Good Trouble needs Healing Time

    Today a great man was laid to rest, John Lewis was the leader of a generation of young civil rights soldiers and a modern day visionary that today was compared to Gandhi, King, and Mandela by President Obama during his eulogy. I consider that fine company if there ever was any, and any of us with a great heart and compassion hopes to emulate these great men by the simple act of compassion towards our fellow human being. Today the story of how John Lewis was beaten on bloody Sunday was punctuated by pictures of state police driving peaceful protesters before them with batons and boots. A picture also had John Lewis with his head wrapped as he prepared for the march from Selma to Montgomery. If you look at the dates March 1st was the beating and March 7th was the March were the whole country came to help and be a part of one of the most important marches in this countries history. I have spoken of this before and told how my father was there for the march as a journalist and a marcher. Those who have met me know that I am mixed, and my father is a white man. I had the honer of meeting with leaders of today in BLM and Black Unity and told a few stories about my father and his experiences, but the real message of this essay to to the citizen soldiers of today. I am sure John Lewis knows how you feel after being beaten, thrown in jail, and dealing with brutality of hand, of voice, and of empathy for your fellow soldier in this fight. I to know how you feel. Today the Lewis family asked that there be no marches or protests in honor of his life, and that really was a calling for a time of healing in essence. A time to take stock and look at the joys of life and gather strength. John Lewis was a great lover of joy and the simple pleasures that make all people laugh and love.
         It was the day after my beating by Springfield Police in 2015 and I was sore all over as I waited in a hotel room. My head was pounding and I was throwing up constantly from the concussion that would last almost a year, and I still had not heard from my attorney for I surely was not going home alone where the police could find me. I had no one really who I could turn to who was close and within a phone call. I had called my Dad and he tried to calm me down, but I could tell he was shaken. This was my second savage beating by police in my life time, and really who has to got through it twice? Soldiers do that is who. I had to take time for healing. I watched T.V. and got the rest I could. It was the 3rd day after I heard from my attorney and it was safe to got home that I sat back and relaxed, and this deep calm came over me, a resolute decision was born in my mind and I went home with strength and purpose. That day I would write a deeply profound work that was the final in a string of writings that took some 17 years of my life. It was called Exodus and to be sure it was being about 'Good Trouble'.
     A time to heal is needed. No soldier in warfare goes to war wounded they go to heal so they can be strong in the fight, strong in heart, in spirit, and in action. Those of us who have such deep love and compassion that pushes us to care for our fellow man or woman who is unjustly treated same as it was that pushed John Lewis to action in civil rights his whole life so he was then called the 'Moral Leader' of the House of Representatives' Not the Dems or GOP the whole house, is the same love that drives the citizen soldiers of today to continue to fight for rights of their fellow humans by seeking out 'Good Trouble' that just might get your head busted. I say for a day lets honor this request and look for inspiration, maybe read 'Civil Disobedience' by Thoreau, watch the Movie Selma and pray with King as he kneel before the Edmund Pettus bridge or The Help and laugh as she eats pie, or Gandhi and be inspired as he marches to the sea or drop tears as the march against the salt works brutality and strength of Satyagraha shakes the very core of human ethos. I hope in this way you can find new energy and new joys and understand what is happening today that hurts will pass and the reality of joys live much longer, and that is why really that be about 'Good Trouble' is so sweet.
Love and respect,

THOR