I’M TEMPTED to end this article right here and let you think about, reflect upon, and act on whatever the quotations on this page mean to you. Read them again and pause for a while and let them sink into your mind, heart, and soul.
I write this column of course in light of the terrific rash of gun violence that is ongoing in our beloved country. Here we are at another Fourth of July holiday pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Perhaps we should pause again and think about what this pledge means to us individually and as a nation.
How will we ever become the nation we have aspired to be since our very inception if we don’t take time to stop and think about our priorities, our values, our moral compass, our place in the world, our common humanity? Is it possible that the conflicts we find ourselves in today are really a good sign, a sign that more and more people are thinking and reflecting on what is really important to them? Have we become unafraid to see who we really are and now seek ways to become the best we can be as a nation, a believer, a human being?
As I listen to the reporters on TV and read the news in various places, I’m hopeful that enough people are becoming aware of our common humanity and are willing to rethink their beliefs and prejudices and work toward a country that respects people, ideas, religions, cultures, and institutions. To me respect does not mean that I must become like those who are not like me; it means that I realize that I live in a world with people of many different persuasions and if I take the time to get to know what they believe and why, I can accept who I am and accept who they are without shutting people out, engaging in acts of violence toward them, and working together to form a …Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.
Hope seems to be what’s needed now more than ever as we struggle with important decisions that will affect today’s young people and future generations. The uptick in suicide, violence of all kinds, vitriolic language, and stubborn disagreements are all signs to me that people have given up on hope. Sara Maitland puts it on the line for us when she writes, …(Hope)is not simply that we share with each other a common humanity, but that individually we have no humanity without each other.
I hope and pray that many more people, all over the world, focus on our common humanity, on how much we really agree with one another rather than on how much we disagree. Let’s work toward a world of hope where individuals realize that there is no humanity without each other. May our hope give us the courage to act and help the violence to stop in ourselves, in our families, in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our churches, in our shopping malls, in our world. Amen!
Sister Mary Thill is a Sylvania Franciscan Sister. She can be reached at mthill@sistersosf.org. ✲
How do we become unafraid to see what (who) we already are?
+Paula D’Arcy
Hope is the basis for taking responsibility:
for claiming our capacity to create, to make a genuinely new thing.
It is also the springboard for trying to act justly; and for accepting absolutely our incorporation into each other.
It is not simply that we share with each other a common humanity,
but that individually we have no humanity without each other.
+Sara Maitland
