There are things in life we cannot change even though we so want to do so … drone strikes that create three times the “terrorist” they intend to eliminate; killing more innocent women & children than “dangerous” men… major corporations that taint our food supplies, pollute our rivers & destroy our environment … preachers who cherry-pick their scriptures for verses both hateful & condemnatory — and who then use the same to spread messages of intolerance, hatred & fear … politicians who look away from our communities’ true & often dire needs while greedily lining their own pockets & satisfying their own desires … factory farms that disgustingly slaughter millions upon millions of innocent animals every day in ways more cruel & unusual than any Nazi extermination camp … and the list goes on & on & on.

Frankly, it can be enough to make the most hopeful of us shake our heads & tremble.

AND YET, even though there is essentially nothing we can do about these tragedies on a major scale, WE CAN stand against them in our own everyday lives — and by doing so, WE CAN make significant changes in our own communities, and eventually the world as a whole …

*We cannot stop Obama from turning the United States into the world largest (and most efficient) terrorist state, and yet WE CAN become agents for Peace in our own relationships and open advocates for Peace in our communities.

*We cannot stop Monsanto (or Nestle, or Kraft, or any other large corporation) from destroying our planet and selling us poisoned foodstuffs, and yet WE CAN stop supporting them in our grocery stores, and WE CAN start supporting local organic farmers, and WE CAN even start growing our own food and sharing the same with our neighbors.

*We cannot stop conservative reverends & pastors & rabbis from preaching bigotry & hatred & condemnation, and yet WE CAN open our hearts — and even our homes — to those in our communities who practice faiths different from our own.

*We cannot stop our politicians from looking our for their own interests at the expense of our own, and yet WE CAN begin to ignore them completely — even while we go about the business of rebuilding our own communities in the very ways those politicians should have done so long ago.

*We cannot stop farmers from imprisoning, raping, torturing and murdering millions of innocent animals (at least not overnight), and yet WE CAN stop supporting them with our food choices — just as WE CAN engage any number of methods to openly & publicly & actively champion animal rights and justice for all.

Yes, the world is indeed still in pretty sad shape … and yes, it does still sometimes seem like it’s all “going to Hell in a hand basket” … and yet even if this is true, WE CAN STILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Please go forth and get busy doing so … Thank you.

“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

 

Filed under: Outing the Oligarchy by Scaughdt