Parisa Fitz-Henley Instagram – Up today thinking of #Iran, the voices silenced, the innocent lives taken or set for execution for calling for freedom. Then I see the news of #ColoradoSprings, innocent lives taken in a place people had gathered for joy, for being who they are. Terror continues to ascend. đź’” These are not isolated things. Around the world there are countless examples of hatred & violence, between nations & parties, in communities, in households, & even inside our own selves. This quotation came to mind, as it often does when my heart is aching over our addiction to tearing each other apart. It seems sometimes that it’s just inherently human to be horrible & destructive, selfish & hateful. But if it is, then it’s just as inherently human to heal & be healed, to love beyond reason, to evolve, to transcend. This is a choice. A choice we have to make on a day to day, moment by moment, breath by breath basis. Every moment we pause to consider whether there is a different, more loving way to approach a person, an idea, we shift the atmosphere in & around us. The more of us that do it, the more we change what it means to be human from an accident of ancestry to an autonomous being, immensely capable of carrying forward “an ever-advancing civilization.” Even as so many of us grieve the lives lost & in danger today, so many shower them with love from every direction, & find new energy to stand & demand wellbeing for all.
May our grieving be soothed, may we be strengthened in our evolution, may the souls taken from this world rest in peace. Amen.
#WomanLifeFreedom #MahsaAmini
Image: White background with black lettering. Publication info in turquoise.
“And the breeding-ground of all these tragedies is prejudice: prejudice of race and nation, of religion, of political opinion; and the root cause of prejudice is blind imitation of the past — imitation in religion, in racial attitudes, in national bias, in politics. So long as this aping of the past persisteth, just so long will the foundations of the social order be blown to the four winds, just so long will humanity be continually exposed to direst peril.”
– Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 246. | Posted on 20/Nov/2022 22:54:39