What Has Happened To Us

We really could use Alex Trebek and Fred Rogers more than ever. I watched the news today, and I am beyond speechless. Story after story after story shows a country and people I don’t even know anymore. I sit watching, shaking my head, and simply asking the question – what happened to us as a country, and what happened to us as a people?

Friday, I was diagnosed with COVID – welcome to 2021!! With very few things to do (or the energy to do them), besides lay here and watch TV, I have had more than my normal dose of headlines and news. I know this has been a hard year for many, and that for a lot of people tensions and emotions are running high, but as I watch story after story, I am watching a country and people I feel like I no longer know.

Political tensions and fears are running high – and are being played upon by so many of our leaders. COVID and vaccine fears are around every corner. No matter where you turn, you run into the preverbial “chicken little” lettings us know that the sky is falling. Yet this is nothing new – it is something we have seen for years. What is most disheartening is the total lack of civility, care, compassion, and love for others on display.

Today, it was heartbreaking to watch:

1. Leaders and their families terrorized for positions they were taking

2. Vandalization taking place because some did not agree with another

3. Business being boarded up in our nation’s capital in anticipation for violence, as the National Guard was called up

4. People, in large groups, without masks, storming shopping areas, putting others and themselves at risk

5. People without masks hitting, kicking, and ramming carts into workers who were simply asking them to put masks on

6. People looking at others who have family members battling COVID, and simply, callously say, “Death is part of life.”

7. People yelling and screaming at each other – the level of disrespect unbelievable!

I sat there today, literally with tears in my eyes, wondering what we have come to. Sadly, this could not be blamed on one side or another – for individuals from all spectrums were feeding this and acting these things out. I sat, shaking my head, simply asking, “What has happened to us? When did we become this? When did this become the norm and acceptable?”

I grew up and was taught much differently. Whether through Scripture, Mr. Rogers, my parents, or even my community, we were taught respect and love. In the recent documentary “Won’t you be my neighbor?”, Mr. Rogers said it best:

“Love is at the root of everything. All learning, all parenting, all relationships – love or the lack of it….Let’s take the gauntlet and make goodness attractive in this so called, next millennium…people caring for each other.”

Ultimately, as a society, this is what we have forgotten. We have ceased to care for others and sought only to cling to our rights and what WE think should be. We have found voices that agree with us, and “facts” that support what we think, want, and desire. We have ceased to live by the golden rule and have begun looking out only for ourselves. 

We need to remember the lessons of our youth, and once again seek to love others and put others before ourselves. We need to call one another to love, kindness, and goodness once again, and remember that we are better and more than we have become. Let us show forth love and make goodness once again attractive. 

This week, Alex Trebek’s final episode of Jeopardy will air, and in this, in spite of his own battle, he once again reminded us to, “Give thanks…open up your hearts to those suffering…build a gentler and kinder society…Keep the faith…” What a testimony! What a light in these dark times!

We each have a choice daily – who will you put first, yourself of others? How will you treat others – love and kindness, or hate and disrespect? Only through the choices we each make daily, will things change. We are more and better that what we have become as a nation, and it is time that we chose love and not hate – for that is the only way things will change. Let us live out the things we learned as a child, and once again, make goodness attractive.