In Solidarity

I have been given to understand how small this world is and how it torments itself with countless things it need not torment itself with if people could find within themselves a little more courage, a little more hope, a little more responsibility, a little more mutual understanding and love.

The past week in America people found courage within themselves and with that came a little more hope. Millions marched together to say NO to any King, or any dictator ruling over "we the people". Those who stood together from LA to Boston spoke with one voice, out loud, in Solidarity, the word most often associated with Vaclav Havel, dissident turned President of former Czechoslovakia.*

Photos are everywhere of how the Saturday protests looked from the outside. What it looked like on the inside is what makes the difference. If you were there you know the way the crowd kept growing; the signs kept coming; the flags kept rising higher above the fray. June 14 used to be called "Flag Day" before it became NO KINGS day. They are one in the same. Those early days of this Republic were symbolized by the red, white and blue. When I had a Cape Cod home, I flew a "Betsy Ross" flag by the front door. The thirteen stars in a circle and as many stripes fit the locale where pilgrims who sailed across open waters for months on end first made landfall. (Plymouth was the second place).

At "First Encounter"Beach*, the long story of White Europeans encountering indigenous peoples who did not look like them, speak like them, believe like them is said to have begun. This four-hundred-year old narrative brings us to where we are in America today.

In their first efforts to escape an intolerant King on their homeland, these men and women arrived uninvited and claimed the moral high ground over others. This attitude led to violence with those who belonged in the first place. We know how this played out for First Peoples. Yet, we still see this attitude toward who belongs in this Replublic and who does not. But, unlike early days, we have become a mix of colors, languages, religions, and personal identities. There is no "one and only one" who can rightfully and righteously speak for what this country, or any country, ought to look like, sound like, dress like, love like. No! We are all in this together. One for all and all for one, except for any ONE person who would be King.

*https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/09/18/vaclav-havel-harvard-commencement/

** https://www.easthamhistoricalsociety.org/site-of-the-first-encounter