When bigotry and injustice come for your friends and your neighbours, will you cower in your basement grateful it isn't you or will you stand bravely beside them, marching arm in arm?
When misogyny and hate attack your daughters, will you berate their actions and choices or will you teach both them and your sons to beat back the tide of inequality and suppression?
When religious intolerance masks itself in political opportunism, will you echo the enmity or remember the love of The Divine Spirit?
When poverty, pain, and suffering afflict those who are least able to help themselves, will you turn a blind eye and a deaf ear or will you offer sanctuary, warmth, healing, and nurturing?
When ignorance infects our schools and our public discourse, will you perpetuate the falsehoods or will you rise in the name of truth?
When corporate interests assault and lay false claim to our natural resources, will you invest in their plunder or will you work to protect our planet?
When false prophets arise, will you blindly follow or will you refuse to revel in the dishonesty?
When demagoguery is normalized, will you protect your own self-interests, or will you bravely face down the tyrant?
History is calling.
What say you?
"Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. It is a silent justification affording evil acceptability in society."~Abraham Joshua Heschel
Thank you for this beautiful and well written reminder that every person is responsible for turning away petty tyrants and for taking the right, kind, and honorable action. I will try to take this to heart, to oppose tyranny, cruelty, and prejudice, to stand up for my earth home, and to choose what is right, not what is popular. Thank you for inspiring me.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words. Just trying to keep it together. :)
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