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Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Friday, July 5, 2019

Do something


“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.”
 Albert Einstein

 “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”                                                                       Edmund Burke
_____________________________________________________________

We don’t like to think it could be true

That we could possibly be those who collude with evil

And yet I suspect, even the bests of us do
From time to time

I’m not saying we DO evil
As much as I am saying we collude with evil
We enable it

Mostly by our silence and inaction

We see young black me shot down,
When a young white man would be taken alive
And we shrug

We see children torn from their families
And we are silent

We watch as a solider
Who, endowed with the power and authority of our county
Brutally murdered a man already proven innocent
Be pardoned
And we accept

We hear the lies
We wallow in misinformation
We cheer bully tactics

We tolerate the marginalization of people born LGBTQI
And the minimization of women

We support radicals on the left
Who demean

And radicals on the right
Who perpetuate hate and racism

and we do not speak up
we do not challenge
we do not insist that
this is not just
this is not right
this is not love

perhaps it because those engaged in the evil are on “our side”
Perhaps it is because we benefit
Perhaps it is because our hearts line up with the hate
Perhaps the bullying somehow makes us feel stronger or safer
Perhaps we are comfortable with the racism
Perhaps we are just too timid
Perhaps we don’t want to make enemies

We can have so many reasons
But the result is the same

Evil goes unchecked
It grows
It gains ascendance

And sometime the way back
Is full of peril
And death

Sometimes the way back
Is immeasurably costly

Paul once said, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”

This is not so much about hating hate, as it is about loving love
This is about overcoming evil with good
This is about speaking love in the face of hate
Shouting for people when there are rumors of war
Crying for generosity in a world of greed

We cannot afford
To do
Any
Thing
less

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