Recently a friend took a day cruise on the Erie Canal, encountering a man and his siblings celebrating the life of his wife. My friend has known and continues to live with the unimaginable loss of one of her children. As they spoke, the man and his group began to blow bubbles and shared a container of bubbles with my friend. Reflecting on the encounter and their conversation, she concluded that “it is hard to be sad when you’re blowing bubbles.”
For over two weeks my family has been living through the miserable experience of my mom undergoing emergency surgeries and a lengthy stay in the intensive care unit. Her illness has intersected with the one-year anniversary of her sister’s death and both her own birthday and the birthday of my nephew (my parents’ only grandchild). If this family saga was not already enough, it has been set against the backdrop of the national conversation on immigration. You see, my parents live in an area served by a regional medical center in Springfield, Ohio.
While we struggled with our mom in the hospital, the city dealt with racist and xenophobic lies spread by politicians without regard for the violence they were inciting. Soon threats of violence were called into city government buildings, an elementary school, the local high school, a local college, and the hospital in which my mom was a patient. Rather than reading about violence and threats, we were suddenly thrust into that landscape.
Though foreign for my family and for many of the people we spoke to at the hospital, it’s an environment that I know far too well. As a Queer pastor actively engaged in justice work threats don’t phase me much anymore and fearing the possibility of violence has dulled more than it ever should. I’m not cavalier, but hateful rhetoric has become a part of my life.
Bayard Rustin is famously quoted as saying, “We need in every community a group of angelic troublemakers.” Just as much as we need people ready to make good trouble, we also need bubble makers. We need people, community, and events which inspire hope, create joy, and build happiness. While only light can drive out dark and only love can drive out hate, we need hope, joy, and happiness just as much. Collaborating with other leaders in Ohio, I encountered so many bubble makers, people ready to write, to organize, to uplift the many powerful achievements of the immigrant community in Springfield, and to utilize their connections to get leaders on the ground the resources they needed in the moment.
If it’s hard to be sad when you’re blowing bubbles then we need more bubbles in our lives and we need more bubble makers. We need those people who listen to a community’s needs and find the resources. We need those people who show up just because it’s the right thing to do. We need those people who make a bubble-filled world a reality. Let’s blow bubbles for happiness and be bubbles for each other.
