I was never a bandwagon football fan. I grew up on Sunday afternoons, as young as five years old, listening to my father tell me about the details of football plays and how it all worked. My favorite NFL team was the Chicago Bears, with its quarterback Jim McMahon. Their defense was incredible.
Later, my family moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, and I completely committed to being a Cornhusker football fan for life. They ran the ball and had dynamic dual-threat quarterbacks before that was a thing. Right there and then, at the age of 8 or 9 years old, I found my college football team. Nebraska fans live on the edge of dreaming and crazy hope. They also almost religiously critique their own team.
By the time I was married, my family had planted ourselves in the Pacific Northwest. I joined the ranks of melancholy fans rooting for a Seahawks football team that won but didn’t get championships. It didn’t matter because my loyalty to place, location, and culture is huge. It takes a lot for me to budge.
My thoughts wrap around my loyalties, the patterns they make for good and for not-so-good. I feel accountable to the land where I am living.
The current Seahawks have gone through their ups and downs, won a Super Bowl in style and lost another one epically. “Run the ball, Pete!” everyone now cheers. Russell Wilson was traded, and we had the comeback player of the year last year.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll prides himself on positivity and truth-telling. He holds these meetings, mostly on Mondays after Sunday games, and they are called, “Tell the Truth Mondays.” It is the day of the week that they get to clear the air—get both the ugly and the good on the table. It’s a way to access the more difficult, maybe even shameful, patterns.
Tell the truth.
Truth comes with its own costs.
If this weren’t true, then we would practice honesty in a very different fashion from the way we collectively do in our country.
Gaza is destroyed. Thousands of Palestinians are dead. Hostages, discarded. Violence ruled our Advent 2023 season.
Tell the truth.
My tax dollars don’t primarily fund education, healthcare, or housing programs. They fund war, military operations around the world, and politicians of both parties who don’t care what the general public thinks except for if it dings their narcissistic façade.
Tell the truth.
Locally, North Kitsap students are still under a lot of pressure from racist experiences. In the fall of 2023, we have reported incidents at Poulsbo Middle School and North Kitsap High School.
Resmaa Menakem highlights that there are different collective realities for bodies of color and for dominant culture bodies. The choice is between accompanying and not accompanying the poor and oppressed majorities in their effort to emerge into history, in their struggle to constitute themselves as a new people in a new land. It is a question of constructing a society where the welfare of the few is not built on the wretchedness of the many, where the fulfillment of some does not require that others be deprived, where the interests of the minority do not demand the dehumanization of all.
Tell the truth.
Pete has a point. There are a lot of ways to begin our journeys. However, I love how Pete does it.
He typically asks the following questions:
1. What went well?
2. What went badly?
3. What should be the focus heading into next week?
Pete Carroll teaches his players how to evaluate their performance on the field—both good and bad—and be honest enough to “tell the truth” about them. There are no excuses on Mondays. There is no blame-shifting or avoidance. Monday is the day to reckon with mistakes, to take responsibility, and to let the errors shape the direction of the future.
Racism, dehumanization, lack of love, disconnection, depression, and anxiety link arms to create a physical, spiritual, and mental health crisis here in the United States. Despite our attempts to to address our dysfunctions through fads, more therapy, and making money, we can chose another way.
We are not in unfamiliar territory. We can begin by telling the truth on Mondays.
I remain hopeful and confident that justice is attainable; however, I am convicted that seeking it from the old fables we tell ourselves about where we are, what is going well or poorly, leaves us unable to take meaningful action. Instead, let us choose a different way—tell the truth.
Danielle S. Castillejo grew up in the swirl of a mixed identity, with a German father and a Mexican mother. With her four children in school full time, she applied to graduate school at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. Before her second year of graduate school, she was invited to explore her story through a Story Workshop at The Allender Center. She went on to complete Levels 1 and 2 of the Certificate in Narrative Focused Trauma Care and the Externship. Since our culture has experienced such an intense ripping and cultural identity crisis, Danielle addresses internalized racism and its effects personally, in her family, and in her community. She encourages other healing practitioners to do the same. Danielle began this process with her MA in Counseling Psychology and studies at The Allender Center. Danielle loves the anticipation of spring and summer in the Pacific Northwest, with the return of long days and sunlight absent in the dark winters. You can easily find Danielle out on a trail or working in her yard. You can also find her online at www.daniellescastillejo.com.
Your post reminds me of two things. First, three other questions–questions about grief: 1) What was lost? 2) What remains? 3) What is possible?
Second, the National Peace Tax Fund (https://peacetaxfund.org/) will be a way to designate your tax dollars toward peaceful endeavors (rather than spending them on war).