We Are the Old Ones

darthe merrill jennings 2016 June

You dear souls, our precious heirs of the rainbow, look how far weve come, at lastno
sane person is blaming you for your own deaths.
When we were young, not only would we be dead, but our deaths would be our
final comeuppance and our coming out. Our families would identify our bleeding bodies
on a bathroom floor in a gay bar, and only then would they truly see their own children.
We are the Old Ones, the ones who survived hate, miraculously. We could not avoid
the deep scars and irreparable damage that came with our forced hyper-vigilance on an
unmarked trail and the subsequent loss of everything imaginable. Our search for self
became our search for justice, became our search for healing, became our highest
hopes for you, amid the well-deserved pride and joy of your generation. Together we
are strong and unafraid; the impossible journey was worth the effort, if only to revel today in your authentic lives and shining spirits.
Long ago, we opened our hearts so that you could look into your own and find, not
something wrong, but something right.
And you loved yourselves.
We held our collective breath, so that yours could flow freely, in rhythm with the pulse of
your dancing and loving.
And you moved with abandon.
We expressed our most precarious thoughts, so that you could keep yours in balance,
along with your dignity, your family, your friends, your job and your faith.
And you thrived.
We broke the rules so the rules could someday include your lives.
And you found justice.
We have taken comfort, as old ones do, in the ease with which you celebrate the whole
of yourselves, the confidence with which you explore and create new paradigms of
identity.
And yet, at the height of pride and celebration, as we dared to close our eyes and let
you go, unspeakable devastation has trampled our family. This should have been our
tragedy, never yours. How many times did we throw ourselves in the path of speeding
intolerance, so that you could later rest in love without struggle, without looking over
your shoulder, without holding your breath? We tried and failed and tried again.

When our silence was demanded and our inherent worth debated, we became louder
and filled all space. When bigotry and misguided religious teachings continually tested
our resolve, we found strength in one another, lifting even higher the sacred dream you
would one day inherit.
Sadly, we now stand at a fateful intersection of insidious forces. By night, hate has returned with an audacious vengeance. By day, in the marketplace where fear competes
with difference, perception is narrowed by labels and buttressed by the irresponsible
use of dog-whistle rhetoric. The ousting of any perceived intruder is openly encouraged, as walls of fear replace bridges of opportunity. Hate is a popular brand of swagger for the inarticulate, desperately protected by a twisted sense of entitlement to unlimited personal arsenals of weaponry.
Todays message of hate rides the cutting edge of dystopian doublethink, colorfully
disguised as patriotism, falsely blessed as God-speak. In the political sphere, its ugly
face is arrogantly magnified and spread by the depraved narcissism of an amoral opportunist, mouthpiece of evil, wrapped in a flag and running for President. The Old
Ones are not fooled by any armchair terrorist, whose clueless minions carry out the violence of his own tainted heart.
Our safe and peaceful community has been invaded once again, while babes and the
Old Ones slept. Long gone are the days of Mafia protection bribes, keeping harm at
a safe distance from our sanctuaries.
This time, danger brazenly stalked and freely entered.
Fear carried a Sig Sauer MCX to hunt you down and hold you in its sight.
You were hopelessly trapped and too easily erased, as if you had never been fiercely
loved, as if you had never planted a brilliant idea or a tender seed, as if your sparkling
bold rainbow lives had never mattered.
In the aftermath, some will wash your faces white and reach for the flag, hoping the left
hand will not expose the right. The Old Ones will tell the truth American homegrown
terrorism cuts as deeply as its own Wounded Knee, carries a tradition as commonplace
as Bible Study at Mother Emanuel, and measures its cowardly heartbeat like its own
Pulse. We need look no further than ourselves for answers.
Our newly-carved emptiness is deeply filled with flowers and compassionately soothed
with endless outpourings of shared grief, gratefully received and openly shouted across
the world, among the ever-growing numbers of beings who now recognize that we are,
after all, One.
Yes, after all.
Our worn and bleeding hearts are shattered.
It should never have been our children; We are the Old Ones.
Yet we are the ones who remain, who endure, across generations and time,
to bear witness and to speak.