There is a lovely canopy of green that blankets my world this time of year. From May through October my cabin sits in the midst of it. My closest neighbors are deer, coyote and a variety of birds, small animals and insects. Through these months as I sit in the silence of an Internet and television free environment, I have the opportunity to think and to feel.
During the days, I catch glimpses of the news, and from social media I learn what many are thinking. For the most part we think about and are driven by what we believe. We have an allegiance to what we believe and so we seek the company of people and of the ideas that uphold those beliefs. This is the beginning of the isolation and the division we are witnessing today. We have become more invested in our beliefs than in our humanity.
Today I took a moment to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and was a bit surprised that I remembered it. When I got to “with liberty and justice for all” I was jolted by the memory of why I stopped saying it. For me, it simply wasn’t true.
The sentiment is lovely, the ideal is honorable but I couldn’t pledge allegiance to something that did not exist. It brought me to that incredible moment when belief and knowing collide and you must choose which you will follow.
To leave beliefs behind is not easy. It’s like passing a camel through the eye of a needle. But I have found a simple solution. I follow my knowing. And I am honing my knowing to some very basic things: our humanity is what we share and kindness is our greatest strength. “Liberty and justice for all” will be born of this.
Photo is a Czech movie poster to Czech film Velbloud uchem jehly (1936). A comedy film with an allusion to the “eye of a needle” aphorism.
let kindness win 