To My Fellow Travelers

I know what it’s like to waste many years in a fantasy world that can only flatter and lie. But it told me what I wanted to believe. It was an easy course to choose because the mediums all around us are so suited to the message. And we are frail things, aren’t we.

Along the way, light seeped in. For each of us the process of opening the door wider is different. For me, the journey into reality and hope rested on my Lord and my faith. He always came through, even when I languished.

Two others things have driven me: an obsession to pursue truth and a desire to understand the dynamics behind everything. The method that facilitated my madness: books. Learning guided by fascination and voracious reading.

Through all these years and all the topics I’ve dabbled in, I’ve learned about love. Especially as I’ve studied men in arms, their dedication, discipline, loyalty, and the precise abilities to get the job done.

Shortly after my husband died, Qanon came along. Inadvertently, I became part of an ever-expanding group of malcontents, patriots, and drifters with nowhere to go because none of us realized at that point how closely the world came to being annihilated. By the worse sorts of people and for the worst reasons.

Now we’ve learned. We are knit together, worldwide, in a manner that transcends our differences, our personal glitches, our varying aspirations. We are a family – of warriors and friends.

In 1970, a vocalist named Melanie sang a song with the line: “We bled inside each other’s wounds.” That always stuck with me. I think of it now when I read messages of Qanons who struggle. And when I enjoy the humor of anons who have learned to laugh at themselves, amidst all the cultural chaos and muck we trudge through each day. We share a togetherness that is in no way imposed on us.

I was raised a Democrat and still have classic liberal leanings. But I have found those to be meaningless in today’s political climate. Now I firmly align myself with Conservatives. Yet I know we have many goals in common. We just haven’t figured out how to work together to overcome the guile that feeds the swamp of politics.

Another 60s song: “Reach Out in the Darkness.” Uncomfortably corny, I can barely listen to it. But it expresses the best of what flower children were striving for. There is some good in almost all of us!

Life-threatening disease requires radical treatment. It hurts. There are no guarantees. But I believe that together, with kindness and mercy, a sense of humor and the common touch, we can achieve the justice we all crave. Injustice, like isolation, only leads to insanity. Reach out in the darkness, and you’ll find a friend. We’re here. Where we go one, we can go all.