24 Nov Giving Thanks – Everyone Is Welcome At Our Table
Should I post this? Should I not? Should I post this? Should I not? I plan to do a marketing campaign to promote my ornaments for the holidays starting THIS Saturday for Small Business Saturday…but maybe people won’t buy from me if I speak my mind?? I’ve always kept ALL my political views to myself. I do NOT enter into politics on a public platform like Social Media, via Twitter, Facebook, my blog, or anywhere else. Until now…
Part of me feels that I should not be totally silent. That these issues we face are far too important in our world. That I have a moral obligation to at least say what’s in my heart and what I believe in.
I’ve always been the kind of mother that if I see a child in the grocery store, or on my street and I don’t see a parent near that child, I go to that child to make sure they are alright. Like the small towns of America in the past where you knew if you did something wrong or needed something, your neighbor would tell your parents. We looked out for one another. I have always viewed all the children in our world as mine. I know that must sound very naive, but it is how I feel.
I volunteered for five years for Casa of Travis County and was an advocate for three abused young children in the foster care system. Ever since that experience, I’ve never been able to look away and not feel some responsibility. They were not my children…in fact I wasn’t even married yet and had no children. But yet they ARE my children because I was speaking on their behalf. To this day I keep in touch with them.
I’m a compassionate person. All children to me are my children. This is how I view my world, our world. I grieve with Paris. I grieve with Mali. I grieve with Russia. I grieve with Afghanistan and more. I grieve with anyone in the U. S. and our world who has lost a child or loved one.
I cannot save the world. All I can do to make a difference is raise my children well, teach them right from wrong and make them strong enough to make a difference in their world too.
But I can speak up against hatred and that’s why I’m sharing this post with you today.
I can speak up for love.
I can speak up for peace.
I can speak up for compassion.
I can speak up for humanity.
I did not write this passage/post below. It was emailed to me by my best friend in Vermont. I’ve edited it a bit to focus on the parts that really resonate with me and hopefully will resonate with you too. I’m sharing this post with you because we are all human and she’s right, “EVERY HUMAN IS OUR OWN”. I will not support hatred for any human being based on race, ethnicity, country of origin, religion, or anything else.
So please read this one woman’s view below. I don’t know her or anything about her. And I’m not one to make a political stand. But, I do know that she makes sense to me and I wanted to say something….and not just be silent. I believe in my country and I believe that we are all in this world together as one. How we solve the issues, I do not know. But I do know that only love and acceptance of our differences will pave the way for a brighter future for our children.
I wish you and your family and friends a blessed Thanksgiving. I am so very thankful for my home, my family, my friends, my health….there’s just too much to be grateful for. Bless all of you and thank you for reading this. Please watch for my blog post THIS Saturday for Small Business Saturday the 28th. Until then, I wish you love. XO PG
Humanity is the human race, which includes everyone on Earth. It’s also a word for the qualities that make us human, such as the ability to love and have compassion, be creative, and not be a robot or alien. (via the web)
Below is a Facebook post written by Lorelle Saxena:
“….There is no reason, not one single reason, why I deserve shelter, food, stability, safety, health, or your regard any more than any given Syrian refugee. Not one reason. My home, my education, my business; the way I look, the way I talk; the fact that I come home to a safe, whole, healthy family every day–every one of those things is a privilege that I fell into by the random circumstance of being born in this country (USA) to parents who valued academic achievement. I, or you, could have just as easily been born in Syria, or Burkina Faso, or Afghanistan. Do you really think that you’re a different kind of human being than the refugees? Do you think your privilege is earned?
I know: you’ve worked hard for what you have. I have, too. But have we worked harder than the refugees worked for the lives that were destroyed? Do we love our children more than they do; would we grieve harder if a civil war took them away from us? And how long do you believe it would take for a bomb to destroy everything safe about your life?
Compared to most people in the world, you and I are rich with privilege, much of it just because we were lucky enough to be born in a country fat with it. I woke up early this morning and made organic, whole-grain muffins for my son, then dressed him in warm clothes, put sunscreen on his little face, strapped and buckled him into his bike seat and rode along peaceful streets to deliver him at his warm, nurturing preschool. There were so many levels on which I was able to protect him. Every breath of this morning was a privilege. Meanwhile millions of children who months ago had bedrooms and dinner tables and doctors and schools are sleeping directly on the ground, their parents unable to secure shelter or food for them, much less healthcare or education.
And no, that is not your fault. But that’s not the same as it not being our responsibility. We have everything we need and then so much on top of that, and we can choose to exemplify to our own children one of two courses of action: we can open our clutched fists and share with our fellow humans all the abundance that exists here–or we can hoard it, greedy and bloated and fearful.
These are families like yours. Thinking they might have connections to terrorist factions is as rational as thinking you might be a terrorist because Timothy McVeigh was American. Half of the refugees are children. What is it in you that can close your eyes to other human beings, especially human beings that are small and hungry and cold?
I’m not asking you to give half of everything you have to help them, or to turn your backyard into a tent city, or to donate to causes that support efforts to protect these very vulnerable people. I’m asking you not to hate them because they need something you have. I’m asking you to recognize that the fear being built around the refugees is less about American security and more about American greed. I’m asking you to be a human being that understands every human being has basic needs and that the lucky among us can afford to share our luck to ease suffering. I’m asking you to stop thinking, posting, politicizing around the idea that we just can’t help before we’ve taken care of our own.
Because there is no such thing as “our own.” Every human is our own. Every hungry child, grieving mother, frightened husband, weary grandmother is our own. Nobody gets to pretend our world is a different world from the world that creates civil wars and bombs and hunger. We are all toeing this same precarious, shifting tightrope of a life. Anyone can fall at any time. All there is to catch us is each other.” – Lorelle Saxena
NOTE: This is not a sponsored post. All views are my own except the passage/post by Lorelle Saxena. Thank you for reading my blog.
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