I wrote "Be Color Full not Color Blind" while going to an interfaith look @ the holocaust course.
http://holocaustroad.org/ (It also was inspired by & coincided with Martin Luther King Jr. Day) It was a very powerful course bringing up strong emotions in me.
This
extreme hate can not enter the world again, it can destroy us.
There is a common thread; a True Core, a common Essence of/in most people (and dare I say religions): It is Unity of Spirit, Love, Hope & Peace. There have been many Great Teachers of these Core values from all cultures, all faiths and beliefs, that have lived throughout the ages. They all have the common teaching of Unity, Love, Hope & Peace. Maybe this common thread can bind humankind together: If, instead of cutting at it with hate and greed; we embrace it and nurture it with, kindness, compassion and love for each other as individuals, brothers and sisters in the family of humankind; Then this thread can create a tapestry so intricate and beautiful... a tapestry of Faith, Hope and Love.....
It is the ego and greed of individual people (and again dare i say individuals in various
religions ) that twist the core the
essence of Faith and make it into a perverted mix of the Truth of the Core Beliefs, with the sick/twisted greed, ego and hate driven dogma that they teach. They gain "believers" through fear and teaching hate and
intolerance.... they promise a brotherhood, a family to those looking for something just out of their reach. These "leaders" bring people into their fold first with promises, people want to believe, they want to belong, so they follow... the "leader" gains strength, and power and their followers hold them up as golden or great... this "leader" has the answer and can do no wrong...... This "leader", now has control of the followers...... and now can use force to keep people in line.... force to spread their hate... and people blindly follow and believe; they've lost themselves to this "greater force"..... At least that is what they are taught to believe.
It's easy to get caught up in all of this. Its even easier to look the other way.... but we can't, we must not let hate take hold... We must learn from the lessons of the ages, look deeper to the Truth, The Core in all of us.
Go inside yourself.........to your essence your core..... leave what
outside ego's have taught.... leave hate, sorrow, regrets.....leave the negative emotions.. let them fall away, .... forget what's around you..... go deep within..... Sit in your favorite place..... a quiet place.......a place where you feel safe from the outside world, .... go without
fear ...... deep into yourself... deep into your soul.... your
very essence......your core........ I dare say what you will find is a Peace and Tranquility, a Love for Life, a Spirit of Unity and Belonging.... This is what we need to pass on, belong to.....
May we all find this inner Peace and pass along the Unity of Life....May we see through the storms of hate and
destruction and find the True Rainbow of Hope and Peace that is waiting and wanting to come out, in, with and through all of us... Nina P. 3/20/09
Be Color Full not Color Blind
I hear over and over we need to be color blind in order to get along. I disagree. I think we need to be Color Full! We need to celebrate all the hues and colors of the world, by acknowledging our differences and accepting our similarities.
Our differences make us individuals; unique to ourselves with individual talents and knowledge. Our similarities unite us as people in this world called the human race. The air you breathe across the ocean is the air I breathe here. The sun that warms you is the same sun that warms me. The moon and stars that make your night sky magic are in my night sky too. We share the same things.
A child’s laughter makes me smile and cries of hunger and pain tear at my soul. I want clean water to drink and food to feed my family. I want to trust my neighbors and walk where ever I’d like without fear. If I were to ask you, would you want the same?
As children we fight because we don’t know how to express ourselves in any other way. So we pout, push, shove, hit and bite when we don’t get what we want. Once we get older, there are other ways of expressing our emotions. Actual fighting decreases as we learn to talk, communicate, and listen. Listening is just as important as talking. If we only talk and never listen, we may miss the answer we’re looking for. If we all talk and never listen, no one hears. If we only speak and there is no communication, there is only noise. Communication takes both talking and honest open listening to work. Honest and open communication can fix many problems without fighting. Haven’t we all had a friend or loved one we argued with, shut down our listening skills with, only to come back with a calmer more open mind to sit down and talk and listen (communicate) with the other person and come up with a mediated solution. Little children fight, as adults, we should talk and listen; communicate, find the common ground between us.
If you cut yourself, do you bleed red? So do I. When you fall do you get bruised or broken? So do I. When a loved one dies, do you cry? So do I. If we were color blind, I
couldn’t see all the similarities between you and me. I would only see a segment, a slice, a spot of what there really is. I would be blind to reality. The reality of each similarity we share is part of being color full. Being color full unites us like the beauty of a rainbow. If there were only one color, one hue, the beauty would not be the same. It takes all colors, all the hues uniting to make the wondrous beauty of the rainbow.
Music is monotone with only one tone. A painting is monochromatic without many colors. What would our senses be with only one texture, one color, one flavor, and one scent, one thought? It’s the variety that makes up life and makes life interesting. Each grain of sand is different from its neighbor; yet together they form a great desert or beach. Each leaf is unique to itself, yet join together to form a tree, a plant, or a vine. A flower
isn’t a flower with only one unique petal. Nature knows the value, the beauty of being color full, not color blind. Why can’t we?
Nature
doesn’t care that some leaves turn yellow while others red or brown or even stay green. A mosaic of beauty is formed by each individual leaf when they stand together as a community of leaves. Why can’t we see the uniqueness of each individual coming together to form a glorious collage called humankind?
We are each individuals unique to ones self. Not your sister, brother, mother, father, no other person is exactly like you, like me. Should I then hate my family because they are different from me? No of course not. We need to put aside hate, put aside color blindness and look around with a new spirit, in a new way, with a new sense of belonging. We are all individual pieces in this One World. The puzzle
isn’t complete unless each piece is placed in its own special space; that only that particular piece can fill.
Put down hate, put down fighting, put down killing, put down addictions; put down everything that makes us weak. Let us look at each other as individual strokes in this masterpiece called life. Each of us is beautiful, has a purpose and belongs to the world’s canvas. Without each stroke, (each and every one of us, here, living together), the painting would’t be. Stand back and see the grandeur of the canvas, the Unity of the Master Painter, the beauty of each of us together. The world is a Color Full place. Won’t you join me; put our individual selves in the painting of humankind, and be a part of the Master Peace?
Written to unite a Color Full World,
By Nina
P. 1/18/09 with edits by Terri
P.
