Barnacles And All [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on April 4, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~ Thomas Merton

If you visited our house you’d immediately notice that Kerri’s design style is “well-worn and well-loved.” Rather than mask the wear-and-tear of age, she revels in it. Our dining room is a wonder, made beautiful by the marks left when she removed wallpaper. Rather than paint over the marks she recognized their unique beauty and showcased them. A happy accident. I stopped in my tracks the first time I walked into the dining room, asking, “How did you do that?”

I love our backdoor. The pressure of our hands on the door has overtime peeled and revealed the white underlayer beneath the black paint. It’s the story of our comings-and-goings. It is the mark of our human hands pressing on an old door that swells with the humidity and shrinks with the cold. It is our personal hand-print-petroglyph.

The beauty of age. The patterns of rust. The celebration of the flaw. Most people would scramble to cover the cracks or repair the damage. I have occasionally earned her Irish ire by repairing something she thought was aesthetically interesting. I have learned to ask.

Standing on our deck, Columbus was concerned that the exposed unsealed wood was disintegrating. “You oughta’ stain this,” he said. “It needs protecting.” I told him of the time Kerri pressure washed the deck, removing the patina of age. Even though with time the rough hewn look returned, she has yet to forgive herself for her pressure-washing-indiscretion.

“Kerri likes it this way,” I replied. “She doesn’t like the way it looks when it’s neat and stained.”

“Well I guess that’s the way it’s gotta be!” he smiled, knowingly.

Our house is an ever evolving work of art. A perfect home for two artists. Nothing matches yet everything goes together. It’s filled with visual and repurposed surprises. It is warm, sometimes a cocoon where we shut out the world and sometimes a place for our community to gather. It is the sanctuary where we have come to discover and appreciate ourselves, barnacles and all, while steadily growing into something we could never have imaged.

(I love this piece by Kerri)

Nurture Me on the album Released From The Heart © 1995 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about RUST

likesharesupportsubscribecomment…thankyou.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Identity, KS Friday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Follow The Cairns [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 26, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Cairns are trail markers. They show the way.

I want to stack a series of giant cairns for the red-hats who are lost in the land of foxy misinformation. They have lost their way. I’m reminded that in our Revolutionary War, the struggle for our independence, the forces of the crown were known as red coats. The patriots wore blue. History definitely repeats itself, at least in color identification. The red-hats are fighting for the reestablishment of the crown.

The red-hats vehemently support their wanna-be-king, a servant to the oligarchs. He intends to tax the poor to fill the coffers of the rich. His army of red-hats have not awakened to the reality that they are the targets of his taxation. They are the indentured servants of his dreams. They are the dupes in his plan.

Usury inevitably reveals itself and slaps awake even the most deluded follower (Rudy Giuliani not withstanding).

I can state this with absolute certainty: if hear one more bloated Republican bloviate that government has no meaningful role to play in our society I’m going to vomit. Think for a moment: they want the poor to carry the tax burden but be exempt themselves. While they bully universities into ignorance, annihilate public education, actively cut social services to the 90%, attack Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security…while simultaneously removing any regulation and/or oversight to their business plunder. Their north star is embarrassingly shallow: permanent tax cuts for the wealthy few. All of this, of course, requires a government to enact. It’s not the absence of government that the reds slobber for; it is a government dedicated to exploiting the many for the sake of the few. They are disingenuous at best. Sadistic is probably a more honest adjective.

It’s not government that they despise – it’s a government that serves ALL people that they wish to eradicate.

There are glimmers of hope. Our nation has a few vocal cairns emerging. Bernie Sanders and AOC are holding rallies that draw thousands: people wearing blue (metaphorically). People who believe in democracy. People who value learning above ignorance, truth above fox-fantasy. People who know that the chicken-little running around the barnyard screaming, “Socialism” or “DEI” is the puppet of wealthy elites attempting to scare the fox-hypnotized-gullible-maga-masses with scary straw men.

The blues aren’t buying a word of it. They’re following the cairns that lead to a healthy tradition of awakening the American spirit – the same spirit that gave us the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Cesar Chavez…The Constitution, the Bill of Rights…and a democracy worth fighting for.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CAIRNS

likesharesupportcommentsubscribefollowthecairns…thankyou

Filed under: Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Identity | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Diversity Defines Us [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 25, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

We called this photograph the “Irish Rothko”. Mark Rothko was one of the great American painters of the 20th century. His paintings are in museums all over the country and around the world. It’s important in our times to recognize that he was born in Latvia. The great American painter was an immigrant.

We heard the channel to the marina was dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day so we bundled up and scurried to take advantage of a clear photo opportunity. While Kerri snapped pictures I pondered the potato famine. The marina was dyed green on this day in 2025 in the USA because 180 years ago over 2 million Irish people fled starvation to find hope in a new land. Immigrants. St. Patricks’s Day is a celebration of the promise of The United States. I’m fairly certain that the vast majority of people all over the nation drinking green beer, sporting shamrock pins and wearing Leprechaun hats were not themselves Irish. Americans of Italian, German, Scandinavian, Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, Nigerian, Egyptian, Indian, Turkish, Indonesian…descent, hoisted frosty green beverages. Americans, all.

We are a diverse people. Our diversity is what defines us. We regularly celebrate each other and our diversity whether we realize it our not. We are a strong weave from many origins, many races, many religions. We are weakened when we pretend that one fiber is better than another.

I suppose it’s possible to attempt to scrub any mention of DEI. It does not change the reality of the nation. It does not alter the driving imperative of the nation: amidst such a diverse populace to forge an equal, conscious and considerate society. We’ve managed to make buildings wheelchair accessible, begin addressing the disparity of pay for women, with civil rights laws we walk into the hot fire of inequality…all aspects of diversity, equity and inclusion. People with disabilities should not have barriers to workplaces. Women should not be paid less than men for equal work. People of color should not be excluded from opportunities because of the color of their skin. Gay men and women should have the same rights as heterosexual men and women.

Striving for equality makes us strong. It is the necessary ongoing conversation of our nation.Forced inequality makes us immoral, corrosive, and weak. Trying to end the conversation is spineless.

The work of equality takes courage and perseverance. As we are seeing, it is possible to issue an executive order to end the efforts of a diverse nation to forge an equitable society, it’s possible to brand those efforts as “illegal”. It is, however, impossible to stop it. Unity fashioned from rich diversity is the center of our national ideal and is the basic reality of our society. After all, it is the nation’s motto: E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.

It’s definitely possible to suppress people. It is possible to bully and terrorize people. It is possible to legislate a delusion. It is possible to manufacture enemies. It is possible to pretend that the people at the top of the hierarchy are somehow being victimized and blame efforts at equality as the culprit. All of that is possible. It does not change the self-deception, the corruption and lies necessary to do it.

It is the height of cowardice to scrub white the identity of this diverse nation – as this administration is attempting to do. And, if not cowardice, it is pure malfeasance. To obtain the goal of white supremacy the despot-wanna-be must make our democracy disappear – as this administration is attempting to do. The demonization of DEI is the epicenter of their ruse: Those poor old rich white guys have been so completely abused by laws protecting equality for all. Those sad despairing right-wing Christians who cannot display their nativities on government property have suffered tremendous religious persecution. Apparently, the separation of church and state should apply to everyone but them! It’s discrimination of the first order! And DEI is to blame! (It would be laughable, really, if it were not now so dangerous).

In nature, diversity is strength. In the USA, as in nature, our diversity is our strength.

Mono-cultures are vulnerable and readily eliminated. The Irish potato famine is an example of what happens when a people rely too heavily on a single crop. When it fails – as a mono-culture inevitably does – many, many people die.

We have never been a mono-culture. We will never be one. Pretending to be a white-male-mono-culture will echo nature and lead to culture collapse. No amount of legislating lies or embellishing white-victim-fantasies can – or will – change it.

read Kerri’s blogpost about IRISH ROTHKO

likesharecommentsupportsubscribe…thankyou

Filed under: Identity, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

It Is All [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 24, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The ordinary days have a way of lulling us into believing there isn’t any urgency to them…” ~ John Pavlovitz

These days I am more likely to appreciate my moment. I’m no longer trying to get somewhere or be someone that I am not. I have finally traded the harried drive for self-improvement, the fool’s errand to save the world, the not-so-healthy-desire-to-be-other-than-I-am, for the warm embrace of self-acceptance. I’m now less interested in attempting to hide my brokenness than I am in fully valuing the life I have been fortunate enough to live – with all of its foibles and folly.

It’s the word “urgency” that caught me in the quote. It’s an interesting choice in a thought about presence to use a word that implies “hurry” or “haste”. The imperative in each moment to fully appreciate the gift of life. Now. Not tomorrow. Not when the race is won or the bank account is full. Now. Right now. Doing the dishes. Making the bed. The haste of slowing down.

The Buddhists call this “chop wood, carry water”. The awareness of the extraordinary in the ordinary, everyday tasks.

Dogga groans at night. His muzzle grows more grey with each passing month. Sometimes at night he struggles to stand. And, because we know beyond doubt that our time with him is limited, we linger with him. We fawn on him. We want to heap all the love in our hearts on him. There are no ordinary days. There are no throw-away moments.

Limits inspire appreciation. Rolling into sight of my looming limit is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. “Listen to the birds,” she just said. We stopped writing and drank in the birdsong.

The birdsong brought to mind a favorite quote from Shakespeare:

“There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.” [Hamlet, Act 5, scene 2]

A quote about fate. Acceptance. And what is the gift of readiness? It is to be wide awake. It is all.

read Kerri’s blogpost about URGENCY

likesharesupportcommentsubscribe…thankyou

Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Naturally [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on March 21, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Before sleeping we usually watch thru-hikes, video journals of people walking the Pacific Crest Trail, The Continental Divide Trail, or The Appalachian Trail. The Hayduke. Early in their journey the hikers experience the unnatural aggression and excessive pace of regular life drop away and a more natural rhythm emerges.

They become different people as they begin to see other people differently. The steely individuality of their urban identity dissolves. The hikers realize that they need other people. They realize that they are dependent upon the kindness of strangers. In fact, they come to understand that without the support of others their trail-walk would be impossible to complete. They begin to rely on – to count on – kindness.

And they are rarely disappointed. The kindness that they hope for always appears. And, as they enter the reality – the necessity – of their interdependence, they more freely offer their support to strangers. They become the kindness others hope for.

Periodically the hikers come across trail angels; people who come to the trail with the sole intention of making life better for the hikers. The angels prepare food or snacks. They offer shade, a cool drink, a place to sit and rejuvenate. They give rides to town. Other angels make sure there is water available at caches across the desert. Others provide places to stay. Almost all of the trail angels were themselves hikers who were recipients of the extraordinary generosity of angels. So, they became angels for others. Naturally.

The hikers always speak fondly of the culture that exists on the trail. A culture of support. Most hikers, after they finish their months-long adventure, remark that their walk was made memorable, transformative, because of generous people they met along the way.

We watch thru-hikers because they give us hope. In a time of national darkness punctuated by ill-intention, self-serving oligarchs, the celebration of mean-spirits, cowardice…it is heartening to know that there is a community of people out there who’ve stepped into nature and out of the unnatural aggression of our nation, and what they find there – and find in themselves – is a natural reliance on others. A feedback loop of generosity. Kindness. People helping people, not for gain, but because they know the value of helping. It’s called humanity. They know that their walk in this life is made better – made more meaningful – by the dance of giving and receiving support, helping others and accepting a helping hand from others. Naturally.

Bridge on the album AS IT IS © 2004 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TRAIL

likesharesupportcommentsubscribe…thankyou

Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Or Will We? [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 19, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

And suddenly the winds arrive. The forecast warned us to expect powerful winds early this morning so I was taken aback when I opened the door to an eerie stillness. Dogga trotted outside into a world with nary a whisper of breeze. Three hours later, as we sat down to write, as if someone threw a magic switch, the first burst of wind rattled the windows. The trees moaned.

I was struck by this quote from Martin Prechtel:

“I knew that no worthy ritual was done for the experience of the ritual but was carried out to maintain a regular life of work and harvest, raising children and struggle.”

Rituals, like Easter or The Hajj or Diwali are appeals, acts of sacred orientation. They are acknowledgement of our smallness in the face of the vast mystery of this universe. They are meant to renew our connection to the immense, to life. Ultimately, they are the recognition that our actions, each and every day, no matter how small…matter; that we are active participants in the well-being, restoration and continuance of life. We are active creators of our relationship with the mystery.

Rituals are meant to affirm that we are not the overlords but are responsible for the care and feeding of “something bigger than myself.” We are a part of the whole. Nothing more.

Rituals are meant to remind us that we are not passive witnesses to the health of the community or the planet, but that we are stewards, active participants in our own and the community’s well-being: physically, mentally, spiritually. How we walk through life, how we treat each other, how we care for our environment, matters.

The aim is not the performance of the ritual. The aim is how the performance of the ritual intentionally orients us to daily life and to each other.

When the performance of the ritual becomes the point of the ritual it is a sure sign that the greater mythology is dying. Or already dead. And, mythology – a shared story – is the glue that holds a community together. Without it a community fractures.

Rituals need not be religious to be sacred. In the USA, our legal system and how it works is rooted in a ritual dedication to our national communal glue: the law. The Constitution is the sacred document at the center of our legal ritual and is built upon a sacred ideal: no man is above the law.

“In America, the rule of law is king...For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.” Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Historians will someday write of the collapse of our ritual of law. They will point to the Immunity decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, someone who swore an oath to protect our Constitution, yet somehow granted a president immunity from the rule of law. He put the whims of a man above the law. The center collapsed.

Today, we witness the dissolution of ours law. A judge ruled and was ignored by a White House that knows the executive branch is immune from law and can, therefore, be law-less.

Last week we saw that congress – our makers of law – had no will to uphold their sacred duty of checks-and-balance to the executive. They signed away their power and with it, our freedoms as protected by their adherence to the Constitution. They meet now for no other reason than to meet – having abdicated their function in the ritual of democracy, having lost their purpose, they now function without meaning. They forgot their role in the ritual renewal of democracy. They now merely pretend that their actions matter.

The ritual collapses. The glue dissolves. It remains to be seen if the people, the ordinary everyday people, the people who, in a democracy, are meant to hold the power, will come together and reclaim our ritual of law from tyranny. Or will we, like the congress and the courts, fear the new king, abdicate our responsibility, remain silent and watch our freedoms circle the drain?

read Kerri’s blog on FLAWED WEDNESDAY

likesharecommentsubscribesupport…thankyou.

Filed under: Flawed Cartoon Wednesday, Identity | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Bad Cowboys [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 18, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

When I was a wee-tot I was never without my cowboy hat and boots. I’m told by a reliable source (my mom) that I regularly attempted to sleep with my boots on. I can’t remember my dedicated cowboy fantasy but the few photos-of-proof make me smile. I grew out of my cowboy clothes but carried forward my cowboy ideal. An artist and a cowboy serve similar calls.

The cowboy is a foundational myth of these United States. The rugged individualist. Self-reliant. According to the movie-ideal, the good cowboy is a guardian of the herd, a protector of what is right. The cowboy archetype is a servant to a higher ideal.

The bad cowboy steals. The bad cowboy is needy and self-serving. The bad cowboy isn’t really a cowboy at all. He’s a criminal.

Black-and-white foundational myths afford no shades of grey. Bad cowboys are bandits. They rustle cattle. They hurt people. Good cowboys safeguard while driving the herd to market. Their dedicated individualism is lived as an act of service. They mostly do not own the cattle. They are never paid well. Their reward is honoring the call to a life of relative freedom.

The archetype begs the question for all the republicans out there claiming the cowboy mythos as their guide-star: are they a servant to a higher ideal or self-serving? Are they currently pitting their oath to the Constitution against their desire for personal gain? Good cowboy or bad? My questions are, of course, rhetorical.

The cowboy is the remake of an archetype that reaches back to Achilles, running through the knights of The Round Table, stretching forward to modern tales: Strider and Hans Solo. A servant to a calling, pulled by a force into a life that makes little sense because it is driven by an inner imperative.

“A person who is truly gripped by a calling, a dedication, by a belief, by a zeal, will sacrifice his security, will sacrifice even his life, will sacrifice personal relationships, will sacrifice prestige, and will think nothing of personal development; he will give himself entirely to his myth.” ~ Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss

The good cowboy is gripped by a calling. Again, a servant of a higher ideal. A Jedi knight.

A bad cowboy is gripped by greed. A servant to nothing greater than personal gain at any cost. A swindler. A liar. A robber. A villain.

My inference, of course, is obvious. Our communal cattle are being rustled. We are currently overrun with criminals and cowards pretending to be cowboys.

My hope is also obvious. Against all odds, in the movies at least, the good cowboys have a way of arriving on the scene just in-the-knick-of-time.

read Kerri’s blogpost about COWBOYS

likesharesupportcommentsubscribe…thankyou

Filed under: Identity, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | 1 Comment »

Context [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 17, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The world and I reciprocate one another. The landscape as I directly experience it is hardly a determinate object; it is an ambiguous realm that responds to my emotions and calls forth feelings from me in turn.” ~ David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World

I sometimes wonder if we are capable of presence, of being somewhere. With our faces aimed at screens, gaming or doomscrolling every few minutes, lost in Facebook or Instagram, awash in advertisements designed to makes us feel as if we are lacking, perpetually breaking news, worshiping at the biz-altar of efficiency and effectiveness. Do-more-faster. Is it any wonder that we, the citizens of the USA, lead the world in drug-use disorders?

I suspect that we are not trying to escape reality but are trying to find what, if anything, is real. Or meaningful.

“Humans are tuned for relationship. The eyes, the skin, the tongue, ears, and nostrils—all are gates where our body receives the nourishment of otherness.” ~ David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous

I had a revelation the other day about our current national mess. During my stint in software development we periodically discussed the context/content reality flip-flop. Essentially, our grandparents lived in a world in which their reality (context) was stable and consistent. They made sense of the news of the day (content) by sifting it through their mostly shared context.

We live in the opposite circumstance. Our context is fluid, volatile. With an average of 100 new emails coming in overnight, with a never-ending-rushing-social-media-stream, with tweets sending shock waves through the system, our context changes every day. Our content now defines our context. We are perpetually trying to arrive somewhere stable. We are constantly trying to find sense in the stream.

We do not sense-make together because we do not share an agreed-upon context.

It’s why we doomscroll. It’s why we have impenetrable information bubbles. It’s why we are impossibly divided. It’s why the phrase “alternative facts” wasn’t cause for hysterical laughter. It’s why there was nary-a-blip this week when, to avoid being held accountable for their participation in the nation’s demise, “…Republicans just passed a measure saying that for the rest of this congressional session, “each day…shall not constitute a calendar day…” [NYTimes.com as quoted by Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From an American, March 12, 2025].

A day is no longer a day. No-shared-context. Reality avoidance. Content defines context. It’s upside-down. It’s insanity.

My revelation? An angry people with no actual shared context are easy marks for a content creator like Fox News. Anger becomes a shared context when people are fed a steady diet of outrageous fabrications meant to exploit their fear. Anger-driven victimhood is the identity-glue that binds maga. It’s a powerful drug. There can be no other explanation for a group so willingly swallowing obvious lies, so readily and eagerly participating in their own demise, so completely and deliberately unplugged from verifiable fact. An overdose of anger gives them a shared sense of belonging. A context.

Kerri and I walk in nature to regroup. We purposefully step out of the noise. We consciously practice being somewhere instead of racing, racing to get somewhere. We return to the trail again and again to reclaim – even for a few moments – a stable context. A known. A natural rhythm.

We might do better as a nation if we turned off our devices for awhile, looked up from our screens and stepped outside. We’d do better if we took a nice walk together in nature in a place (context) that calls forth something other than anger, a context that is easily shared, a context that is undeniably real.

read kerri’s blogpost about BE

likesharesupportcommentsubscribe…thankyou.

Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

A Real Stumper [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 12, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart….live in the question.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I just learned something new. There are two definitions of the word poser. The first is familiar: an exhibitionist, an attention-seeker. To varying degrees social media has made posers of us all. Self-publicists. Perhaps that is why our politicians grand-stand at every turn: negative attention is still attention. Substance is no longer a requirement for dominating the news cycle. Every relationship a transaction.

The second definition took me by surprise: a difficult or perplexing problem. A brain-teaser. A riddle. An enigma.

It invoked the obvious statement: The current circus of political posers poses a real poser!

It’s a knotty problem. Vexed. A tough one to crack. Bad behavior, outrageous statements, outright lies… garner the attention, capture the media. The spotlight swings to the most despicable, the greatest train wreck, and since ratings-are-the-game, since “likes” are the prize, is it any wonder that we are on a fast track to the vapid bottom?

Truth, generosity, courtesy…are not the actions of a poser. Since they are their own reward, people who value these actions do not seek the spotlight. And, since the people who value these actions are generally focused on benefiting others – a surprisingly simple intention – they are not difficult to understand. Kindness is never a mystery. Good deeds are rarely puzzles. They are never transactions.

The poser-in-chief intends to eliminate all-things-woke and he needs to in order to achieve his transactional goals. Lies cannot stand up to truth. Meanness is laid bare when next to generosity. Common courtesy exposes the poser. Care for others throws a harsh light on our current national trajectory. Care for others must be vilified and removed if his authoritarian aims are to be successful.

What to do with this poser and his tribe of posers? It’s a real poser for we woke lovers of democracy and stewards of the tradition: of the people, by the people and for the people. It’s a tough one, a real stumper. And there is no better question – no more important question – for us to live-in, to ask in earnest so that, “…this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” ~ President Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

read Kerri’s blogpost about POSERS

likesharesupportsubscribecommentbekindtoothers…thankyou.

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Language, Perspective | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Ours Is Yours [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 3, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Nothing brings people together in these un-United States like a natural disaster. When the forest fires rage, when the hurricanes destroy, people – at least for a few days – forget their politics, reconnect with their essence, transcend their religious doctrine, forget their biases, and reach a hand to anyone in need. Anyone. People run into fires to help other people. The only other catalyst with the power to temporarily unify us is an attack on our nation*. September 11, 2001 made us remember that we are one, a community. People ran into tall buildings without a second thought to help other people.

It’s called community.

It’s easy to use a word. It’s far more difficult to fulfill the meaning of a word. To live it. Community.

Communities divide and dissolve when the attacks come from within. Currently, we are witness to the attempted dissolution of our nation, the power of misinformation at transforming neighbors into enemies. The demonization of the “other”. To date, it seems to be working.

I wonder when the devastation of the blazing fascist fire – currently consuming democracy – sweeps across the land, from sea to shining sea, burning all in its path – if it will bring us back together or drive us to total destruction? Will we run into the fire to help or turn our backs and say, “Not my problem.” I suppose we must first see through the lies and recognize that there’s an arsonist in the White House delighting in watching our democracy-house burn.

We had to pick up a few things at Kohl’s. The tagline printed on the shopping bag stopped us in our tracks. “Your community is our community.” There couldn’t be a more potent message – a more powerful wish – for our rapidly disintegrating nation.

Yours is ours. Ours is yours. It’s called community.

“I’m keeping the bag where I can see it,” she said.

*I wrote this post before the Peep and Vice Peep, in a festival of embarrassment, ambushed Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House. Their blatant alignment with Putin is an attack on this nation and I am heartened to witness so many of us come together in support of Ukraine – which is to come together in support of our democracy and all that we value. Theirs is Ours. Ours is Theirs.

read Kerri’s blogpost about COMMUNITY

likesharesupportcommentsubscribe…thank you.

Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »
  • buy us a coffee :-) Thank you!

  • visit the studio melange at kerrianddavid.com

  • The Seer available on Amazon.com

  • Lucy & The Waterfox is also available on Amazon.com