My dear friend and soul sister Marilyn Semonick writes a weekly column called Wednesday Wisdom. Always Short. Pithy. Pertinent. Profound.
Here is one of her more recent pieces of wisdom. I have put her thoughts in italics.
Howard Zinn wrote, “You can’t be neutral on a moving train”.
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
My challenge for myself—for all my readers –is this: what action of kindness and compassion will I do today? Better still, how many actions can I do today? The spontaneity of kindness can indeed be nurtured.
Care to join me?
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