This space is usually filled with the my favorite pieces of fluff--nothing wrong with fluff, but not this week. Not on a week where horrific tragedy opened an arena for fear mongering and rhetoric filled with intolerance and ignorance.
As we grieve with Paris our fears naturally heighten. What If is such an easy one. Wanting to do anything and everything to ensure that the What Ifs don't happen is also a natural reaction. The truth is, however, we cannot wrap ourselves up, stop living, stop traveling, stop being. As we know, that is exactly the desired outcome of terror... as is the consequence of narrow minded blame and turning on ourselves.
This week has been filled with words-words of sorrow, fear, anger and a horrible degree of prejudice. Does it make people feel better to accuse without reason, to banish without justice, to deny humanity when it needs us most?
To stamp the word Refugee on a problem as large and complex as terrorism is the worst kind of ignorance. We are, each of us, refugees-our history as a nation is made of all the countless millions of stories of those seeking a better life.
A life away from war, famine, persecution, intolerance.
Do we now greet refugees with exactly what they are fleeing from?
It was not the act of refugees that caused such horror
in Columbine, Newtown, Tuscon, Charleston, Aurora ...
There are in fact fears greater than that of terror. There is the fear of becoming complacent to violence. When it ceases to shock us--it SHOULD shock us. We should not accept that we live in a world of insanity--whether it be Paris or Boston or Newtown. Never should we become numb to it! Never should we accept another shooting or another attack as the "way it is" .
Then there is the fear of losing our hearts, our humanity, our sense of compassion to those who choose to stir the pot and put forth propaganda and racism in the way of common sense. Because someone lives differently, believes differently, speaks differently, looks differently does not mean they are less than human. How easy to point to the multitudes of innocent people who are fleeing in the thousands each day, washing ashore on beaches in Greece, scrambling to hold onto their dignity and their very lives to simply find the three words that we take as our right -
PEACE ,SAFE and HOME
None of us can do much to protect the world as a whole. We can, however, do a lot to protect humanity. Terror cannot exist in a vacuum. When we fill the space with ignorance we feed it. When we come together and care we deny its right to exist. By realizing we are all refugees and welcome those who need our hearts, not our fear, into our communities, as our families were welcomed, by using the true weapons that can make a difference-the basic instincts of helping others and showing compassion from the heart, then we stay above those who choose to plant fear.
As we grieve with Paris our fears naturally heighten. What If is such an easy one. Wanting to do anything and everything to ensure that the What Ifs don't happen is also a natural reaction. The truth is, however, we cannot wrap ourselves up, stop living, stop traveling, stop being. As we know, that is exactly the desired outcome of terror... as is the consequence of narrow minded blame and turning on ourselves.
This week has been filled with words-words of sorrow, fear, anger and a horrible degree of prejudice. Does it make people feel better to accuse without reason, to banish without justice, to deny humanity when it needs us most?
To stamp the word Refugee on a problem as large and complex as terrorism is the worst kind of ignorance. We are, each of us, refugees-our history as a nation is made of all the countless millions of stories of those seeking a better life.
A life away from war, famine, persecution, intolerance.
Do we now greet refugees with exactly what they are fleeing from?
It was not the act of refugees that caused such horror
in Columbine, Newtown, Tuscon, Charleston, Aurora ...
There are in fact fears greater than that of terror. There is the fear of becoming complacent to violence. When it ceases to shock us--it SHOULD shock us. We should not accept that we live in a world of insanity--whether it be Paris or Boston or Newtown. Never should we become numb to it! Never should we accept another shooting or another attack as the "way it is" .
Then there is the fear of losing our hearts, our humanity, our sense of compassion to those who choose to stir the pot and put forth propaganda and racism in the way of common sense. Because someone lives differently, believes differently, speaks differently, looks differently does not mean they are less than human. How easy to point to the multitudes of innocent people who are fleeing in the thousands each day, washing ashore on beaches in Greece, scrambling to hold onto their dignity and their very lives to simply find the three words that we take as our right -
PEACE ,SAFE and HOME
None of us can do much to protect the world as a whole. We can, however, do a lot to protect humanity. Terror cannot exist in a vacuum. When we fill the space with ignorance we feed it. When we come together and care we deny its right to exist. By realizing we are all refugees and welcome those who need our hearts, not our fear, into our communities, as our families were welcomed, by using the true weapons that can make a difference-the basic instincts of helping others and showing compassion from the heart, then we stay above those who choose to plant fear.
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