GRATEFUL

I am struggling to find a positive topic today. Then I take stock of where I live and the joys of day to day life in the United States. It is not the usual listing of freedoms that our leaders pontificate on or the ones that they are trying to limit or outright take away. It is instead that freedom to awake in the morning knowing that something is possible and you are allowed to attempt to achieve it.

History is a subject that the majority of our “leaders” fail to either know or understand. Here are a few facts that would help you to understand what is going on halfway around the world in Afghanistan. There are approximately 38 million people that live in Afghanistan, a country 1.6 times larger than California. The female population is roughly 48%. There were 20 million people in 2000. Most of the Taliban hierarchy lives outside the country and there are no women in that leadership group. The average age of Afghans is 18.4. The average age of Americans is 38.4. Most of the young women born after the Taliban fall in 2001 have never known what it is like to live in a country ruled by an oppressive male dominated government. There are 6 countries that surround Afghanistan. The largest borders are shared by Iran and Pakistan. Both countries whose governance is dominated by men.

So when you awake this morning, think about all the possibilities the new day affords you. You can think about voting for someone who wants to take away your reproductive rights, your voting rights or your right to the truth. Or you can think about the 16 million Afghan women who in the blink of an eye lost their right to show their faces, speak, produce children with a man of their choosing, to be educated, to pursue a vocation of their choosing. Most of all they lost their right to the possible…

We should be grateful…..