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Our Required Rebellion

 

 When a stop light turns red, I can’t bear 20 seconds of silence.

Pull my cell phone out of my purse to check emails.

I can hardly read a full chapter in a library book

without fumbling for a distraction.

 

News and analyses via journalists, gurus, talking heads

mask our emptiness.

Ridicule, shame, bullying—the new life skills

clothed with an air of sophistication— replace boredom.

 

We’re robots caught in the worldwide web of shining artificiality.

Addicted to the dopamine rush a social media “like” gives our brains

we pursue relationships via electronic messages

and connect to imitation friends.

 

Human touch. Eye contact.

Real faces expressing nuanced responses.

Out of style.

Life is lived in a collective garbage heap of fakery.

 

I’m outraged.

Anger-near-despair at our precious world gone awry.

Humans are the highest form of being in the created world.

How could we forget this?

 

Why do we all march lockstep down the road of fear and fitting in?

Every person—every single one—has unique gifts to offer.

We must have your offering, and mine, to survive

and change this faceless world we’ve created.

 

I grab myself by the nape of the neck and stop.

Stop participating in the craziness.

How can I save myself?

Rescue others?


Gatherings around a kitchen table.

Apple pie I roll out and bake in the oven.

Chicken soup hung on a sick neighbor’s doorknob.

A telephone call to my nephew away from home at college.

 

We rebel by giving our gifts

for the good of our neighbors and the planet.

Today I rebel…

by typing words on a page.

 

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