Hello fellow Homo sapiens,
Imagine yourself like those two kids. You have it in you.
Throughout the ages, there have been controllers who put their fellow humans in boxes, huts, chains, on gallows, crosses, electric chairs, or made to drink poison.
Controllers have used manipulation, coercion, blackmail, belittlement, ostracizing, ignoring, blaming, threatening, propaganda, lies, excommunication, and deportation to control people and thus gain power. And we use such tactics to attempt to change people's thinking.
Yet look at those faces above. Feel their joy.
You know that Homo sapiens are hard to control.
Toddlers rebel against control. As parents, we tried to control them, schools tried, and governments tried—often with extreme tactics, yet out of this came individuals who fought for peace, advancement, freedoms, liberty of thought, and expression.
These people were artists, adventurers, philosophers, scientists, and ministers. Many had no desire to change the world, but they worked on their passions and passed them on.
They inspired and motivated others to action.
Think of the Buddha, Krishna, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Antony, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, and John Lennon. All were peacemakers. Most lost their lives to controllers who believed in violence, not discussion, and yet…
The Peacemakers changed the world.
I read that the actor Steve Martin became popular at the end of the Vietnam War when a "Wild and Crazy Man" made people laugh. He came at the perfect time and place. We needed absurdity.
We need laughter now. Laughter is a little heart massage--or maybe it's a big one.
And cream rises to the top.
And individuals will improve on a phone until it is a hand-held computer resembling a Star Trek communicator.
I heard this story (Twilight Zone music here) that in space, there are spaceships built on the same design they have used for thousands of years. Yet if you gave one of those ships to a Homo sapiens, he would try to improve it.
That desire to Make Better is built into us.
We can't help it.
Perhaps that is one of our strengths as Homo sapiens. If we are lost in the jungle, we would try to protect ourselves by making a weapon. At night, we would build a hut. If that hut fell on us that night, we would make a better one the next night. We would search for landmarks to get back home. We would look to the sky and say," I think that star was over there the first night I was lost, maybe I'm going in the wrong direction."
Put restrictions on people, and some young whippersnapper will poke his head up and find a way around it. (Or a not so young person.)
Take the individual who worked for the government and believed that certain secrets should be shared with the world. It was not an attempt to give them to an enemy.
He downloaded them on a microchip and placed it inside a Rubik's Cube. He had constantly fiddled with that Rubik's Cube; thus, the people he worked for and with were accustomed to seeing him with it. On the day of the microchip escape, he threw the Rubik's Cube to the guard as a sort of joke, that way he got past the detector.
"I define a hero," exclaimed actress Shailene Woodley, "as somebody who against the judgment of other people, if they believe something will positively impact the world and they choose to do it and honor their integrity, that's what I (sort of) consider a hero, no matter how big or small a feat they create."
Take Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who asked the President to be merciful to scared people. Yes, she called him out in a Church Service, she embarrassed him, yet if she had said it in private, it would not have caused a ripple.
People get ready
There’s a train a-coming
You don’t need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don’t need no ticket
You just thank the Lord
Songwriter: Curtis Mayfield
“It has always been a coalition of the faithful that have brought about change.”—Bishop Mariann Edgar Buddes
You know we want to be FREE. Being controlled isn't in our genetics. We're a lively bunch, a faithful bunch, we're tired of lies and mayhem. Let's get on that train.
Listen on YouTube to the Bishop Mariann Edgar Buddes’ 2022 sermon on her epiphany that challenged her courage. “Finding Courage in the Face of Injustice.”