by Bill Cumming
In the face of everything going on in the world today from a second brutal, public rape in India to increased violence in the Middle East, it is difficult to realize that things are actually getting better. Next Monday is Martin Luther King Day and Inauguration Day in the United States for President Obama’s second term as President.
When Albert Boothby took me into the courthouse in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1964, he asked me to look around and see what got my attention. What I saw immediately were the two drinking fountains. There was no justice in that building for people of color.
Today there is one drinking fountain. The justice is coming. A way to go, still, and moving in the right direction. We are preparing to inaugurate a person of color for his second term as President. Equality everywhere, not at all. Better awareness? Better action? Absolutely. And what will bring us to a place where all people are treated with dignity, grace and loving-kindness?
The conditions for women in the world are better. The real problem now is that we really have to look at what we have created. In general, women have been treated as second class citizens, historically, everywhere. Women got the vote in the United States in 1920. The United Kingdom in 1928, Switzerland in 1971 and South Africa in 1984. There is a clear spotlight turned on brutal traditions of mutilation and punishment of woman because they are women. Human trafficking of children and adults is now received with outrage and calls for action. Women are still not represented in the hierarchy of most religions. Why. Perhaps because woman are not as smart? Right now, women outscore men on IQ tests for the first time since the recording of those results. Could that be that women only gained access to formal education in the past hundred years. And what will bring us to a place where we are truly treating all people well? When will we learn that every sexist joke, every job discrimination, every use-oriented (making people into objects) movie helps create the problems?
The last person to openly espouse the virtues of genocide was roundly defeated by the Allied Forces in World War II. Why are we still killing women and children in order to resolve religious issues, as between Christians and Muslims in the Sudan, Jewish and Islamic forces in Palestine & Israel? And no doubt in every case there are cries of “God (Allah) is on our side? Not any God I know anything about. Thich Nhat Hanh says that until we have peace among religions we will have no peace in the world. So what is it that will make the difference?
It will be the consistent and every increasing awakening of each of us from our unconsciousness. Let me give you a simple example. One of my neighbors was out walking this morning down by the end of the road and had stopped for a moment, seemingly out of breath. I stopped to see if everything was OK. “Yes!” she said, “Just catching my breath before heading up the next hill.” At ninety something years, Ruth has no expectation there won’t be hills, she simply prepares herself for the climb. We need to be at least as realistic about the challenges ahead. Are you and I ready for the next hill along the way? Are we waiting for others or see ourselves as completely responsible? If we want to really continue the progress we’ve seen and that we will celebrate on this Martin Luther King Day, we must be conscious. We must seek to always be about dignity, grace and loving-kindness. No more back room conversations about anything. We need to take action in every case where we see injustice and commit ourselves to making sure that we come from a loving place in every thing we do.
When we speak to others, we need to speak with loving-kindness and compassion to the person and be in disagreement with ideas. We must commit ourselves to ending hunger and persistent malnutrition everywhere. We will need to realign our economic priorities. Most of all, we must remember the gift we have each been given and pass it along in every interaction in our lives, the gift of absolute and unconditional loving-kindness.
” Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek,
but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
