Hey guys! I hope things are going well!

So…a lot of important issues swirling around lately. Police violence, police and violence, social/racial inequality, discrimination/profiling, and the search for lasting peace, justice, equality, and change. So much that can be said, but I’ll try to offer just a few thoughts to consider.

First of all, PEACE does not just happen. True peace is the absence of violence, the acceptance of the societal status quo (as something just, or, at the very least, tolerable), the calmness of a soul that feels valued and equal among its brothers. As Albert Einstein stated:

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”

But what is meant by “understanding”? What is it, or who is it that we need to understand? Perhaps to better understand each other, it is important to first understand that we are all unique. We are all imperfect. We make mistakes. We search for meaning. We long for community, to be part of a family… and we long to stand alone as self-sufficient individuals. To believe ourselves equally important, equally valuable, equally human. It is when we do not believe that society, family, or other outside forces believe this of us (and/or when we do not believe it of ourselves) that we often feel called or compelled to take action, to recover or create this invaluable inner peace.

And we might also seek to understand that we are all brothers and sisters. No matter the color of our bodies, our clothes, our spirit, we are all human. All part of the one race of human beings that inhabits Planet Earth. Black, white, etc., these are all social constructs and subjective, artificial categories that only serve to create barriers and an only too real  distance and inequality among brothers. Where does white end and black begin? What shade of humanness is better than what other shade? Is one breath of air better than another? One water droplet more valuable than the next? Can you tear apart a rainbow?

As Martin Luther King, Jr. once stated:

“Differences have been contrived by outsiders who seek to impose disunity by dividing brothers because the color of their skin has a different shade.”

And as Dr. King further points out:

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be… This is the inter-related structure of reality.”

This is why one bullet — or one decision to embrace peaceful, decisive nonviolence in response to violence — can be so powerful. The cycle of violence can only be broken by the healing power of courageous nonviolence by the very victim(s) of the pain and injustice inflicted by another’s violence. This by no means excuses the violent acts themselves; rather, it is the explicit, deliberate decision to “be what I ought to be” in spite of your unnecessary violence,  in the hopes that by doing so, I will help you to become what you ought to be: another member of my peaceful human family.

And while we’re on the topics of nonviolence, peace, and true equality, I’ll let Bob Dylan and Barry McGuire share some powerful thoughts with you:

 

Well, that’s about it for this morning. But before I go, in honor of my city and the game today…ROOOLLL TIDE!!!  :-)

And ok, just one more song for you guys. It’s one of my favorites and still just as relevant in our world today as when it was written…

Take care,

Tara