I Choose Love

Dedicated to all those
who visited my facebook wall this week

I choose love, not hate;
I hear Martin Luther King knocking at the door.

I choose poetry, deny so called fate
I hear so many poets as they roar.

Maya Angelou says, ‘be the rainbow
in someone else’s cloud.’

I am a rainbow and I forgive, but still call
for injustice to be ploughed.

Mahatma Ghandi shows people how to resist
with non violence, so I wage peace not war;
I don’t wait for it to come knocking at the door.

I read ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Paris Talks
and picture when he brings Louis Gregory to the table
and makes acceptance more than a fable.

Actions always speak louder than words
but words have power
that can be absurd
or turn humanity into
a soaring bird.

I choose for my children
more than debate.

May they educate
illuminate, radiate then eradicate
prejudice forevermore.

I dream we’ll walk through unity’s gate.

June Perkins

 

 

My family in the seventies

I spent this week having discussions in my facebook space about racism and prejudice and what we can do about it.

It began with this:

After watching Q&A this week I am utterly convinced that Australia as a nation has to actively once and for all truly confront and end ignorance, fear and racism against multiple cultures, its Indigenous peoples, and ‘non-Christian’ religions, with love, friendship, community building and education.

We are truly a multicultural nation, a multi-faith nation and it is something to support not pull down as the cause of terrorism. I choose not pickets and placards, or reacting to haters, but instead the courage of intelligent everyday conversations,friendships, educating my children to love all peoples, to unify all peoples and the power of poetry. I choose love.

About 100 reactions, (75 likes and  32 comments)

The Young Me – It wasn’t always easy growing up in Australia but this is a happy memory – hands covered in sand!  This was taken by Edward Broomhall.

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Another day, another media commentary and now Waleed Aly and the Project say ‪#‎sendforgivenessviral‬ and start ‘construction’ not ‘destruction’ We need love and justice too and people showing true friendship.‪#‎ichooselove‬

We need to think about what fuels fear – things like ignorance, envy, systematic social injustice, inequity, a focus too much on differences and not enough on that which unifies us all. Forgiveness might be a first step for some but we have to go further to get to the ‘construct’ moments.https://www.facebook.com/TheProjectTV/videos/10153760912218441/

7 reactions 

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Just had a lovely prayer session with Nancy. Renewed strength for the week ahead. Thought of all our friends with illness, tests of various kinds, and of course just the world in general after all the unrest.

4 reactions

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I decided to pose these two questions:

What fuels ‘fear’? What enhances ‘connection’ and ‘unity’? (for anyone who would like to discuss this)

16 reactions: seven thoughtful responses  some likes

My response to what people posted on my wall:

There are many things that fuel fear as people have said, and there are many good points here. They point in many ways to the things we can do to overcome it. Arm ourselves with knowledge, broaden our experience so one experience is not all we base a decision on, keep working on our own development as human beings, change what we can in our lives and be detached about what we can’t change.

I love the suggestions here about how to build unity – work on something positive with others, make sure our information sources are trustworthy, find the points of connection, have some common goals, broaden and deepen our knowledge maybe about cultures, religion, experiences others have to go through, develop sympathy – wow so much of it is based around the development of ‘virtues’ and of course I would add LOVE others, love and don’t fear, the diversity, the challenge, the connection, the differences.

We need to be having conversations about to how to support women in Australia and the world and how to create true equality. Perhaps many of the same things apply to this as apply to dealing with prejudices and racism. But no one challenge is more important than the other, and sometimes the cause of the problems might even be the same. Imagine too, where you experience multiple prejudices, racism, sexism and Class (poverty) and think about how all of that might compound. we should be having conversations about to how to support women in Australia and the world and how to create true equality.

Perhaps many of the same things apply to this as apply to dealing with prejudices and racism. But no one challenge is more important than the other, and sometimes the cause of the problems might even be the same. Imagine too, where you experience multiple prejudices, racism, sexism and Class (poverty) and think about how all of that might compound.

18 likes to the above quote and 2 shares.

My final response:

A very big thank you to everyone who has been contributing to the discussions here, for your compassion, sensitivity and intelligence. You all give me hope, especially those of you who have welcomed into your families and neighbourhoods, diversity and who are patient, kind, forgiving, but also want to see real change. Keep the discussions going with those around you for the sake of our future generations and let’s all think about concrete everyday actions to make our world a better place.

25 reactions so far

(Sharing the link, and reblogs of this post are encouraged,  spread the dream, spread the love, but please keep my  name at the author on the poem please and thanks so much to everyone sharing this and discussing it).

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