Whenever
life beats me down, I look outside. I search for the promises nature creates. I
focus on the potentials. One bud reassures me that tomorrow will bring
blossoms. Another sprout signals life’s persistency. Each unique growth
germinates hope within me.
Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
A
little over 100 days into this regime, my head aches and heart breaks to
understand the agenda embraced by the people I know. I spent weeks diving into The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are
Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt. Although published in
2012, this provocative synthesis should be on everyone’s reading list. I find
myself going back to its pages as I desperately try to understand why the good
people I count as family and friends have moved so easily into being careless,
callous, and cruel.
Then
I remember that many of them showed levels of thoughtlessness and insensitivity
whenever life required them to think from another person’s point of view. Why
should they consider the needs of anyone that didn’t fit into the cultish
family traditions? Why should they change anything in their routines and
rights? Why should they step outside of their protected, cultivated,
restrictive communities to engage in a wider worldview? Any suggestions that
their telescoped opinions could be inaccurate met with ostracism. “US verses
THEM”, their family moto, primed them to embrace political leaders ready to
hijack them, even if they get hurt.
When
confronted with the tenants of Project 2025, they wrap themselves in their protective
layers of privilege, knowing their misogynistic purity protects them and their
lockstep families. They defend that they care—for their immediate family, as it
should be. No one else matters. Even family can be shoved aside if there’s even
a hint of “free riding” scenting the air. Homelessness and suicide for adult children
who don’t show proper loyalty and subservience becomes an honorable badge to
sanctify their callousness.
I
shouldn’t be shocked that these same people easily accept the ruthlessness this
regime embraces. These people adorn their walls with trophies and their homes
and bodies with gaudy displays of wealth. One of them is the woman I no longer
talk to because she defended slavery, saying that she read somewhere that not
all slave owners were cruel. She refused to understand that owning another
person is cruel. Period.
What
kind of suffering can these people justify? Will there be an action or order
that will wake them up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat? Can they walk away from this careless,
callous and cruel path? Do they want to?
Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
her exclamations of righteousness
fill every hour of every day
as she proclaims her piety
she protects her façade of devotion
with her illusions of perfection
she announces her good deeds
by never saying no
she weaves wreaths of sacrifices
she carries the cross of expectations
over her broken body
her fears wrap around her
when she judges herself harshly
with condemnation for human failings
she kneels in supplication
asking forgiveness for her sins
Coppyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
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| David Chapman-artist |
I push against cold resistance—
