End of Innocence

Sometimes, I just miss things.

Like, I used to think that Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven was about a woman trying to buy her way into a favorable Eternal Reward. I used to think that the song Afternoon Delight was about a really tasty lunch. I believed with all my brain that Yosemite Sam’s name was pronounced “Yo-sem-eet”. I argued quite vehemently with my brother on that one. David Lee Murphy’s song was about Dust on The Bible, not Dust on the Bottle. Born in the USA was a patriotic song…until I really listened to the lyrics.

There are sometimes things it takes me a while to hear. God Bless America? Those words that many people stumble over are “Through the night with a light from above.” You know what I am talking about. (Thanks, Uncle Casey) The Eagles song Desperado had a lyric that I never could figure out, until one day when I was driving down a street and realized what the mystery sentence was. “Your prison is walking through this world all alone”. It hit me so hard, I almost had to pull over.

I didn’t know what Furries were. If you don’t know, you can look it up if you want. I refuse to take that bit of innocence away from you.

Until recently, I didn’t know, or didn’t believe, that there were professional agitators. These are people who get paid to stir up things at an otherwise peaceful protest, usually to promote an agenda. I am not saying that these paid people are the only folks to stir thngs up. But, with the recent protests at college campuses, I feel that they were mostly peaceful until agitators showed up. And that, to me, is sad.

These students are trying to change things. They are trying to use their collective voices to say that what is happening to the Palestinian people is wrong. That, outside of Hamas, they are just people, trying to live their lives and raise their children without the fear of bombs, bullets and famine cutting those precious lives oh so short. I don’t agree with Hamas bombing Israel, but I don’t agree with what Israel is doing.

I hope I can say that without being labeled Anti-Semitic. Just as I could disagree with some of President Obama’s policies and not be racist, I can disagree with Israel’s current actions because of the actions, not because it is Israel that is doing it. NPR had a story about two or three newborn Palestinian babies that were in intensive care, in a hospital, that had to be left there when the hospital got evacuated. They died alone. I would argue that as a crime against humanity, no matter who was responsible.

I am not saying the people of Israel aren’t suffering. Of course they are. It is tragic. But no one is (currently) actively trying to wipe them off the face of the planet.

We must stop seeing people as labels, and start seeing them as people. Not Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, Palestinian, American. We need to stop with seeing thing as Us and Them, and start seeing just….people. Mothers, Fathers, children. Wanting to survive, to live, just to be.

Oh, I know. My naive innocence is poking its head into my blog. I think I usually try to see the world as it is, not as I would like it to be. I know Stairway to Heaven is about drugs, Born in the USA is about what is wrong with America, and Afternoon Delight isn’t an ice cream treat. And I know that wishing we could all just get along doesn’t make it happen. We have to open our eyes to reality if we are ever going to change things. We have to see things as they really are. We have to seek and find the truth, no matter how hard it is to see, even if it means we loose some of our innocence.

“Isn’t it nice to know a lot? And a little bit….not.”

—Stephen Sondheim, Into The Woods

Peace,

Kathie