We all hang in the balance.
Can’t you see?
Be gentle.
Be truthful.
Be fair.
Above all–be kind.
We all hang in the balance.
Do you understand?
The smallest. The heavy. The brazen. The meek. The old. The young.
We all hang in the balance.
It matters.
Above all–be kind.
Life is fragile.
Treat it with care.
Life is wonder.
Find it everywhere.
Life is hope.
Do not forget.
Life is temporary.
Universal.
Precious.
Protect it from hate.
In this time of repeated violence, I find solace in the truths that do not fade, for they hold more substance than fleeting words, shoulder shrugs, denials, numbness, pretense, or calls for more violence as a ‘solution’ for the inordinate violence that’s already there.
Truths remain. Even in the face of the most urgent attempts to smother it.
In this time of sorrow and frustration, I am reminded:
“There is no way to peace.
Peace is the way.”
(A. J. Muste)
And
“The person who says it cannot be done
should not interrupt the person doing it…”
(Chinese Proverb)
From NPR.org by NASA
Peace is in our hands ~ artist Valerie Lorimer
As we celebrate mothers of all forms and being, those carrying and bearing life, laboring to nourish and to nurture, guiding, teaching, holding, comforting, soothing, showing, listening, singing to and being with … Let us also remember where Mother’s Day originally came from and its purpose–a purpose that in its own way represents the yearning and dedication, hope and tenacity of mothering:
“let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace…” (from the proclamation below)
Here is to peace. To no more carnage. To love. To hope. To no more lost children. To counsel of heart and reason. To no more war.
Mothers’ Day Proclamation / Julia Ward Howe (1870)
Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
“Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
(Julia Ward Howe, Abolitionist–she also wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic”)
Julia Ward Howe
For the children,
Wherever they were born and whoever they were born to
Whichever God their caregivers pray to
Whichever views they hold.
For the children,
Who hold our only future.
For the children,
Who do not know hate until its shown.
For the children,
Let us not lose hope.
For the children,
Let there be no more war, no terror, no annihilation.
For the children,
Let trafficking be gone.
For the children,
Let loss be not of own man’s hand.
For the children,
Let there be kindness
For all human kind.
For the children,
Let us find the threads that weave between us
To let them grow free, let them grow loved, let them grow strong.
These days, with much strife in the world and overmuch rhetoric of fear and hatred, it can seem easy to feel pulled to lash out, to “get it through the thick skulls” of those who are supposedly different/less-than/not-as-right. It may seem justifiable to use violence: emotional, verbal, physical, sexual, religious, political. It may seem like “this is the only language these people (insert different/less-than/not-as-right populace here) understand.”
Frustration breeds anger. Helplessness breeds desperate acts. Rage breeds blindness.
Let us not wound others in attempts to heal/correct/make-right/avenge/justify.
Hold your ground for kindness.
There is plenty pain in this world without adding to it. More wounded people will not a healing make. There is plenty drama without conjuring more of it. More despairing people will not hope bring.
Hold your ground for care.
May there be a path to true-heart-reason. Not to ‘fairness’ maybe, but to humanity. Not to ‘justice’ maybe, but to compassion. Not to ‘paying back’ but to gaining calm. Not to ‘avenging’, but to taking a step toward finding a common ground. One we can all hold on to … a healing span.
May there be less wounding. Wounds already borne will not heal faster if more are inflicted. There will be no less rage if ire remains amplified. Fires will not be put out by constant dose of fear or hate or it-is-their-fault-that-I-have-to-do-it. No more. Alienation. No more. Harm.
Let us all, hold our ground. In open hearts. In listening. In understanding. It is past time.
Whatever fights you are pulled to become embroiled in–personal, communal, religious, political, national, global–may you keep your feet firmly rooted in empathy. May the seedlings of care grow strong and fine. May we patch up the hurts to foster quickest healing, and may we carry hope and light, for they are the menders of all hearts.
“If I have four and you give me more than I have more.”
This axiomatic truth came from the mouth of a bright preschooler. His speech is difficult to understand, but his ideas are crystal.
He asked me, the other day, about math. More like, told me. Checked to see I understand …
Math, but also some other things.
“If I get angry and then my mommy gets angry than we have a lot more angry.”
Yes. That’s true.
“I don’t like it when we have more angry.”
I totally understood that, and told him that I didn’t like ‘having more angry’ either.
“It is lots more better when we have giggles. I love giggles.”
So do I.
He was quiet a moment, then asked me about the news he’d heard. Children often pick up more than you give them credit for, and understand more than you would like to think they have internalized.
“A lot of people are angry and crying on TV,” he said. He was referring to the news of three teens who were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists in Israel. The teenagers’ bodies were found that day, and his parents were aghast and upset with the realities in the Palestinian territories, terror, hate, and rage. They discussed the news among themselves, along with their reactions and thoughts. He saw and heard reactions of others, perceived the agony of desperate angst, the fumes of hate. I’ve seen it, too. It is difficult, difficult stuff.
“Yes,” I responded. “They are.”
“Are more people going to be mean?” he worried. “I don’t like it when more people want to be mean.”
Oh, how I agree, dear boy, neither do I.
He wasn’t quite done. How could he be? These are big issues, even for grownups, let alone little ones. He pressed on: “If more people are going to be mean then it is going to be even more mean and more mean.”
“I understand.”
I think I sighed. He looked at me a bit quizzically, adorable in his earnestness. I smiled at him and asked, “do you have suggestions about what people can do?”
“I don’t know,” he said after a thought. “Maybe a ‘safe tantrum’?” (in his house, this is the term used for when someone–usually him…–gets very angry. They can’t hurt themselves o others but they can punch a boxing bag and shout a little and jump and jump …).
I nodded. Safe tantrums would be a good, in fact a very good alternative.
“But,” he interjected, “even if they still feel mean I think maybe they need to learn to use their words.”
From the mouth of babes, Little Teacher. Simplified reality yet no less wise. In all war, terror, conflict, violence–may all find room for less hatred, more reason, some space, more safety, less meanness … more peace … in their hearts.
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