My morning view

I sit here this morning soaking up a beautiful mountain morning view. I have birds everywhere around me. I just had a hummingbird not even 5' from me.

I have never been more acutely aware that I am white. never. What I mean by that is... NEVER. Yesterday we drove through the nation that our country graciously afforded to the people who were here before us. The people we put down and make fun of and say things like.... "it's not my fault they don't want to work" or "it's not my fault that they are drunks...." or (one of my favorites)... "I refuse to feel guilty because I was born white" or even better.... "It was a long time ago, what does this have to do with me?!"

My first instinct is the thank God (the god of the white man apparently) that I am white. Because there's no way to know what kind of oppression and hell these people are (are, not were) born into. And then, yes, this epiphany is followed by guilt. And compassion. And anger at what we-- as a nation (and THAT my friends is not something over and done with and in the past)--are still doing to these people who we duped and asked for help and pushed and pushed and then graciously gave them some of their own land that grows nothing, and sustains nothing.

I will not let my guilt and grief and overcome my awe or ruin my vacation. But it is a shadow and it makes me both grateful and grief-filled.