The Smallest Cuts

The tiniest piece of glass was imbedded in my big toe. It was worse than a large cut easily bandaged and fixed. It was so small I could not see it or dig it out, yet it hurt me with each step. It took days for the body to figure out how to fight it and fester it out. Words can be like that tiny piece of glass. Tossed out sentiments, like little pieces of glass, can get under our societal skin, be difficult to remove, while hurting us all.

So it was when we bought a van, bigger, room for a service dog and multiple boys. I met our seller at the county courthouse and all was going well until I was asked if I wanted a license plate with the state logo of “Unbridled Spirit” or instead “In God We Trust”. I paused, perhaps a little too long. I do trust in God, but would it be a false clarion that I was a conservative? And I do like horses and the state motto. On the other hand, I could use the extra prayer conveyed in having “God” on my license plate. (This is the sign of someone that thinks a little too much.)

The clerk and the seller waited. “This shouldn’t be that big of a decision,” said the clerk. Finally, I chose “In God We Trust”, the national motto. That’s when the clerk told me how she spreads little, cutting pieces of glass.

She laughed. “When I see someone that comes in that’s an Arab, I don’t give them a choice. I just give them the “In God We Trust” license plate.”

The seller laughed, too. My mind reeled for what to say. “They worship the same God” was what came to mind later, but I had, as the French say, l’esprit d’escalier, that is, I didn’t think fast enough and the moment was over. While I did not laugh back, I was ashamed I didn’t speak up for these little pieces of word glass, these ideas that are thrown out like little quips, this way of thinking is what eats away at our humanity and ability to truly see and understand the person before us.

Just the day before, I had been hugged by a young mother, a truly heartfelt and loving hug down to my soul. She was thankful. I had brought her our discarded old couch as they had nothing. I’d asked her what they needed. “We are very in need” she responded, and told me that she slept on the floor with her four children. Her back hurt. I also brought a quality air mattress and a few other items.

When I arrived, she took me into her home and showed me where they slept – on the floor. They’d been here two years and after one year, there was no help for refugees. I didn’t ask why they came, why they didn’t get off the ground with the help they did get at first. I didn’t ask why they continued to have more children or why the husband, who was there, wasn’t working. (These are all the little pieces of glass we throw around, that are imbedded in us, hard to excise.) All I needed to know was that she was a young mother whose back hurt because she had no place to sleep. It was right before Christmas and as she held her little brown baby, I thought of another mother who sought a place to lay her head with her beautiful little curly headed brown baby.

She has no car, so likely will never encounter the choice of license plate nor a clerk that shows her no courtesy. I won’t pretend that American society hasn’t always had prejudices against groups of people and still does. I grew up hearing that we are a melting pot, yet also knowing that differences were often met with disparagement rather than enlightenment. That pot holds many pieces of little glass. We Americans historically recognize and claim to fight injustice and large bleeding cuts, though, with the current political situation and the temperature outside, there is new meaning in the words, “A cold day in hell.”  Until we recognize how cutting and hurtful a small phrase or word can be, to both society and our own psyche, we will not become the great society we purport to be.