A Soliloquy

No one wants to deal with death—whether it be the death of the physical body or the reality and  power of Death that holds sway in every realm of our actual existence and attempts to kill or maim human life; to consign human life to something less than it is meant to be; to dehumanize it. The forms and wiles of Death are inexhaustible. There are social forms of Death suffered by groups like veterans, the elderly, prison inmates, the poor, and other subcultures (including the youth of Parkland).  Whenever and wherever there is the banishment or the abandonment of human beings to loneliness, isolation, ostracism, impoverishment, and separation—the reality and power of Death is present and at work.  Whenever and wherever a person or group is ridiculed, bullied, and put down, the power of Death is present and at work in its attempt to dehumanize, to destroy, and to maim the sacredness of the human person.  

O Death, you will not smother me. You will not take away my breath. You will not destroy me.  I am a man.  I am a woman.  I am a person.  I am a human being.  I am worthy of respect.  I am brown.  I am black.  I am white.  I am yellow.  I am… I am...I am…a human being!

Do not belittle me.  Do not ignore me.  Do not denigrate my thoughts or my ideas. Do not humiliate me. Do not put me down.  I am not perfect.  I am no better and no worse than any other person.  I fail myself.  I fail those dearest to me. I fail my neighbors.  But I am trying, striving, yearning to be more fully human, more alive—to be a better person than I was yesterday.  I refuse, Death, to have you dominate me and dehumanize me.

Death holds sway over me just as it does over you.  Its tentacles choke me and out of my own struggle against it, I participate in it, and project on you all that which I cannot stand to look at within myself.  I am sorry.  I repent of it.  I want you to be as human as you can be, just as much as I want to be as human as I can be. I want you and me, and all others to live—really live!

We must acknowledge this reality of Death.  We must name it when it is seen, felt, experienced,  and exercised by you, by me, by a president, or a congressperson, or a comedian, or a lobbyist, or an insurance company, a political party or  the IRS, or whoever or whatever.  Let us seek to overcome Death in all its many forms: the put downs, the bullying, the bigotry, the innuendos, the ugliness, and the meanness that seeks to snuff out our humanness.

Let us not allow Death to have power over us.  Let us not allow Death to do its thing, which is to quench our human spirit—that human spirit described in Maya Angelou’s words, “And Still I Rise.”