Humanity and margin for error
The world is obsessed with the audit.
People spend their lives trying to get the numbers to line up. They track bank balances like vital signs and hoard years like currency, terrified the account is running dry. They measure their worth against the "Newsroom Noise" – the opinions of strangers who couldn’t pick them out of a lineup.
They bought the lie. The one that says if the math is solved, the ache goes away. That enough is a number you can reach if you just out-hustle the grifters.
But a person isn't measured by peak performance. They’re measured by recovery.
Humanity doesn't live in the wins. Anyone can be noble with a spotlight on them and a full tank of fuel. Humanity is found in the System Breach. It’s the "Margin of Error" – that unquantifiable space between the intention and the impact. The raw gap between who someone is and who they are clawing to become.
It is the manual override to a cold, hard world.
It’s grace for a stranger when your own engine is redlining. It’s truth when a lie costs less. It’s answering the phone at 2 a.m. for someone who wouldn’t do the same. It’s the stubborn refusal to become the damage that was done to you.
The world audits output. It wants production. Square footage. Relevance. It runs spreadsheets on your productivity and sets an expiration date on your soul. It keeps asking: What have you done for me lately?
But the real measure of a life dodges the spreadsheet.
It’s the weight of a promise kept in the dark. The heat of a hand held when the "Hardware" is failing and language is useless. It’s the quiet dignity of someone who walked through hell and didn’t let it make them cruel. It’s the choice to stay at the table when leaving is the cleaner render.
People are not equations. They are not data points. They are not glitches to be patched.
Maybe the point isn't arrival. Maybe the whole measure of humanity is the capacity to stay soft in a system designed to harden you.
The most important things in life aren’t countable. They’re the things that count on you. A name spoken gently when the shame is loud. A chair saved when you’re late to your own life. A ledger of small mercies, written in pencil, passed between hands that shake.
The margin is where we live. The margin is where we meet. When everything else strips away, the margin is the only math that matters.
Stop trying to solve yourself. Just show up.
Donna Duval
Murphy
You matter more than you know
If you are reading this and feel overwhelmed, hopeless, or as if the weight of the world is too heavy, you are not alone.
Right now, it may feel like nothing will change. It may feel like no one understands. But your life has value, even if you cannot see it in this moment. The pain you are feeling is real, but it is not permanent.
Please reach out to someone. A friend, a family member, a counselor or a crisis line. In the United States, you can call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. There is someone on the other end who will listen without judgment.
You do not have to have the right words. You just have to take one step.
Stay. Breathe. Reach out.
You matter more than you know.
Cecilia Crawford-Faulkner
Murphy
Cecilia Crawford-Faulkner is the executive director of Reach of Cherokee & Graham Counties. Call 828-837-2097, email. director@reachofcherokeecounty.org or visit reachofcherokeecounty.org.
13 U.S. patriots died for Israel
I contacted Congressman Chuck Edwards' D.C. office to protest the U.S. war for Israel, and to express how distraught I was that 13 American patriots died for Israel's "Greater Israel Project." The congressman's staffer seemed unconcerned and was defending Israel, "our greatest ally." Edwards reminds me of the character Lord Farquaad, from the movie Shrek, who said, "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
I told the staffer that by supporting Israel's wars, thousands of Americans could die, cause a worldwide famine and drown us into further debt, $1.9 billion a day. That President Donald Trump's statement to "bring them back to the Stone Age" was diabolical. The staffer regurgitated Edwards' vacuous talking points, demonstrating a total absence of intellectual honesty.
America has supplied armaments and financial support for Israel's attack on Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. Edwards' staffer was trying to persuade me that this war was for "America's protection." Can't we see that? I'm reminded of Lord Farquaad's words:
"I'm not the monster, you are, and the rest of that fairytale trash, poisoning my perfect world!" Go away, Mary Mason and all you anti-Zionism, anti-war fanatics. Israel is my priority, not North Carolinians first, not America first, not American soldiers first.
FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, gives the FBI free rein to spy on Americans without their consent or knowledge. Edwards voted in favor of FISA. This is treasonous!
Edwards and 95% of Congress are drunk with unrestrained power. They don't give a rat's whiskers about the concerns of their constituents, the fairytale trash. Our grievances mean nothing to them. We're an annoyance. We're merely the serfs on their plantation, and they are Lord Farquaad ruling over us.
Call Edwards' office at 202-225-6401. Jesus is Lord.
Mary Mason
Murphy
Founders didn't trust government
In a matter of days, America will celebrate 250 years of existence. Have we grown as a country with amelioration, or have we become vestigial? Have we become wiser in the understanding of the intent of the founders? What was their intent?
Next to the Holy Bible is the second greatest document, ever written to live by, really that hard to understand that a maladroit gang of sapiens on the Supreme Court can’t get it right? To lucubrate producing judges the answer is as simple as the question.
An in-depth study of the Constitution, Declaration, Bill-of-Rights, Federalist Papers and letter writings of the founders reveals the answer clearly. Their goal was to create a document whereby individuals would govern themselves and the governments’ only purpose would be to police that right. No more Kings ruling the people. The individual was King of his or her own life. It’s really that simple. A study of Jefferson and Hamilton, in particular, is all one needs to understand their thinking. Jefferson was for, and Hamilton was against.
Unfortunately, over time, Hamilton’s beliefs have won the battle, and we are losing the greatest form of governing that ever existed. A study of the first 10 amendments reveals how much the founders trusted government!
Ed Huber
Copperhill, Tenn.