THBM:
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Our world seems upside down these days as we battle a pandemic and confront police brutality and systemic racism! I am positive that Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi would not be in favor of any violent protest, but both would instead be in favor of peaceful-nonviolent protest. Especially as frustrations rise and people confront each other over these issues, we need to remind ourselves that everyone living a life is having an experience, and we must be careful to listen to every voice. We must practice compassion for those who feel they have been wronged. It seems an obvious insight but when we are angry or caught up in an emotional moment, we can often times lose our ability to have a broader perspective. Anger tends to make anyone buckle down and defend their own ideas and perspectives harder often times disallowing the other side from expressing their point of view. Right now one of our enemies is NOT LISTENING to one another. I hope we can try to listen more deeply to the pain of our fellow citizens and neighbors. I hope that we can act with a deeper sense of compassion as we enter these social dialogues. And I hope that we don’t lose sight of the goals we are all trying to move towards. We don’t want just peace, we want a particular kind of peace. We want a kind of peace that has fairness for everyone. We are love. We are joy. We are all so very good.
