As I read the news, study our history, and hear from victims of violence and oppression. As I struggle to retain health insurance and watch friends face death without health insurance. As I worry about my cousin serving in Iraq. I am Angry. I am afraid for my niece, what sort of planet am I leaving for her? And I feel the weight of my personal responsibility with every piece of plastic I toss or mile I drive. Grief, Anger, Fear. Not fun emotions. I could retreat, but I’ve learned that hiding is a lonely business, and it doesn’t work for long.
The work is vast. The problems are enormous. Often it feels that there just aren’t enough people pitching in.
Often it seems like the fabric of our world has been torn asunder and the weaving, mending, and stitching it will take to put that beautiful tapestry back together again is well beyond my puny skill and strength.
But.
From Alice Walker
"It has become a common feeling, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism that we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward building the edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame.
This is the tragedy of our world.
For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile.
Sometimes our stones seem mis-shapen, odd. Their color seems off. Presenting them, we perceive our own imperfect nakedness. But also, paradoxically, the wholeness, the rightness, of it. In the collective vulnerability of presence, we learn not to be afraid about the bright moments one can experience at the pile of stones. Of how even the smallest stone glistens with tears, yes, but also from the light of being seen, and loved for simply being there.”
Thank you Alice Walker for remembering that we are all imperfect and that we are all important.
If you try to do something constructive you will make a solution more likely. If you recruit companions to work toward a solution you will achieve even more and you may be amazed years later to hear how much you have empowered others.
And, at the very least, you will feel much less like you are a part of the problem.
Question-How do you drink a lake? Answer-One sip at a time.
Question - How do you drink a lake? Answer-With lots of help.
Question - How do you drink a lake? Answer-You don’t. You love it and take care of it and it will provide you with water when you need it.
Almost any problem can be viewed in bit-sized pieces, and almost every time it can be dealt with better that way.
We need each other. This is our great heritage of Unitarianism and Universalism. A faith that calls us to pray with our hands. To join hands with our brothers and sisters. To join hearts and to be faithful to the work that must be done.
We human beings are capable of great evil, but we are capable of equally great good. We can build community, build love, and heal the world by joining hearts in our homes, in this congregation, in our city, and in our country.
Question- How do you save the world? Answer - one act at a time.
Question- How do you save the world? Answer - with lots of help.
Question- how do you save the world? Answer - with love.
As Alice Walker said:
"Because whatever the consequences, people, standing side by side, have expressed who they really are, and that ultimately they believe in the love of the world and each other enough *to be that* - which is the foundation of activism."
Gandhi asks you to “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” How are you doing that?
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