Our communities lived by measurements of both good and bad. It was how we learned where the limitations of both existed. It wasn’t the immediate consequences that worried us, but the future unseen ones that we could never predict. And they always came, usually when we least expected.
This is a moment of time with one of those consequences. And this will be the first lesson of this class. Welcome to Sanctuary.
Walking through the town, you would never know that it had ever been a community because of the lines. They are everywhere, and they are almost down to a few feet in width. As an outsider, I marveled at the confusing legacy that came from the flurry of decisions that must have led to this chaos of stops that did literally that.
And as you can see, the lines marked boundaries that each person wasn’t willing to cross over. The tour guide had a cheerful smile on her face, but everyone else in the group was horrified.
Why wouldn’t they just work together? What was so important that no one was willing to bend just a little so that they could live with one another.
The tour guide giggled a little at that comment, Well, as you can see, they couldn’t live together, now could they?
Another person in the group laughed aloud in amazement. Were they all children? Who would be stupid enough not to know what compromise is?
A small girl with adorable pigtails hmphed at the man’s comments. You could tell by the look on her face that she didn’t appreciate the insult. Kids aren’t that stupid. Why do you think they’re always bouncing from game to game? It’s so everyone is happy. Adults don’t like a game and they take away the ball so no one can play. They call it laws, and expect it to be followed without question. But kids have to work together because we’re always being told no like we don’t know anything, and we don’t even us those things. Who’s really the child?
Stomping off to talk with the “children”, it wasn’t long before they all turned to look at the man in disgust. Now that was embarrassing, and he shut up after confronting the tiny but growing storm cloud.
Well, she does have a point, now doesn’t she, sir? Even the guide was aghast at the man’s air of superiority reeking about him in a stench of privilege. Those in charge get to call the shots, and rarely listen to others around them. I guess it comes from thinking that one knows everything there is to know. Once that happens, how is one ever wrong and others ever right?
The crowd shifted uncomfortably at this reminder that maybe they too had done something just like this in the not-too-distant past. But they would never be this shortsighted, would they?
What about the last national election of 2020? Did any of you think to do anything different than you had always done? I would think not! We would not be standing here today with the results that literally tore apart a nation like tissue paper if you had really known what compromising meant for everyone, and not everyone ELSE.
The children all nodded in agreement with the guide. Our teacher taught us about that time in our history just yesterday before our fieldtrip today. She wanted us to understand the consequences of “lines in the sand”. We didn’t think she meant real lines until now. All of the children looked dejectedly towards their parents. Why would you do this to everyone? Why wouldn’t you learn to play well with others like you ALWAYS tell us?
Now the adults shifted away as though they were the cause of all of this. How could they be when it was their ancestors who destroyed hope more than 10 years ago. Ok, so maybe they were the ancestors and not the victims they pretended to be, but they didn’t start this mess. A once proud land was now a pockmarked desert of lines and signs as far as the eye could see. No natural beauty left because no one thought of the importance of it in their own lives. It wasn’t necessary because they had pictures of it to be viewed in the comfort and privacy of your own homestead while they scraped the land for “resources”.
And now they had no nation to call their own because they ripped it apart with their belief systems and for all that glitters.
Now would have been the time when a…I think it’s called a tumbleweed…would roll by in the desolate winds of destruction, but of course there wasn’t anything left to make that tumbleweed. I looked at the children with my own look of sadness, and sure enough my daughter knew what I wanted. With a simple projection from her communication band, a tumbleweed rolled by the larger section of adults who looked on in shock.
I chuckled alone as I stood apart from the rest, much like it had always been. A history teacher wasn’t very important until times like this. Of course, if more of them had been listened to by the masses back in 2017 or 2018, then maybe we wouldn’t all be standing here wondering where it had all gone wrong.
