Identity | The Direction of Intention

That “Something Bigger” [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on June 26, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Sun through chives. I found myself staring at this photo-prompt this morning. Normally I would catch a spark from the prompt and be off and writing. Not today.

My thought-void is not the fault of the photo-prompt. The exhaustion from the news of the day has caught up to me. It happens. There is nothing normal about deporting black and brown people who’ve fled violence and found a safe home in the USA. There is nothing normal about stripping people with disabilities the support that affords them a life at home and meaningful integration into society. I could go on and on. I wonder if we-the-people are even close to grokking how far we’ve descended in normalizing the violent rhetoric spewing from this administration? It is not only the rhetoric that is violent.

And so I stare.

Sun through chives.

When I am stuck I generally stir my pot by investigating symbology. When asking about symbolism, one is actually asking about a relationship between people and their “something bigger”. For instance, I just learned from the Old Farmer’s Almanac that, historically, bunches of chives were hung around homes and gardens to ward off evil spirits or negative energy. How did people from our past come to associate chives with protection from the likes of Stephen Miller? I’m contemplating sending a ton or two of chives to Washington D.C.

I also just read that in ancient times to the Chinese, chives were associated with spring festivals and represented vitality and the cyclical nature of life. Renewal. Purification. Roman soldiers ate chives because they believed chives could “conjure courage”. Do you suppose the republican congress would gnaw on chives if I sent them personalized bundles?

Now I’m contemplating sending chives to every corner of the nation, to every household. I’ll include a note: For courage and renewal. Place this between you and your television, wave it at your phone when watching the news of the day.

We would do well to revivify our relationship with our symbology. The Liberty Bell. The Eagle. The meaning sewn into the stars and stripes. E Pluribus Unum. The Statue of Liberty. The Declaration of Independence, after all, is much more than a document.

There is great power in the symbol of the simple chive. There is great power in every symbol if it still connects – in a real way – in a meaningful way – to that “something bigger”.

The sun through chives.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blog about CHIVES

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Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, chives, courage, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, protection, purification, renewal, story, studio melange, symbol, symbolism, the melange | 1 Comment »

Align With The Dream [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 24, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Even in its decline it is beautiful. A day lily rendered prematurely old by the storms that met its blossoming. Lately, much of what captivates me is the revelation of the support structure: the fibers that give shape to the petals and leaves. They are as aesthetically pleasing as they are functionally necessary.

If you are like me, you are both surprised and not-at-all surprised at the support structure that has become visible in our national decline. The racism, the misogyny, the xenophobia exposed by the current administration and their white-male-supremacy is not an anomaly; it is a norm. Unlike the day lily, this fibrous framework is ugly.

Currently there are several books hot off the presses and even more podcast pundits outlining a plan for what we must do to make sure this never happens again. I’ve yet to read them. I hope they are filled with good ideas and even better strategies for strengthening our democracy and eliminating once and for all the potential for authoritarian takeover by the monied elite who, let’s be frank, desire the return of indentured servitude and a slave class. Superiority needs inferiority. One need only look at the Epstein Class, read Project 2025, or listen for 10 minutes to fox news to see the machinery. Freedom and justice for all is nowhere to be found in their playbook.

Systems do what they are designed to do:

The fibers of the plant reach through the stems and uplift the petal to drink in the sun. The color attracts bees and insects to spread pollen, to spread life.

Our system, as we are seeing clearly, was designed to divide. Our founders, in their division design, unwittingly laid the groundwork for our demise – unless, of course, we are capable in this moment of full exposure to transcend our design. We must answer once and for all who we mean when we say, “We the people.” Do we mean everyone? Do we mean a select few?

We have bumbled along through history attempting to have it both ways. We have repeated this cycle over and over again. If, when we say, “We the people,” we mean everyone, then an entirely new and bold structure is called for, as divergent from our current framework as an the skeletal structure of an adult differs from that of a child. A bone structure that develops into maturity.

We are, in this analogy, as is evident in the current administration, a Peter Pan nation, resistant to reality and afraid of growing up.

The cross-purpose was baked into our nation’s foundation, declaring all men are created equal while simultaneously legislating that black Americans were only 3/5ths human, that voting is a privilege extended to white-male-landholders while proudly declaring “freedom and justice for all”. It is a polarization structure that guarantees the continued algae bloom cycle of attempted autocratic takeover. It’s predictable. It is structural. It is schizophrenic.

It’s not enough to vote blue in the midterms. It’s way past time that we looked in the mirror of our history and dealt honestly with the dysfunctional structure that produces division, exactly as it was designed to produce. Superiority for the few requires a structure that guarantees inequality for the majority; inferiority-by-design. Equality demands a structure that fosters equality.

No system can endure when serving cross-purposes.

Equality is built on an entirely different armature, as beautiful as it is functionally necessary. We know how to do it. It remains to be seen if we – as a diverse community – have the will to align with the dream of equality, the dream of democracy for all that we espouse.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE DAY LILY

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, autocracy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, equality, equity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, midterms, story, structure, studio melange, superiority, the melange | 1 Comment »

There Is This [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on June 19, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Trees breathe. In the daylight hours they “inhale” carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the atmosphere. At night, they breathe in oxygen and release carbon dioxide. “…trees absorb vastly more carbon dioxide over their lifecycles than they emit.” (AI)

The leaves of our aspen tree, Breck, pull water up from the root and release it as vapor through her leaves. Transpiration.

It is everything that climate change deniers do not understand. The rain is not separate from the tree or the soil or the sun. It is a single dynamic breathing cycle of life. Human beings, no matter their opinions or hard-held-belief, are part of and not separate from this cycle.

Interconnectivity is a reality that we seem unwilling or unable to comprehend. Our resistance to this interplay, this relationship, this inhale and exhale, is recursive, a fractal that runs through and through our identity. It is our Achilles Heel, our greatest vulnerability. We story ourselves as superior, separate, above it all.

This morning I read this from Jame Baldwin: “It is so simple a fact and one that is, apparently, so hard to grasp: Whoever debases others is debasing himself.” What we do to others, what we do to our environment, we do to ourselves. Do we not see this simple fact demonstrated on our political stage and in our public discourse each and every day? We are witness to a debasement cycle that seems to have no bottom.

And, as I write, I realize it is also true, perhaps more obvious but somehow not as visible, that we are witness to a community coming together, working hard to upright itself, a community reaching to fulfill its ideals, even in the midst of the authoritarian ugliness, a community forged (again) in the fire set by those who desire to melt down our democracy.

There is this, perhaps the central promise of democracy: “If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving. And, after all, one can give freedom only by setting someone free.” (Jame Baldwin, The Fire Next Time)

Isn’t it beautiful, this promise of democracy? We can be free only when we set others free. We can only prosper when we prosper others. This earth supports us when we support this earth. Is this simple truth capable of opening our eyes?

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LEAF

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Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, freedom, interconnection, interconnectivity, James Baldwin, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange, transpiration | 1 Comment »

Perhaps The Sun [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 16, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

These soft petals belie the harsh thrumming that they survived. Most of the peonies did not fare well in the wave after wave of storms. Petals on the ground, stems and leaves drooped, heavy from the rain. It was mere happenstance that this peony was a late bloomer. Unlike its fellows, it opened to the world in the aftermath. The sun returned and it stood tall and responded. A single witness to the wreckage. Compassion made it gentle.

We took a walk in between the storms. Most of the neighborhood was out, ostensibly to survey the damage but I know better. Storms bring people out. People who ordinarily do not think to stop and talk will spend hours after a storm or quake comparing notes, sharing experiences. Witnesses to the wreckage, many people in our neighborhood, people we did not know but who seemed to know us, stopped us to expressed condolences for our tree. We swapped stories. We expressed concern for each other. “Do you have power yet?” Politics were nowhere to be found. Compassion made us a community. Gentle. Caring.

When we arrived home I asked Kerri, “Why does it take a storm to bring out the best in people?” Like me, she had no answer. I’ve experienced this tiny miracle before, after 9/11, after the Northridge earthquake…many times. It is in our nature to help one another when mother nature shakes us awake.

But what of the times when we wreak havoc on each other? The same rule does not apply. The daily mass shootings divide us. Our leaders offer empty thoughts and prayers. We make war on each other; is that not an unnatural disaster worthy of bringing people to the streets? Ukraine. Palestine. The Sudan. On and on and on. Age after age. Man made disasters seem to anesthetize us or at the very least to confuse us. They evoke the opposite response: they numb us. Divide us. Instead of compassion they conjure antipathy. Madness. Is that in our nature or is it unnatural?

It seems we return to our senses when the scale of our man-made disaster takes on the scale of a storm sent by mother nature. Is it the scale of destruction that at last wakes us up? An earthquake or tornado is out of our control: is that why we soften and take to the streets to find each other? Wars and guns and supremacy-fantasies are within our control: is that why we harden and turn our backs on the pain until the wreckage is so undeniable that we are forced to say, “Enough!”? We awake, at least for a short time, from the fantasy?

Doesn’t it feel as if this nation is at long last waking up? Is it finally – finally – too much? Perhaps the sun is calling us out of the maga-fantasy-storm, to witness the wreckage, to reach out our hands and ask, “Are you okay?”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE PEONY

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Filed under: Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, community, compassion, concern, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, human nature, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, nature, story, studio melange, the melange, unity | Leave a comment »

Born Anew [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 11, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

A week ago they were buds about ready to burst. This week the petals are letting go. The lifespan of a peony blossom is short. I consider them the flower equivalent of the sand paintings made by Tibetan monks: upon completion of the painting, upon the fullness of the blossom, it is swept away. All things are temporary.

“The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.” ~ Alan Watts

One of the gifts of our democracy is its fluidity. It is mutable. It is a system that is built upon a foundational principle of continual change and renewal. It is alive, growing and adapting. The mechanism of renewal in democracy is the what we know as voting. The people vote for the change they desire. The people vote for the future they envision.

John Dewey wrote, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” The people vote for change but their vote is only meaningful when they are well-informed, when know the truth of the change they are voting for. When the people’s vote is based on misinformation, gaslighting and lies, democracy is stillborn. The only purpose for the incessant lies, for misleading propaganda, is to prevent change. To prevent democracy. To assault education, to erase history, to restrict knowledge, to flood the zone with misinformation…is to make the people ignorant and gullible. It is to prevent democracy.

Autocracy requires permanence. Democracy requires changeability. We are a sand painting, made anew again and again by a diverse people who participate in the perpetual change and renewal requirement of a democracy: government that serves the people.

This other thing, white national fascism, autocracy, built upon fearmongering that demonizes immigrants, that denigrates opposing ideas, that protects the criminals and punishes the victims…is inert. It intends to restrict change. It is meant to suffocate the voice and will of the people. It gerrymanders to hold onto power. It spreads lies about the security of voting to sow doubt, to challenge and upend the voice of the people when it loses. Autocrats serve no one but themselves.

More than to restrict the blossom-vote of democracy, the autocrats intend to kill the plant, cover the space with concrete, and erect a golden statue to dear leader. Lifeless. Corrupt. A sad monument to the gods of permanence.

We have the power to stop it. Our democracy can be reborn. Educating ourselves, sifting truth from lie, fact from fantasy, and then voting en mass as if our lives and livelihoods depend upon it – because they do.

read Kerri’s blog post about PEONIES

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Education, Identity, Perspective | Tagged: alan watts, artistry, autocracy, changeability, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, education, fact, gaslighting, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, renewal, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, vote | 1 Comment »

In It [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 3, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“As we grow older, we often cling to our past achievements or rigid ideas of who we are. True contentment comes when we release this need to be a “finished product”. ~ Pema Chödrön

Late at night, not able to sleep, I bumbled upon a Sounds True interview with Pema Chödrön. She shared her thoughts about the gifts available in aging. Slowing down and spaciousness ran through her comments. I found myself deeply grateful for Kerri since I doubt, if left to my own devices, I would have slowed down or learned to watch the birds. I would never have left the studio. It’s taken a Herculean effort on her part to help me “gear down”.

It’s not like I haven’t had teachers and mentors drop out of the sky to guide and help me live a less obsessive life. In Bali a man working his fields saw me walking in the American style – as if I had an urgent destination – and he joined me. We did not share a common language so without a word being spoken he helped me slow down. He helped me learn to breathe and walk in the world, not through it.

Dive master Terri taught me the same lesson. For him, diving was a meditation. Learning to dive was about learning to get neutral. Not to swim through the water but to be in it. To be it. To let it hold me. Only then could I see.

There were many, many brilliant teachers who crossed my path, each bringing to me a variation of the same lesson. Slow down. See. And, although I understood – and believed in – the repeated lesson, I had difficulty incorporating it. It was uncomfortable. It ran against the Puritan upbringing that tied my worth to my achievements. Achieve more = worth more.

It’s quite the conundrum to sacrifice self-worth for presence. Perhaps tossing away rigid value measurements is one of the gifts of growing older. Isn’t it true that, at the end of the day, the most treasured moments of life are about relationship and rarely about achievements? I’ve racked up many, many achievements, as Quinn would say, “Yet another certificate on my wall of respect,” but none of them are as precious as a phone call with a friend, a morning belly-belly with Dogga, a slow walk with Kerri. White wine on the back deck, Dogga asleep in the shade, a hummingbird at the feeder. In it. See it.

It is uncomfortable to slow down in a culture that values the race. It is uncomfortable to seek substance in a culture obsessed with appearances.

When I read this quote from Pema Chödrön I laughed. For me it is profoundly true:

“The interesting thing is that the more willing you are to step out of your comfort zone, the more comfortable you feel in your life.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about WHITE WINE

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Filed under: Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Identity, Uncategorized | Tagged: appearance, artistry, comfort zone, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pema chodron, slowing down, spaciousness, story, studio melange, substance, the melange, worth | 1 Comment »

At The Edge [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 28, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Standing at the edge of the lake, looking east, I know Michigan is out there somewhere. I’ve never seen it myself but I have it on good authority that if I paddled my kayak in a straight line I’d eventually bump into it. Standing at the edge I imagine the journey, and in my imagination, I survive storms and thirst and never-before-seen creatures. When I arrive in Michigan I tell the world what I have seen but the world does not believe me. No one has ever seen what I report to have seen – so I must be making it up. And, that’s always a possibility.

Standing at the edge of the lake it is also interesting to turn around, look west and gaze into the center of town. The community organizes itself, moving in synchronicity, but rarely recognizes it. Individuals move throughout their day, pushed this way and that by forces they cannot perceive or control, riding the currents believing that they are somehow separate and independent from the movement of the whole. Each and every moment they shape and are shaped, but believe themselves isolated and alone. Within them are never-before-seen dreams and desires. They do not dare to reveal them fearing they will engender cynicism. Dreams are tender things so they mute their imagining; blunting dreams is always a possibility.

I once taught that judgment is an alarm that sounds at the edge, an alert that the next step will be into the unknown. It is meant to make you aware of the awaiting kayak. It is the call to open your eyes to what-you-cannot-yet-see. It is there to alert you that the person standing before you is an undiscovered universe, different-than-you. They are unknown and vast. It is possible to run from the unknown. It is possible to step toward it.

Standing at the edge, the alarm sounding, debating whether to step or run away, only one thing is certain: this “other” IS one of the forces that moves you, shapes you, and might help you see what you cannot see from your safe center: that the isolation you experience is mostly self-imposed.

Also, to them, you are the scary unknown, the marker of difference, the vast unknown universe capable of changing them.

Sometimes standing at the edge, it is the best to stand still. To recognize the magnitude of all that you do not know. To weigh the enormous possibilities that await if you simply find the courage to take a step, to extend your hand, to say, “Hello.”

Pilgrimage, 14″x18″, mixed media on panel

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LAKE

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Filed under: Awakening, DR Thursday, Identity, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, difference, edges, isolation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Kurt Vonnegut, learning, natural forces, possibility, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange, unknown | 1 Comment »

Done! [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 21, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

I am losing the recall of words and names. It happens. I threatened to take a brain booster and the notion sent us into gales of laughter because, we concluded, I am a more likable person with a less-sharp brain. I will do better in the world now that the edges are rounding. It is best to walk into the future without the booster and a few less facts-at-my-fingertips.

I confess that with my diminished capacity I have experienced greater contentment. Knowledge was armor and with less access to weaponry I’m having to exercise a different set of skills: keeping my mouth closed, listening, not-knowing…the things I’ve pursued my entire life but am now able to achieve because I have to practice them. Life is funny.

I’m splashing paint. I have a plethora of old canvas and odd shaped boards. Simultaneous to my new less-than-sharp brain, when in the studio, I’m experiencing the deep desire not to think about anything. To paint with no other purpose than to see what happens. Experiment. Art as life in the laboratory. Twice in the last week Kerri has come into the studio to see what I’m working on and said, “I like this one.” When I ask her what she sees, she squints her eyes, approaches the easel, and flips the painting over. Up is down and down is up. It is my clue that the painting is nearly complete.

“What would you call this?” It is always my second question: Without hesitation she gives it a name. I marvel at what she identifies in the splashes. I call the painting, “Done!”

Inevitably on the trail, she “Ooooohs” and kneels to capture the tiniest of blossoms. It is the time of year that nature gives her too much to photograph. We stop every few feet. And, although she has told me several times the names of each flower, the names never stick. That is not new. When I was auditioning actors I asked them to wear the same clothes during callbacks since I’d better remember their work by what they wore, not by their names. Visual memory. For me, the tiny blossoms are like actors. I recognize them without their names getting in the way of my appreciation.

Perhaps my recent word-recall-struggles are merely a matter of me becoming more of who I have always been? I’d pose the question to Kerri but she’d squint her eyes, flip me on my head and tell me that I was “Done!” Make no mistake, I’d be very careful NOT to ask her my second question! I do not want to know what title she’d affix to me, especially flipped over, with all the blood finding its way back to my brain.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TINY FLOWERS

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Identity, Random, Uncategorized | Tagged: aging, appreciation, artistry, brain booster, contentment, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, painting, story, studio melange, the melange, thought | 1 Comment »

Furtherance [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 19, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.” ~ Lao Tzu

Breck-the-aspen-tree is our backyard living monument to perseverance. She survived and now thrives despite a multitude of obstacles, least of which was…us.

We plucked Breck from a grocery story in Breckenridge, Colorado. She was an impulse buy and came in a little pot that barely fit in the back of our car. Breck’s branches had to bend a bit to make the journey. She survived the roadtrip home and struggled mightily after being replanted into an enormous clay pot. She lived on our deck for the first three years. We talked to her throughout the summer. We wrapped her pot with blankets to keep her roots from freezing during the winter months.

Each spring we watched for signs that she survived and each year she rewarded us with fragile buds and minimal growth. We knew we needed to plant her in a permanent spot and our first choice nearly killed her. Within weeks she dropped all of her leaves and turned a sad shade of grey. In desperation we dug her up and moved her into another more sunny spot and waited. With no signs of life for the rest of the summer season and throughout the fall, we were certain that we’d killed her. But, she persevered.

The next season she recovered, produced a host of oddly outsized leaves, and grew a foot. The next year she grew another foot and leafed like a normal aspen tree. The year after that she boomed.

Breck is now taller than the garage. She’s no longer a backseat traveler. Instead, she is hostess to the birds who frequent our yard. We stand at her base looking up and marvel at the new growth. She is nearly a foot taller today than she was a month ago. She is a masterful quaker, playing the breezes, and has no problem bending with the wind.

We regularly stare at her and utter, “I can’t believe it. Look at her.”

Here is the full quote by Lao Tzu: “Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.”

I looked up the word “furtherance”. Lao Tzu uses it often. It seems central to his philosophy and I was taken by his definition, “Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just”. Furtherance: the act of helping something advance, develop, or succeed. Now, isn’t that a timely and profound sentiment? Helping something (or someone) advance, develop or succeed is a coming together (an agreement) of all that is fair, deserved, morally right (just).

Wouldn’t it be profound if we could look at each other and say of ourselves, our community and nation, that we have succeeded by bringing together all that is beautiful, that we persevered through a dark and ugly time, arriving at last at a dedicated furtherance, helping each other develop, advance and succeed?

Do you see the loop? Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the act of helping each other and our planet succeed (the coming together of all that is beautiful). Perseverance leads to the sublime. Breck is our constant reminder of all that is possible if we just keep trying.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BRECK

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Filed under: Identity, Possibility, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: actions, advance, artistry, beauty, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, furtherance, justice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Lao-tzu, perseverance, possibility, story, studio melange, sublime, success, support, the melange | 1 Comment »

Our Actions Will Tell [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 18, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Throughout my sordid past I was witness to the development of several mission statements. Serious and well-meaning teams of people wrestled with the questions of Who Are We and What Do We Do. The task was to generate lofty yet succinct statements of purpose and values. The statements were aspirational and mostly forgotten the day after the exercise of producing them. If actions were identified, they were rarely executed because a basic reality was ignored: the mission and purpose of a business is to make profit. Strip away the good intention and the bottom line remains the king. The moment the bottom line is threatened: all statements of value, all well articulated purposes are suspended.

If the purpose of a business is profit then the purpose of a not-for-profit is service. Clarity hits the not-for-profit when the cost of the service rises or the income streams run dry: will the service get lost in the immediate imperative to fund raise? Not-for-profit boards are famous for smothering their service organizations by attempting to make them “run like a business” which, essentially makes them lose sight of their purpose.

Study the difference between the rhetoric and the actions. To see the truth, look beyond the rhetoric. Study the actions. To be useful, rhetoric must acknowledge and align with actions.

Governments are service organizations. Democracies serve the needs of the people. Autocracies, on the other hand, are businesses that attend to the bottom line of the few. Currently we call our nation a democracy but one need only look to the actions of our leaders to suss out the truth. In this moment we are an autocracy. We are a service organization (a democracy) attempting to run like a business (an autocracy).

Our nation has some beautiful rhetoric. Our history has been a tug-of-war between those who believe in the service of Democracy and those who exploit the rhetoric for personal gain (autocrats). We either live “liberty and justice for all” or we do not. We are either a nation of laws or we are not. The question before us right now is, “What do we actually believe?”

Study the actions of the current administration and the ruling of the Supremes and the answer is clear: we are a white nationalist business that exploits the many for the profit of the few. To them, the Constitution is pleasant rhetoric but threatens the bottom line.

Study the actions of the people taking to the streets to protest the assault on our rights and the elimination of services and the answer is clear: we are a democracy. We are what we believe. We are what we espouse. To the people, the Constitution is a living roadmap of actions, a blueprint of service.

The disjoint between the people and the current leadership brings us around to a question that’s plagued us since our inception: Is “We-the-people” all inclusive or an exclusive club for the few? Will the voters choose their politicians (democracy) or will the politicians choose their voters (autocracy)?

The tug-of-war has rarely been this apparent.

Our actions in the next few months – and be very clear that a vote is an action – just as a gerrymander is an action – the gutting of voter’s rights is an action – protests are actions…our actions will tell all.*

*If we actually manage to have a free and fair election given the gutting of the Voter’s Rights Act, the aggressive gerrymander, the sycophantic republican congress, the rampant dark money, the corruption of the Supremes…If for some reason you remain confused about what’s happening in this nation, take a moment, look beyond the rhetoric and study the actions.

read Kerri’s blog about WE ARE WHAT WE BELIEVE