Boyd and Tanya with school children at the SIA Small Business Fund nursery in Manyamula Village, Malawi.
On this election day in the U.S., I post something to remind us of our core and common humanity. Del Anderson wrote the reflection below in the weeks just after September 11th, 2001, and for me it is a call to search for and hold onto that flame of hope within each of us. Where ever you are, I hope today you reclaim that “boldness, firmness, and humility to act in the truth.”
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This is a difficult moment in which to write. The September 11th bombings seemed to further destroy the hopes of humankind and the building of peace, as the gulf seems to widen daily between peoples.
Using violence, and killing people to prove that it is wrong to kill people, has also proven futile through all of the history of civilization. Throughout history, force has resulted in more and violence. Such response breeds defeatism, fear and despair.
I believe that humans, as transcendent creations of God, have within them the Spirit of God and the capacity to participate in, with, and through our Creator God.
A mix of footprints and bike tracks on the dusty road in Manyamula Village, Malawi.
Our responsibility is not to lose our willingness to seek the truth and the boldness, firmness, and humility to act in the truth. As we hold fast to this consciousness, we cannot despair.
Great ideas may often be expressed in simple words such as, “All humankind are brothers and sisters from the same Creator.” We are not here by chance, but as an individualization of God and in union with our Creator and each other.
We each are unique and distinct, one of a kind. We lack nothing and are here to fulfill God’s special purpose through each of us for this generation. What a glorious, sacred, holy privilege and responsibility. Let us realize we are needed and important. The time of decision is now.
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Del ends with this prayer, which he used in the mornings and evenings. He adapted it from John Greenleaf Whittier’s “The Brewing of Soma”:
Drop thy still dews of quietness Till all my strivings cease; Take from my soul The strain and stress, And let the Christ within express The beauty of thy peace.
