Last week I spent the Thanksgiving holiday with some members of my extended family. My brother, sister, and their spouses; nieces and nephews, my father, two of my grown sons, my ex-wife and her husband—14 adults in all—gathered around the table. Despite (or perhaps because of) the passing last year of my mother, the clan matriarch who glued everything together, we were more harmonious than ever before.
Charles - I very much appreciate this essay and know that what you are describing is what we should all hope for and work toward.
I am confident I am not enlightening you on anything here but I want to be specific about one thing:
Both sides of this are not equal. It is not as if we both need our little stories to soothe us at the end of this, convincing us it was OUR side that was right.
My husband and I are both in health care. We have always gladly gotten all vaccines we had to have to work at the hospital and even ones we didn’t have to have.
When the Covid vaccines were first made available though something seemed off. Different. It is too long to go through here and it is ground well tread elsewhere but from health care and medical ethics standpoint, I had grave and growing concerns.
Fast forward to this fall. Mandates came and thank God we were granted exemptions. Certain extended family members were furious with us. We were informed we deserved to lose our jobs and basically be put under house arrest.
Please understand that in my extended family we have business executives, an attorney, several nurses, a doctor, an engineer, a pilot, etc. These are educated people.
This is my point:
If my husband and I had been in control of the pandemic response, everyone would have been provided vaccines AFTER they had been provided a rigorous informed consent. Safety issues would have been investigated thoroughly. Honest reporting would have been done about what we know, what we suspect but do not know, and what we absolutely have no ability to know. We would have progressed with recommendations to prevent infection, not mandates, lockdowns, etc., much like we recommend ways to prevent other infectious diseases. In other words, these people would have been able to do whatever they want, go out or stay home, work or not. They would have been left to decide what was best for you them and their household.
If THEY had gotten their way, people like my husband and I would be left with NO income, NO health insurance, and limited ability to shop. We would have been left unable to leave our homes to do pretty much anything.
I am Christian and therefore I am required to forgive the people who voted for and advocated for my destruction. Because that is what that was.
But it must be understood that our opinions and political viewpoints were NOT “opposite, but equal.”
People who advocate for the destruction of others must be forever seen as capable of doing just that. This was not a case of a misunderstanding or a “we were just trying to save lives” issue. They will move on to the next issue once this one dies down.
In the meantime I will be happy to eat with them and I must love them. But something has changed permanently. I will forever watch them like a hawk. Their instincts are dangerous and they will strike again.
Nice essay, wonderful thoughts. The problem is there is a predator class out there that wont leave us alone. These organizations aka "the state" are filled with people who wont put family first , or who wont forgive and forget. These groups are hell bent on dominating others. They use weapons of propaganda, blackmail, and fear to divide families and pit different groups in society which otherwise could coexist peacefully , against each other. These groups are relentless. They wont leave us alone. Every day it seems there is a new real or proposed depredation foisted upon us. Eventually the oppression and tyranny will become so great that the society will collapse and everyone will have to pick a side.
I have had the very same thought or premonition as you have called it .
It moved through me like an electric whisp of wind; an illuminated nano second where I could see and feel this possibility as a true reality not based on wishful thinking but based on actual experience .
I thought ‘this could actually be the very thing that helps our conditioned societies to connect in our humanity despite our stark differences in choices, sides of arguments , world views , lifestyle . Our human connection is more than that’
I have finally seen and felt that we can transcend the tribal restrictions and connect with love for our fellow man.
Wow! Who would have though that this increasingly shocking situation would give birth to something we strive for and rarely seem to truly manage .
But I feel it with my friends . I feel it with my family and it moves me as our love for each other is richly felt in our recent meetings and larger gatherings. I have mentioned it . I have noted it . We are accepting each other’s choices and views and we connect in absolute joy it seems beyond that place. The love between us is palpable . We appreciate our togetherness. We see each other more deeply it seems and feel our mutual respect for traversing this terrain.
Whilst I am aware that some families are being torn apart over their responses to our current global situation , lives are being turned upside down , some people have lost their entire friendship groups , I realised my own experience can’t be isolated.
So this very uplifting piece that you have written harmoniously resonates with the elevated thought that moved through me and it landed within me as a heart - bursting yes! Yes, I know what you’re describing , Yes, I share your premonition despite what our media is so voraciously attempting to create.
I recall Ram Dass saying our differences don’t have to separate us . We can see the differences and love and connect despite and beyond that .
I always sensed that was idealistic and perhaps possible for an enlightened/ evolved few but now I see, I feel , I have experienced that is well within our beautiful human capabilities.
Withstanding this collective trauma together has the ability to smash apart all those views that acted as barriers and obstacles keeping our daily tribal warfare fuelled .
We can feel what matters .
We have been set up to fight .
I don’t want to fight
I want to love
I do love
And I have real hope for something I never thought would be possible .
I feel aligned with you once again Charles, I just finished a new spoken-word piece called "What will be will be" (to be shared soon I think). I also love that you shared the picture of your family at dinner. That warmed my smile.
I know there is both real harm happening and real distress being experienced across the world during this time. And I know your words are not meant to diminish these perspectives. But whilst we make important and significant choices for ourselves - whether to jab or not to jab, to resist measures or comply, if we can do so without "othering" those who choose differently, we can avoid the conflicts lasting long into the future once natural conclusions become played out. Resentment closes ears, minds and hearts. We all have to do as we must - each of us, but we don't have to embrace hatred in order to do so.
The real conflict is not the vax, or the virus, or the treatments, but the oppression of demanding that the tribe conform to a central command. We can argue about the basis for the commands, and those arguments may indeed decline. But as long as the tyranny of command remains, the conflict will not end.
I’m struggling with this one. I totally subscribe on a political arena where our shared humanity is the core principle and motivator and drive towards action.
Firstly, as someone who’s not vaccinated and is not interested in taking a vaccine I suffered a lot of blaming and shaming from those who see me as a danger to society. I didn’t have the experience (and it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist) that people who are not vaccinated shame and blame the vaxed.
Sencond, I can easily see how those who are marching with their righteousness will for sure drop their accusations and say “it doesn’t matter, we got vaccinated and that was the solution and we can move back to normal, which is all we wanted”. (The political heads only need to bring up the next narrative). Yet for me, who’s living in Europe and facing the threat of joining Austria and Germany where vax is mandatory and there’s a real violation of people’s liberty - carried by the hands of people - I find it very difficult to subscribe to the idea of just dropping the argument. Not because I care about acceptance or wanting to be right, because justice does mean something to me!
When you’re forced to lock in your home for your choices (which initially are not political but where colonised by politics), when you’re suffering loss of livelihood and living day to day under imminent threat, when the people are the arm of political parties and their verdict, we’re looking at a crack very similar to what happened after the Holocaust. Coming from a Jewish family and working with many German people I can tell you that the trauma goes deep and just dropping the argument won’t cut it. Because we need to learn how to create a society that appreciates one another for our shared humanity, which makes me wonder what would be the point in politics in such a world at all?!
Beautiful sentiment, and one I wholeheartedly agree with. Maybe one day we will get there but the human race is as far away from that point as it ever was. All we can do is show love and compassion and hope it's infectious as any so-called pandemic.
Beautiful! This left me with a practical question though... how did those in your family who are ardently pro-vax accept to be in the same room with those who are not vaccinated? I want for the same scenario to be possible in my family, however it would require the vaxed among us to drop their requirement for others in their presence to be vaxed. Or for some other condition to be met like a 2-week quarantine beforehand or a negative test. How was that issue resolved in your family?
Just started a vacation with family and best advice from this article is focus on the family and give those other things NO energy....not even going to clarify in this comment.
Thanks, this is exactly what I needed to hear right now.
"Hey, remember when you guys wanted us stripped of our jobs, freedoms, and right to Healthcare? Remember rounding some of us into camps and shuttering others under police or military guard in their homes?
Remember when you forced us to shoot up our kids if we wanted them to get an education? Remember when they wore masks for no reason for 2 years straight, and collectively lost 22 IQ points? Remember the ones that died from that shot they never needed?"
"Ho-ho, I guess we were both a little wrong there. Kind of silly and trivial, now that I think about it! I wonder why I got so worked up about your desire for a global totalitarian state. Geez, I cringe just thinking about how I made it my identity to resist that!
"Anyway, who cares about any of that, fellow human! ❤"
Charles always writes compellingly, but here I'd argue he's skirted some deeply unpalatable truths.
There is a class of people on this earth who have no desire to reconcile themselves with the rest of humanity. They see themselves as the rightful rulers of a domain that is theirs to tinker with as they see fit. All of it.
We play no part in their plans, other than as agents of their will.
This really ought to be very clear by now.
Healing and reconciliation can only mean anything once there's been a reckoning - and a mighty big one is looming ever closer.
This Thanksgiving I flew from California to Texas to be with dear friends because my family declined my offer to share Thanksgiving with them - despite my post covid status.
Charles - this article, like all of your articles, is gorgeous and contains many nuggets. However, how can it be said that these times will just fade from view? Has the Holocaust softened with time into a mere difference of opinion? What about South Africa's apartheid? No! We must remember these tyrannies long enough to correct and heal the ways of thinking and the dysfunctional systems that allow them to occur over and over and over again.
At the very least, a national discussion needs to be had about our health care system and the people running it. RFK Jr.'s book, The Real Anthony Fauci, demonstrates in excruciating detail a long standing pattern of suppressing therapeutics to the detriment of those suffering the disease and just like with covid, many died as a result. It's a disturbing yet very enlightening read.
Had I been welcomed by my family of origin without a double vaccine PLUS a mask, it may have been a family time much like you described, where, despite our different sensibilities, we we gratefully united and rejoiced at being a together. But when we are excluded because of our beliefs (and in my opinion due to a stubborn resistance to learn about the actual risks of covid, natural immunity, etc.) how can we feel a part of, and secure in, the family bond?
I am so very glad for you Charles; however, for many people around the globe, particularly Australia, Austria and now Germany, the tide has not turned.
Now that is a post I can resonate with. I don't always agree with your perspective but I always am willing to read your posts. Your family is a testament to what possible when love and compassion are more important than defending one's position or opinion. Well done brother, thank you tor standing for harmony.
Charles - I very much appreciate this essay and know that what you are describing is what we should all hope for and work toward.
I am confident I am not enlightening you on anything here but I want to be specific about one thing:
Both sides of this are not equal. It is not as if we both need our little stories to soothe us at the end of this, convincing us it was OUR side that was right.
My husband and I are both in health care. We have always gladly gotten all vaccines we had to have to work at the hospital and even ones we didn’t have to have.
When the Covid vaccines were first made available though something seemed off. Different. It is too long to go through here and it is ground well tread elsewhere but from health care and medical ethics standpoint, I had grave and growing concerns.
Fast forward to this fall. Mandates came and thank God we were granted exemptions. Certain extended family members were furious with us. We were informed we deserved to lose our jobs and basically be put under house arrest.
Please understand that in my extended family we have business executives, an attorney, several nurses, a doctor, an engineer, a pilot, etc. These are educated people.
This is my point:
If my husband and I had been in control of the pandemic response, everyone would have been provided vaccines AFTER they had been provided a rigorous informed consent. Safety issues would have been investigated thoroughly. Honest reporting would have been done about what we know, what we suspect but do not know, and what we absolutely have no ability to know. We would have progressed with recommendations to prevent infection, not mandates, lockdowns, etc., much like we recommend ways to prevent other infectious diseases. In other words, these people would have been able to do whatever they want, go out or stay home, work or not. They would have been left to decide what was best for you them and their household.
If THEY had gotten their way, people like my husband and I would be left with NO income, NO health insurance, and limited ability to shop. We would have been left unable to leave our homes to do pretty much anything.
I am Christian and therefore I am required to forgive the people who voted for and advocated for my destruction. Because that is what that was.
But it must be understood that our opinions and political viewpoints were NOT “opposite, but equal.”
People who advocate for the destruction of others must be forever seen as capable of doing just that. This was not a case of a misunderstanding or a “we were just trying to save lives” issue. They will move on to the next issue once this one dies down.
In the meantime I will be happy to eat with them and I must love them. But something has changed permanently. I will forever watch them like a hawk. Their instincts are dangerous and they will strike again.
Nice essay, wonderful thoughts. The problem is there is a predator class out there that wont leave us alone. These organizations aka "the state" are filled with people who wont put family first , or who wont forgive and forget. These groups are hell bent on dominating others. They use weapons of propaganda, blackmail, and fear to divide families and pit different groups in society which otherwise could coexist peacefully , against each other. These groups are relentless. They wont leave us alone. Every day it seems there is a new real or proposed depredation foisted upon us. Eventually the oppression and tyranny will become so great that the society will collapse and everyone will have to pick a side.
I have had the very same thought or premonition as you have called it .
It moved through me like an electric whisp of wind; an illuminated nano second where I could see and feel this possibility as a true reality not based on wishful thinking but based on actual experience .
I thought ‘this could actually be the very thing that helps our conditioned societies to connect in our humanity despite our stark differences in choices, sides of arguments , world views , lifestyle . Our human connection is more than that’
I have finally seen and felt that we can transcend the tribal restrictions and connect with love for our fellow man.
Wow! Who would have though that this increasingly shocking situation would give birth to something we strive for and rarely seem to truly manage .
But I feel it with my friends . I feel it with my family and it moves me as our love for each other is richly felt in our recent meetings and larger gatherings. I have mentioned it . I have noted it . We are accepting each other’s choices and views and we connect in absolute joy it seems beyond that place. The love between us is palpable . We appreciate our togetherness. We see each other more deeply it seems and feel our mutual respect for traversing this terrain.
Whilst I am aware that some families are being torn apart over their responses to our current global situation , lives are being turned upside down , some people have lost their entire friendship groups , I realised my own experience can’t be isolated.
So this very uplifting piece that you have written harmoniously resonates with the elevated thought that moved through me and it landed within me as a heart - bursting yes! Yes, I know what you’re describing , Yes, I share your premonition despite what our media is so voraciously attempting to create.
I recall Ram Dass saying our differences don’t have to separate us . We can see the differences and love and connect despite and beyond that .
I always sensed that was idealistic and perhaps possible for an enlightened/ evolved few but now I see, I feel , I have experienced that is well within our beautiful human capabilities.
Withstanding this collective trauma together has the ability to smash apart all those views that acted as barriers and obstacles keeping our daily tribal warfare fuelled .
We can feel what matters .
We have been set up to fight .
I don’t want to fight
I want to love
I do love
And I have real hope for something I never thought would be possible .
I feel aligned with you once again Charles, I just finished a new spoken-word piece called "What will be will be" (to be shared soon I think). I also love that you shared the picture of your family at dinner. That warmed my smile.
I know there is both real harm happening and real distress being experienced across the world during this time. And I know your words are not meant to diminish these perspectives. But whilst we make important and significant choices for ourselves - whether to jab or not to jab, to resist measures or comply, if we can do so without "othering" those who choose differently, we can avoid the conflicts lasting long into the future once natural conclusions become played out. Resentment closes ears, minds and hearts. We all have to do as we must - each of us, but we don't have to embrace hatred in order to do so.
Thank you. I am striving to rise above my own self righteousness. I'm hoping for the whimper you foresee.
The real conflict is not the vax, or the virus, or the treatments, but the oppression of demanding that the tribe conform to a central command. We can argue about the basis for the commands, and those arguments may indeed decline. But as long as the tyranny of command remains, the conflict will not end.
I’m struggling with this one. I totally subscribe on a political arena where our shared humanity is the core principle and motivator and drive towards action.
Firstly, as someone who’s not vaccinated and is not interested in taking a vaccine I suffered a lot of blaming and shaming from those who see me as a danger to society. I didn’t have the experience (and it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist) that people who are not vaccinated shame and blame the vaxed.
Sencond, I can easily see how those who are marching with their righteousness will for sure drop their accusations and say “it doesn’t matter, we got vaccinated and that was the solution and we can move back to normal, which is all we wanted”. (The political heads only need to bring up the next narrative). Yet for me, who’s living in Europe and facing the threat of joining Austria and Germany where vax is mandatory and there’s a real violation of people’s liberty - carried by the hands of people - I find it very difficult to subscribe to the idea of just dropping the argument. Not because I care about acceptance or wanting to be right, because justice does mean something to me!
When you’re forced to lock in your home for your choices (which initially are not political but where colonised by politics), when you’re suffering loss of livelihood and living day to day under imminent threat, when the people are the arm of political parties and their verdict, we’re looking at a crack very similar to what happened after the Holocaust. Coming from a Jewish family and working with many German people I can tell you that the trauma goes deep and just dropping the argument won’t cut it. Because we need to learn how to create a society that appreciates one another for our shared humanity, which makes me wonder what would be the point in politics in such a world at all?!
Beautiful sentiment, and one I wholeheartedly agree with. Maybe one day we will get there but the human race is as far away from that point as it ever was. All we can do is show love and compassion and hope it's infectious as any so-called pandemic.
Beautiful! This left me with a practical question though... how did those in your family who are ardently pro-vax accept to be in the same room with those who are not vaccinated? I want for the same scenario to be possible in my family, however it would require the vaxed among us to drop their requirement for others in their presence to be vaxed. Or for some other condition to be met like a 2-week quarantine beforehand or a negative test. How was that issue resolved in your family?
Just started a vacation with family and best advice from this article is focus on the family and give those other things NO energy....not even going to clarify in this comment.
Thanks, this is exactly what I needed to hear right now.
"Hey, remember when you guys wanted us stripped of our jobs, freedoms, and right to Healthcare? Remember rounding some of us into camps and shuttering others under police or military guard in their homes?
Remember when you forced us to shoot up our kids if we wanted them to get an education? Remember when they wore masks for no reason for 2 years straight, and collectively lost 22 IQ points? Remember the ones that died from that shot they never needed?"
"Ho-ho, I guess we were both a little wrong there. Kind of silly and trivial, now that I think about it! I wonder why I got so worked up about your desire for a global totalitarian state. Geez, I cringe just thinking about how I made it my identity to resist that!
"Anyway, who cares about any of that, fellow human! ❤"
Charles always writes compellingly, but here I'd argue he's skirted some deeply unpalatable truths.
There is a class of people on this earth who have no desire to reconcile themselves with the rest of humanity. They see themselves as the rightful rulers of a domain that is theirs to tinker with as they see fit. All of it.
We play no part in their plans, other than as agents of their will.
This really ought to be very clear by now.
Healing and reconciliation can only mean anything once there's been a reckoning - and a mighty big one is looming ever closer.
This Thanksgiving I flew from California to Texas to be with dear friends because my family declined my offer to share Thanksgiving with them - despite my post covid status.
Charles - this article, like all of your articles, is gorgeous and contains many nuggets. However, how can it be said that these times will just fade from view? Has the Holocaust softened with time into a mere difference of opinion? What about South Africa's apartheid? No! We must remember these tyrannies long enough to correct and heal the ways of thinking and the dysfunctional systems that allow them to occur over and over and over again.
At the very least, a national discussion needs to be had about our health care system and the people running it. RFK Jr.'s book, The Real Anthony Fauci, demonstrates in excruciating detail a long standing pattern of suppressing therapeutics to the detriment of those suffering the disease and just like with covid, many died as a result. It's a disturbing yet very enlightening read.
Had I been welcomed by my family of origin without a double vaccine PLUS a mask, it may have been a family time much like you described, where, despite our different sensibilities, we we gratefully united and rejoiced at being a together. But when we are excluded because of our beliefs (and in my opinion due to a stubborn resistance to learn about the actual risks of covid, natural immunity, etc.) how can we feel a part of, and secure in, the family bond?
I am so very glad for you Charles; however, for many people around the globe, particularly Australia, Austria and now Germany, the tide has not turned.
Now that is a post I can resonate with. I don't always agree with your perspective but I always am willing to read your posts. Your family is a testament to what possible when love and compassion are more important than defending one's position or opinion. Well done brother, thank you tor standing for harmony.
Beautifully expressed and beautiful timing. I am witnessing the “whimper” as you speak(and your words give it clarity and traction).
When love is in the house, wisdom speaks.