I find it tough these days to write. After a full day at a demanding job, words play hide and seek with me. They don’t exactly flow from my pen/brain/lips as I’ve been accustomed to them doing. However, despite my best intentions, it’s been a minute since I’ve posted, so I’m making it a point to write this.

While on Facebook a week or two ago, I got caught in up in all the Meghan and Harry in Africa stories. And despite my resolve, I decided to read the comments section at the end of some of these articles.

Maybe I’m just getting old. Maybe my sensibilities are like dusty, crumbly relics from some pre-historic era, I guess, when people were too busy hunting and gathering and running from water buffalo to judge people – at least not out in the open and certainly not to people outside of their immediate circle. But the truth is, people have been comparing and judging themselves and each other since we’ve been on this rock. The short of it is that I continued to be surprised at the level of vitriol heaped on Markle by the [British] press, and some of the trolls that read the rubbish they publish. Even if she is as horrible as they say she is (I seriously doubt that), who cares? I so want to ask her detractors “How is her supposedly bad and un-royal behavior affecting you? Is her behavior taking a job away from you, or food off your table? Does her behavior impact your ability to do your job efficiently and effectively?” I want to ask them, “Don’t you have enough of your own concerns than to worry about hers?” I want to ask them “Are you giving of your time, talents and treasure to causes and organizations that could use some help, rather than spending your precious allotment of breath (and money if you buy those danged tabloids) on gossip, lies, and slander?” And what if she is ‘taking advantage’ of Harry (not that she ever needed him anyway)? It’s still none of anyone else’s business.

.Markle said in the documentary that she expected rough going from the [British] press, but she thought it would be fair. Her statement reminded me of the days I’d run home from school to my mother and regale some story of how someone at school had waged verbal warfare on me with their words. When I’d tell her that someone had lied on me, she’d ask me “Is it true?” When I’d sheepishly admit that it wasn’t, she’d say, “Girl, remember that especially when you don’t give people something to talk about, they’ll make something up. As long as it isn’t true, try to ignore them and go about your business.”

And as I grew up in a home where all religious faiths paths were honored, the following verses and phrases come to me at moments like this.

Proverbs 19.5 – A false witness shall not be unpunished, and [he that] speaketh lies shall not escape.

Proverbs 11:9 With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.

From the Baha’i Faith (Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’u’llah and the New Era, p. 83)
“Never to allow ourselves to speak one unkind word about another, even though that other be our enemy.”

From the Baghavad Gita, Chapter 13, Verse 8 – 12:
“… Straightforwardness in speech includes absence of taunt, censure, gossip, ornamentation.”

If I were to ever have the opportunity to speak to Meghan, I would share my mother’s wisdom… “Go your own way.” I’d remind her that there is nothing that she can do to change anyone’s opinion of her, so just focus on loving her family and doing the work she feels called to do. I’d encourage her to live as fully, out loudly, and as happily as possible, no matter what, because at the end of it all, the only thing that matters is her happiness.