity with each other despite our differences. Meanwhile, it’s 2026, and I believe the US is going to become a place of mindful, meaningful unity in love, bit by bit. (This note also speaks to my rumbling ramble of poetic outburst titled “Mindless Americanism”.)]