I believe that love wins, character counts, and kindness makes a difference in the world. I don’t believe that the ends justify the means. The way you reach the end is just as important as the results. Fear may speak the loudest, but peace rules the day. Leaders may rise on the wave of hate and bigotry, but love has the ultimate power to resist.I’m not naïve many terrible things have happened because of hate and bigotry, but amazing stories of love shine a light through the troubles of our darkest hours in history. People rise to the occasion when their backs are against the wall. I remember the day I first visited the Yad Vashem (Holocaust Memorial) in Israel. The pictures of the death and destruction of a people simply because of who they were moved me to tears more than once. The stories that emerged of the gentiles who risked all to save some was equally powerful. The Jewish people are almost always first on the scene in disasters, they stand with those being persecuted, they promote life through the arts, because they know what it is to be murdered for simply being who they are.
It is easy to be lulled to sleep in life believing that everything will stay the same. Having fought for something once means you’ll never have to fight again. As long as there is an other you can blame you’ll never have to take the heat yourself. But life has a way of teaching us change is constant and the one sure thing in life. Every generation we’ll have to fight for the things they hold dear because there is always someone who wants to take it away. Eventually, everyone will become the other in the us against them game, and we can easily be swayed by the words of the next leader peddling another brand of hate in a new package.
For me I’ve chosen to love. Trying to figure out who is deserving and who is not is too great of a burden. Some might say I’m not worthy. I’ve decided to go with the tested and true words of one of this world’s greatest leaders. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
