Not On My Watch

Dear Reader,

It’s been a profound week. A tough week, in many ways, but also a week of hope and potentially transformation. I have run a full range of emotions, from feeling heartsick at the horrific murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, to pride in the courage and insistence of people around the nation (and the world) marching and raising their voices in protest, anger at the aggressive treatment of some protestors by police, sadness at the violence and looting despite most protests being peaceful, and frustration at the political gamesmanship around all of it.

I do not pretend to be an expert on race, nor do I have easy answers for you about all that is unfolding.

But I can tell you this.

I continue to live with an open heart, and I continue to follow my intuition. One phrase that keeps coming to my mind is “Not on my watch.” It is a quiet, insistent voice, which I have learned to recognize as my intuition speaking. Not on my watch.

What does that mean?

As some of you know, I celebrated my sixtieth birthday last month, and it was tremendously empowering. Perhaps because of the milestone year, I have been doing a lot of reflecting.

I was born in 1960, and one of my earliest memories was of JFK’s assassination. I was three years old.

All I remember was some serious man talking on the television, and people rushing around. I could feel that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. I started to cry, and my aunt took me into another room to take a nap. A few days later, I remember playing with my toys in the background as my family watched John Kennedy’s funeral in black and white.

I don’t remember anything from that time about the violence around racial protests in the South, or the civil rights act being passed in 1964, or even Martin Luther King’s assassination four years later.

All of that feels so long ago. I have been on this planet for sixty years. Today, I am deeply saddened, and angered, that we have not made more progress on racial equality for black and brown people in my country during that time.

We can, we must, do better. Now.

As I wrote in last week’s post, we have work to do. I, as a white person, have my own individual work to do. Racism won’t just go away by itself.

So, having been here for sixty years and not having seen the progress I want in my heart to see, I know that I will not, cannot leave this world without having done my best to see the hold of racism broken and transformed. It cannot be allowed to continue.

Not on my watch.

Yes, there are other issues I can say the same about. But right now, with the ongoing pain we are seeing and experiencing, systemic racism and all that it touches (pandemics, health care, poverty, education, parenting) deserves our full attention.

To me, that calls for listening, and learning. It calls for sensing what is wrong, what can no longer be tolerated. It calls for speaking up, and taking action.

It calls for all of us saying “Not on my watch.”

I honor your loving heart,

John