Thanks Roanoke!…for your support in the presentation of Dinner & a Documentary–of one man’s indomitable determination in the education of Black children at the early turn of the century, held at the Community Action Center on Friday evening. Love and appreciation were in the house!
This documentary should be mandatory in public school systems to help eliminate ingrained racism, even when not apparent, lingering more now through egos, attitudes and fewer remaining dynamic forces of example.
“Life itself can’t give us joy, unless we really will it. Life only gives us time and space–it’s up to us to fill it!
The grave danger here is that this societal malignancy is so obvious in others yet remains so obscure within us. Subsequently our reformation efforts and energies often seem misspent on changing the obvious (others, over whom we have no control) while failing to exercise more restraints on the primary one we can best affect–one’s self! Upon admitting our inability to make any lasting efforts or refusal to exercise self-restraints, our wisest move should then be to work tenaciously in a sequence of stages.
A good beginning for me was memorizing (and reciting) the immortal Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi: “God, grant me the Serenity to accept things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; and Wisdom to know the difference…”
My bigger challenge upon learning it was application! My life’s experiences taught me well the importance of serenity and I’ve always had more than my share of courage–that, without wisdom can prove detrimental. I’ve also heard it said: The mind cannot fathom what a Paradise this world would be if we were not so obsessed with who gets credit for what. The magnitude of this statement far exceeds our wildest imagination in the politics of science, medicine and technology as well as on corporate, organizational and even individual scale. One must wonder how many lifesaving/life altering drugs are being withheld (or priced out of reach) due to who controls them.
Of similar detriment are altruistic deeds performed for wrong reasons which, according to all Holy Writings, nullifies the acts before God.
Egos on the individual level run basically in two categories: pride, (which biblically “rideth before the fall,” and wounded, the more detrimental through which one can be repeatedly scarred through life.
As we approach summer and all the seasons of life, may we pass more time engaged in serious prayer and effort to “Behold our signs of Guidance” that we may be distinguished not through arrogance and egotism but through demonstration as mere “instruments through which God’s Love may flow to others-–through our dynamic Force of Example!