Needed: A Revolution of Roses
America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!
Brotherhood and sisterhood are not accomplished by waving a magic wand. They are hard work. It occurred to me during election season this year that we're destroying this country with our anger and hatred toward one another. I happen to believe that we have the capacity to love one another as ourselves, to forgive and to refrain from judging. It would be a cruel God that would make such commands and not give us the intellectual and spiritual capacity to obey them. This country and the world face monumental problems that have to do with our very survival. The biggest obstacle to finding solutions is our lack of understanding that relationships and community are far more important than how any particular issue is decided.
The rose was named our national flower in 1986. It represents love, beauty, joy and a giving of oneself to a higher purpose. I worked with the Quakers for over 16 years. They believe that there is that of God in everyone. Many people don't believe in God or are uncomfortable with discussing religion publicly, so saying "I see God in you," as people in India do, doesn't work in this country. I consider the attributes of God to be love, beauty, joy and a giving of oneself to a higher purpose, qualities symbolized in the rose. I can now imagine the town of Seekonk as a community of 13,722 roses in different stages of bloom, each carrying beauty, the capacity to love, the ability to live joyously and an innate desire to give for the common good. We all have thorns, yes. But we also can open into stunning blossoms. Roses can't cultivate themselves. We need to begin tending and cultivating the rose in each other.
I am a rose. You are a rose. We are a nation of roses. When we understand that we can look upon ourselves and others with more tenderness, affection and forgiveness. We can work to help others reach the fullness of bloom and become ever more beautiful ourselves in the process.
We need a revolution in values in this country, a revolution of roses. Seekonk is a great place to start.
Who's going to design and manufacture the red rose lapel pin that can be worn next to the American flag lapel pin?
deb of see-attleboro
5:49 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
Your thoughts reminded me of days gone by. Does anyone else recall "hands across America" from the 1980's? It seems like ancient history now. Sadly, I do not think an event such as this would even be attempted today.
Gretchen Robinson
5:20 pm on Sunday, December 16, 2012
"thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears" -- That is the ideal. We may never get there as MLK, Jr. said of himself. But it is possible.
The book The Tending Instinct looks at the fight and flight instinct we have when we are threatened and says, actually we have a third instinct, which is to come together in times of turmoil and trouble. We 'befriend' (others) and 'tend' to them. That is what the Good Samaritan did. Always been my ideal character. Other Jews looked down on the Samaritans but at least he did the right thing. Also notice that he didn't so much give hand's on care but paid the incomer to care for him. Then he told the innkeeper that if the cost was more that he, the Samaritan, would pay him more. How many of us pass by on the other side of the road????
Carol Bragg
8:40 pm on Sunday, December 16, 2012
Gretchen: The biggest failure of religion, in my opinion, is that it preaches but doesn't teach people how to love, how to forgive, and how to stop judging other people. These can be taught. They require certain thought processes and also some willpower.
One of the difficult things about love for those of us who speak English is that there is a single word to describe several different forms of love. There's a terrific sermon by Dr. King called Levels of Love at www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/levels-love. He describes five levels of love, from lowest to highest: utilitarian love, friendship, romantic love, humanitarian love, and agape. The last he refers to as Christian love, the love of God operating in the human heart. The first four, he states, are love for one’s own sake. The fifth is love for another person for their sake. The utilitarian love is similar to the Greek word porneia, from which pornography comes. It's loving people as though they were objects -- the love of the master for the slave, the love of some business owners for their workers.