If you wondered who to blame for the snow earlier this week, I might be the scalawag. I didn’t mean to do it, but I admit I’d excitedly contemplated just the day before that the season of flowers and sunshine — spring — begins next month.
I don’t mind snow, either, though — for myself. One of the perks of retirement is not always having to go somewhere. And trust me, in my case that’s especially good — for the sake of humanity, I never, ever drive on snowy or icy roads. So, as my father used to joke, don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.
On a more serious note, something other than the weather has brought some winter to my spirit lately. I’m sure others also grieve over this “winter of our discontent” at the depths to which thousands of our fellow citizens are stooping to lash out over not getting something they wanted.
For many, it’s the presidential election. For others, it’s various political issues. And for still others, I believe, it’s an opportunity to berate those who just don’t happen to think the same way.
I find it ironic that in a country with a Constitution assuring free speech and the “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” countless folks are raging and railing against anything — and anyone — that doesn’t suit their fancy.
REPULSIVE WORDS
It also appears many are using the power of speech for the highest octane shock value they can achieve. That’s just ugly, yet it seems to be escalating at warp speed. Moreover, it doesn’t have much chance of bringing about any positive change. And, those using that tactic seem to be oblivious to the fact that they also appear to be ugly, and hateful.
Perhaps most importantly, what are our children learning by all this? And where will it end? I’m really worried about that.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leader of 1950s and ’60s civil rights movement, understood that violence, whether repulsive and abusive words or actions, can only breed the same, or worse. In 1964, King received a huge honor — not for advocating the needed change through brutality. The Nobel Peace Prize was bestowed on King for diligently seeking racial equality through nonviolent resistance.
Demonstrations and peaceful protests for change are one thing, but base, reprehensible actions — or words — are quite another. And I believe that we need to evaluate where those are in the process of taking us right now. We need to pull our heads out of the sand, look around at what’s happening and ask ourselves if we really want to go where we’re being led by the folks using brutal tactics … and teaching them to others?
WHAT CAN WE DO?
We always have a choice to be positive agents for change. Even if that weren’t true, at the very least we wouldn’t be the ones leading those around us into a malignant pit of poisonous hatred. Think about who passes by in a “normal” week, especially impressionable children and young people. Do we actually not give a fig about where they’ll end up by following those who are filled with the acerbic acid of hatred and contempt?
It isn’t all that difficult to be a positive example, either. Remember the “Thumperian principle?”
In the Disney movie, “Bambi,” an endearing rabbit named Thumper becomes one of Bambi’s best buddies. But first, Thumper needs a lesson about kindness. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all,” Thumper tells his mother when she asks Thumper what his father had taught him.
Shouldn’t be too difficult for us to practice the same.
“All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” a poem by Texas-born author Robert Fulghum, is another example of how not to be used to spread rage and hatred:
“Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours,” the poem entreats. And “say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.”
Everything we “need to know is in there somewhere,” the poem continues. “The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.”
But if that’s too complex for adults, the 15th chapter of the Bible’s book of Proverbs has some wisdom for us: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh (literally ‘painful’) word stirs up anger” (vs. 1) and “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but the slow to anger calms a dispute” (vs. 18).
