Photo Credit: Kevin Spencer

I don’t even know where to start.

Just a couple of days ago, I wrote Race, Compassion, and Some Thoughts on Ferguson, to which the response has mostly been really lovely and supportive.  A few people find me uninformed and focused on the wrong issues…. which is fine.  Truly.  The beauty of blogging (and by extension, the entire internet) is that people are of course free to focus on, write about, and discuss any issues they’d like.

My blog = my issues.

And today, I’m sad.  I’m tired.

The last time I wrote, Phoenix wasn’t yet getting national attention for the death of Rumain Brisbon, whose name has become the latest addition to the list of high-profile officer/civilian killings.  As more and more people hear about it, the comments and the questions and the accusations – from all sides – carry a personal sting.  This one is too close to my own backyard. Too real.  I have driven by this neighborhood, many times.  I could get in my car, right now, and be there in minutes.   And as more details and discrepancies emerge, while people start to organize and protest (so far, peacefully), I feel like I’m holding my breath to wait for what happens next.  I feel like I’m watching it all unfold…. from a different time, and a different place. Surely this can’t be 2014, in a civilized society.

In a separate, but not totally unrelated note, I also learned since the last time I wrote that the valley has its very own Westboro Baptist-style church out there promoting hate.  Again, way too close to home.  In a recent sermon, posted online like all his sermons, the pastor proudly declared that the cure for AIDS was found in the Bible, and was as simple as executing everyone who was LGBT:

“And that, my friend, is the cure for AIDS,” he said. “It was right there in the Bible all along — and they’re out spending billions of dollars in research and testing. It’s curable — right there. Because if you executed the [homophobic slur] like God recommends, you wouldn’t have all this AIDS running rampant.”

Right here in the valley, knocking on people’s doors and literally spreading hate.

I couldn’t help it.  I looked through every corner of his “church”‘s website with the same sick morbid curiosity one would have at the proverbial train crash.  And in an at once illuminating and disturbing turn, I realized that I’ve come across this man and his family before.  I don’t always remember all my online critics (there are a lot of them, and it’s not exactly the most productive thing to focus on) but a few stand out to me.  One of them turned out to be his wife.  Her post was years ago, but I still remember it.  In no particular order, she 1) was one of the few who managed to include almost ALL the hateful misconceptions that people want to perpetuate against those who advocate for gentle parenting, all in one blog post:  According to this woman, my children will grow up to be “angry, hateful, violent, defiant children.”  They’ll be “disobedient, self-entitled monsters”  “Lazy jerks who want to live off welfare because having a job isn’t fun.”  “Axe murderers.” She “pities the mothers who have to endure living with such offspring.”    2) used “biblical values” as her rationale, and 3) was local.  Yep, I won’t forget that one.  And it actually makes so much sense to me now, why a stranger would have such vitriol towards another parent, especially a fellow Christian.  It’s what’s preached in her home, day in and day out.

I’m….. I don’t even know what I am anymore.  Appalled doesn’t do the feeling justice.

I’m sad, and so so tired.   I’m angry too, if for no other reason than that Christmas is 19 days away, and there’s just so much ugly right now.  It’s 19 days before Christmas and I’m thinking about heartache and sadness and hatefulness instead of love.

I mean, love still exists, right?

It does.  It does.  I know it does.  It’s there in the muck and the mire and the trenches.  In the houses, on the streets, in the families.  In the KIDS!  My sweet, sweet kids who, if that pastor’s wife met for even five minutes, would see are the very opposite of what she assumes them to be.

There’s still love, even in Phoenix.