Our Lack of Action

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building understanding, community, Dolores Huertas, Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, hope, love, respect, Stephen Swhartz, violence

Dear readers, all of us have tried to become better persons during our lives.

We live in a society where violence is present from the cartoons are children see to the violent crimes we get to witness through social media, that make you wonder where is our world heading?

It’s easy to understand how easily our values can succumb in these scenarios.

We flip the pancake, as so to say, to accommodate our feelings in a way that our actions are justified.  Or better said “our lack of action”.  Specially when we agree with this anarchic way of life by remaining bystanders and not trying to do anything about it.

We don’t have to become Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, or Dolores Huertas to do something, the only thing that we need to do is take action in one of the simplest ways, educate ourselves first and then share what we have learned with others.  To counteract ignorance helping others see things differently.

via morguefile

We are bombarded with hatred, criticism, bullying, and many of the vices of humanity.  It’s easier to destroy than to build  bridges of communications  on the grounds of understanding and respect. This way we are dismantling violence one step at at time.

Like Stephen Shwartz  wrote,  “hope is frail, but very hard to kill” in the lyrics of the song When You Believe.  I want to hold on to that hope to believe in humanity and the choice we have to become better persons.

We can all attempt to construct a better world for ourselves and  future generations to come, specially if we teach by practice one of the basic values of human race, RESPECT.

Just a little something to think about.

See you next time around, and thanks for stopping by.

Words Are Powerful Stuff

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Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Baptists, Faith, Gurdwara, Islam, Muslim, Oak Creek Wisconsin, respect, Sikh, tolerance, United States

Usually when a teacher asks a student something, he or she is almost always straightforward and to the point, but they tend to use short sentences with words that are not fancy at all.  Using this great reference, I would have to say that words are powerful stuff.  

Words are what we use to communicate with each other, ourselves and the world that surround us.  

via google images

Words are not intended to be used lightly, they should be used with a huge CAUTION sign. 

They can build or destroy relationships, nations, businesses, partnerships, communities of all sorts and kinds, including faith communities.  Which are communities that are intertwined with common beliefs, they share moments of worship together which include prayer, and above all they have strong feelings for one another.  Or at least, in an idealistic world that is how it is supposed to be. 

These communities can have different labels: Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, and the list can go on.  Furthermore, they are extended to Muslims, Jews, or any other religion that come together as one. What makes these communities different is that they are united in one faith.  Each one different, but at the same time similar in so many ways.  

“Some time ago I heard a minister say that he was going to become a tyrant…”

Our differences separate us because we are drawn most of the time to the negative side of things. We still can look forward to building tolerant and peaceful relationships with one another if we put the work in.  The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA was a great model to follow when they condemned the shooting at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Even though they were two different communities separated by core beliefs they were able to construct a bridge of friendship and one was able to dwell with the other.   My favorite part of the statement was,  “our friends the Sikh community”. 

I just wonder,  why can we not just use are words to sooth instead of provoke anger and distress in others? 

Some time ago I heard a minister say that he was going to become a tyrant, it was a mandate to pray at a specific hour on a specific day of the week. Probably the person really did not know what he was saying, if he had bothered in looking up how powerful the word tyrant was I am more than sure that he would have deviated from using it.  He was trying to make a point, but failed terribly because of his choice of words.  

A tyrant is any person in a position of authority who exercises power oppressively or despotically, some definitions take it a little further and add with cruelty. When we pray for others we do it out of our love for them, we ask God to be merciful with that person and to help him or her in whatever is wrong.  How is it possible that in the same sentence we are using tyranny and prayer. One act cruel and the other loving!  

Talk about crazy and this would become it in no time.  For some it is like my mom would tell me, “Don’t  worry about that, words are taken away by the wind” or another of her favorites, “I take things depending on who says them”.   She makes it sound easy to just to ignore the nonsense some people say, but sometimes it’s not that easy to put our minds at ease. 

Some words just haunt us as they linger in our thoughts for a long time.