Truth Rant

One. I’m tired of ranting, I’m tired of raving, I’m tired of the expression of disgust of cynical acceptance of weary resignation of throwing up my hands and saying well the truth is, that’s just the way it goes.

Two.  I’m tired of wondering why the bad people are bad and the mean people are mean and the greedy people are greedy and why everyone seems so damn stupid and why I see myself as just a patchwork of loosely affiliated flaws.

Three.  I’m tired of feeling like the golden age is past and that I’m living in constant reaction to what looks way too much like the last dying gasp of hope for the world.  Buck up kids, ‘cause it’s all downhill from here.

In fact, I’m so tired that I say one stop.  Two Stop.  Three STOP!

This isn’t the way I want it to go.  Yes, I’m mad, I’m angry, I’m hurt, scared, yes I’m enraged, yes I’m driven, compelled, hurled into hawking up bilious gobs of sulphur-smelling slime when I read when I’m told when I’m media spoon fed yet another deep-fried tale of tyranny’s triumph, when I’m forced to mainline yet one more two more three more flag-waving tree-toppling education-eviscerating hope-harrowing stories of the voracious power-grabbers and self-righteous narrow-minded evangelical Hummer-driving hate mongers.  The orcs and demons and leather-winged dragons of our time.

Yes I can spew yes I can rant yes I can rave yes I can go out of my way to articulate in shimmering twinkling glittery diamond-clear detail the story of what’s too too fast going wrong.

But I don’t want to do it the old way.  I don’t want to wash you in the blood-colored light of my anger and tick off the horrors one two three.  I don’t want to fuel my art with the high octane gasoline of outrage.  We all know.  We all know why we’re mad.  And the more we learn, the more we uncover the details of the wrongs one two three, the more we know the doers of the wrongs, we list them off one two three the more our teeth clench and our guts burn and the more we unsheathe our swords and rush out to battle to slay the slayers who just seem to pop back up, many-headed, hydra-like, ultimately unbeatable, coming back at us again and again and again.

No.

I won’t say it.  I won’t make you feel it.  Not because it ain’t all true.  It’s true.  The pain, the injustice, the unfairness and ugliness in the world.  It’s true.  It happens.  It’s all happening now.  All the bad stuff we can imagine and much more we can’t is going down.  Now.  As we breathe, one two three.

But I won’t say it, won’t wash you in it because there’s a better way.  It may be happening, the stuff that makes you spit acid venom, the stuff that keeps you up at night, the stuff that makes the dark even darker, but it’s not the only thing that’s happening.  It may be true, but it’s not the truth. 

And the truth? THAT is the story I want to tell.  That is the rant I want to shout from the tallest tree, from the loving, endangered limbs of the ancient redwoods.  Because I don’t want you acting out of hate.  I don’t want you desperate, staving off the collapse, documenting the decline, witnessing the inevitable fall. 

I want to give hope.  I want to shed light.  I want to liberate my soul and liberate yours too.  I want to be able to put both feet behind my head and sing at the top of my lungs.  I want to believe that anything is possible, that reality is malleable, that miracles happen, that duality is all in my head and it can easily be overcome.

I want work without struggle.  I want courage without fear.  I want a life of purpose and meaning and possibility and actual real verifiable success.

I want to know in my heart that everyone can be reached.  That nobody is beyond hope.  That minds can be changed and fears can be soothed and anyone can be affected by a bright, beautiful sky.

And I do.  I know there is something more.  Something better.  A cleaner fuel with a brighter burn and that is truth and that is hope and that is love.  I know I know I know I have lived I have felt I have seen I have been blessed to know that love is every yellow brick in our road.  Count them one two three…

I know that miracles are real, I know that healing is possible, I know that we can put out the fire raging in our house and that we can all be free. 

I want you running shouting dancing speaking moving doing because you know it, too.  I want you to feel it in your breasts and in your bones.  We can shine with the light of our knowing.  We can transform everything we touch.  We don’t get to control it, but we can shine it out – live it from our guts to our skin, live it through every pore and cell that we have enough love to heal the world. 

That light, that knowing, that love, it comes from a place inside you that no one can touch, and that is truth.  The power of your love is truth.  The vision you hold out for the world as it could be is truth. 

When Israeli soldiers refuse to follow insane, unjust orders, that’s truth.  When a woman who loves another woman or a man who loves another man pledges their love in public, defies the law, and weds, that’s truth.  When a dam comes down and frees a river, when a bird is saved, when someone learns to read, when the sick get healed, when we learn compassion, when we learn to forgive, when we know that we are one race, the human race…and all those things do happen, are happening, NOW.  That’s truth.

And it only takes one person saying yes, one person taking one step, one person walking the other way and it only takes you.  One act.  One moment of believing in the world you want to see.  One moment of acting as if that world you want is real, and it is here.  Now.  That’s truth.

One.  Once upon a time a ship captain with a boat full of people headed for a life of slavery woke up and realized that there were humans, human beings in the hold, turned the boat around, took the people home, and wrote the hymn Amazing Grace.  Truth!

Two.  Once upon a time a woman in a concentration camp realized that there was no power that could hold her, packed up her things, walked to the gate, asked to be let out – and they did.  They let her go.  Truth!

Three.  Once upon a time there was YOU.  Do you even know what you can do?  Do you know that by your very existence you can heal the world?  Truth! 

One.  You can heal the world!  Truth! 

Two.  You can heal the world!  Truth! 

Three.  You can heal the world!  Truth!