Guilt

HOW COULD I?

My mirror says I’m an old man. My preacher says I’ll burn. Carl Jung says my Shadow Self pretends others did it, not me. I’m sorry! How can I own my own sins? I wanna be good. What to do with my infractions against other humans? And the animals?

Well, I have a storage unit, but it’s already running over…. Don’t lock it up. Maybe someone will steal some. Oh, do I mean steal some of my guilt? What nut would do that? [I know, what nut would even make all that guilt?] I don’t want to make more guilt in the world….I’ll give it away, free! But who would want it? Oh, I know–lots of folks like anything that’s free! Time passes. Still no takers. …I know! I’ll sell it! El cheapo! One ninety-nine a peck. Going like hotcakes now. Oh what to do with all this money?…

Am I not keeping my guilt alive in the world? Worse still, someone else is carrying my guilt. My Shadow Side hops a ride whenever it can, away! Oh pooh to growth! It seems impossible. ALL RIGHT! I accept my guilt! I’m a hateful, deceitful person who doesn’t keep his promises I have dirty thoughts and even worse, I’m sure. The motive is good, but how about the result? Now I’m stuck with self-acknowleged Monster Me: a cold prickly and no warm fuzzy….

BUT I WANT THIS TO END DIFFERENTLY! I know–I’ll buy back my own guilt! Hey guys, I’ll buy back my guilt from thee! There–penny for penny, dollar for dollar. But WAIT! My guilt has shrunk! Has it evaporated? Have good intentions been rewarded? Thanks to the ether. I’m really a Harris fan now; no funny business.

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I apologize for assuming all readers of this blog are white, but what I want to say primarily applies to whites.

This is NOT becoming a political blog again. Racism–both in the Black Lives Matter and at the southern border–is at a more encompassing, soul-spirit-heart-humane-brotherly love-compassion-yes, love-of-humankind level. Does nothing cut through to the quick of chaos? Is a guilty conscience behind the attack on teaching honest history? Shame?

Prior to writing this brief blog I read more closely into the history of American slavery, and don’t want that to be the topic today. However, I learned that in 1789 a law was passed in the southern province to keep enslaved Africans in “submission and obedience,” by prohibiting them from writing or growing their own food.

“Literacy among enslaved Africans was not always antithetical to slavery in the colonies. It was once permissible for the enslaved to read Bibles, but when colonists realized the skill could be a gateway to liberation, literacy was outlawed.” North Carolina passed a law in 1829 that made it illegal to teach slaves to read and write, saying it “has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds and to produce insurrection and rebellion to the manifest injury of the citizens of this state.” (Mother Jones, Sep-Oct, p. 9.)

Did the law mean “other” citizens, or were the enslaved not citizens either? They are now, for what it’s worth. –I take that back. I know citizenship for people of color is valued. but…I’ll be quiet now.