Carol Mackay Mertz

Humans, a part of the Community of Earth,  are in a position of extraordinary choice at the beginning of 2017.  Some days there is a tendency to focus on politics and large news events.  We have the choice to read about them, and either dwell upon them and let them lead us down the rabbit hole or return to our own lives.

To empower ourselves, we can redirect our focus away from national politics and look about us in our immediate spheres and discern what needs doing on a personal and local level.  This we can affect.  The personal and local levels of our lives are where we get to act in a way that is in keeping with what we believe.

There is a story today of a man entering a NY city subway car and seeing the walls covered with hate graffiti and swastikas.  He looked at the other people on the car, when one spoke up and said, “You can get permanent marker off with alcohol, anybody got some hand cleaner?”  So then people started searching for tissues and hand cleaner and many got up to start taking down the hate words. They cleaned all of them off.

Those people in that car acted on their beliefs.  Each time those small acts of personal sovereignty happen, we can collectively rejoice.  Not that we will hear about them all, but there are small stories getting out on social networking sites that show  us we have real and immediate impact on our daily choices as well as personal stories we share with each other.

We have a choice to experience the world with hope or with despair.

It doesn’t make the cause of despair go away, and for that we need to trust that each individual will rise to their highest personal potential in whatever role they assume.

I checked out Facebook today with the intent of seeing how many times someone posted an article on the new president.  I was smiling deeply after I had scrolled down the page a ways.  On Friday our exceptional daughter-in-law gave birth to their first child, our second grandchild.  The birth news was beginning to spread beyond the immediate family to cousins and friends and to my delight, this day on my Face book feed, our new grand baby boy out numbered the stories of political chaos.  Points for the next generation.  Points for humanity and community.

Parting Thought

I received an article today from my brother-in-law that had been published in the New York Times about the young adults who started the Standing Rock protests.  It was a lucid, detailed, insightful, beautifully and sensitively written piece by Saul Elbein.

It is well worth the read.  These young people have a really important story to tell.  It inspired me and I hope you may also take inspiration from their lives and their story.

This is the link to the news article:  The Youth Group That Launched a Movement at Standing Rock