Why can't it be both?

Unity through dialectical thinking

I try to avoid virtue signalling, identity posturing, flag waving and the like. I know that many of us these days are terminally, often painfully online, and there is a discourse (or rather a lack thereof) that is hard to escape. I find myself wondering often, when I see a post or article deriding this brand or that, calling for a boycott of some wholesaler or another, why so many find it so important to be “for” or “against” so many things right now, and why so many find it so important to be very blatant and visible about “where they stand on the issues.”

Take the rainbow. No, don’t taste it. Skittles actually are made primarily of hydrogenated palm oil, don’t you know. Not great for the ol’ arteries. But take, for instance, the actual symbol of the rainbow. Many of the Judeo-Christian tradition hold the rainbow sacred, as a promise from Yahweh from the story of Noah, indicating God’s promise not to destroy the earth (again). It’s an image of hope.

The rainbow is also an important symbol for many in the queer community. It’s been that way for several decades now, ever since Harvey Milk, San Francisco, 1978. There too, it’s a symbol of hope. Hope for a future without judgement, oppression, exclusion. Hope for a society built on acceptance and true diversity.

These two traditions each hold the rainbow symbol sacred, and it’s led to quite the spat over recent years. And my question is: why can’t it be both? Does one negate the other? Are there only so many rainbows to go around? As far as I know, the rainbow is a naturally occurring phenomenon (thanks, God!) brought about by the refraction of light by a prism (in this case, water droplets or vapor). As long as we have light and water, there will be rainbows!

And guess what: Earth is the one magical place in the whole entire universe (thanks again, God!) that we know of that water and light exist in the right quantities to produce rainbows. Yay! Let’s praise God and throw a few Yass Queens up to the heavens! We can all enjoy the rainbow. We can all enjoy the extremely useful and convenient carabiner. We can all have a Bud Light, shop at Target, eat at Chick-fil-A, wear short shorts, drive a Subaru. One thing doesn’t cancel out the other. I can love Jesus and my queer brothers, sisters, neighbors, etc. It can be both!

And the rhetoric that is often used by news media only serves to fan the flames of hate. It’s not a culture war, darling. War is what’s happening in Ukraine, where parents are watching their children die in order to resist oppression and aggression. War is what’s happening in Sudan, Yemen, Papua, Ethiopia. What we have in the U.S. and the broader West, is posturing. It’s jingoism. It’s a temper tantrum. It’s phony and it’s lame. Open your hearts and minds people. You can disagree but still have love, you can believe different things but still coexist. It can be both!

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RANDOM RADIO

More dialectics! Listen to this one in order, the songs are paired, disparate styles with similar topics. Some you’ll know, some you won’t. You might even find an offensive word or two. The horror! Your poor sensibilities ;-)

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BARTON P. 6

12 years earlier…

Karin rushed quickly through the crooked underbrush, almost totally dragging Barton along, Lily riding compliant on her left hip. The stinging weeds and sticker burs clawed at her legs.

“Mom, slow dowwwwwn,” came the familiar wail. Barton had become clingy, anxious, overly cautious since the Blackout. “You’re pulling my arm, it hhhhurts,” he continued. 

“I’m sorry, bud. We’ll slow down for a little while. It’s only my excitement to get to the river.”

“Okay… Look! A bird!” eight-year-old Barton with genuine glee and shock at seeing an actual bird in flight. There were precious few left, and even in their haste Karin had to acknowledge the blessing.

“Wow,” she whispered, while guiding Barton through a break in the cedar brush, eyeing a place to set Lily down. The child had been remarkably quiet the whole morning, numbly clinging to her neck, eyes listless, silent.

She had sold this excursion to the children as a fun outing, an adventure, a chance to spend some quality time together, away from Roy, away from the tension, the neediness, the sullenness, the sudden fits of violence. They didn’t know, they couldn't know the real reason. Escape. Hope. Family. Safety. 

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When the power went out two years ago, she was nursing Lily, Barton playing in his room. She remembers being slightly annoyed; summer in Texas can be miserable without air conditioning. She only laughs now at her own naivete.

Before she could even get up to check the breaker box, look outside to see if her neighbors had power, the explosions had started. Terrifying, ripping walls of sound that rendered all thought, all prayers futile. Karin launched herself into Barton’s room, crowding with him and Lily into the hall bathroom, drawing the shower curtain shut in a useless attempt to drown out the searing cacophony that seemed to exist everywhere at once, inside her head, infusing every molecule, shaking the very foundations of the earth. 

She can still see the mermaids in reverse, staring through the inside of the shower curtain, bought and hung just the night before, the vinyl smell still faintly lingering. She watched the mermaids rattle and vibrate in the din, transfixed, numb to even the cries of her children, as the world burned down around her.

--

Gradually, the proximity of the explosions seemed to decrease, and after what seemed like hours, Karin peeled back the mermaid curtain, and led her beleaguered children into a new world, a world born again of fire. The air smelled of gas, smoke, and the worryingly alluring smell of burnt meat. Half of the apartment had collapsed, leaving a gaping window where her kitchen and balcony wall had once been. There had been mermaids on that wall too, drawn by Barton as welcome cards for his baby sister. Gone now, burned to ash or else sailing somewhere on the smoke-strewn breezes.

“Mom, I’m scared,” Barton croaked, finding his voice again, testing its volume, its reality, now that the din had receded and he could hear himself again. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, baby. I’m scared too.” And lost, bewildered. In shock. But babies don’t allow for shock, so she began stumbling through the remains of the apartment, taking stock, trying to make sense of things, make a plan. As she sifted and shuffled through the wreckage, she sang. To keep from screaming, from crying, from falling into numb shock, she sang:

“What a beautiful piece of heartache…”