Tag: World news

Hope in the World, Just Not Yet at Home

Hope in the World, Just Not Yet at Home

by Jane Tawel

https://unsplash.com/@sixteenmilesout

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In the past couple days there is evidence of several amazing world events and leaders that give me hope — they just aren’t in America sadly. (Let’s hope that there is a “yet” to that first sentence.) Hungary — Wow! Canada and Prime Minister Mark Carney — Wow. Wow. Pope Leo — WOW! WOW! WOW! These three examples alone of moral integrity and truth spoken with love are lights in a dark time. This is unlike the haters and foolish, dark-minded people currently in our nation’s administration, congress, and in the ranks of their supporters, (either openly or behind the scenes), who are running our nation into the ground. They instead are gleefully filling their coffers or excusing those who are using them for their own enrichment while offending everyone, creating fallacious conflicts that kill innocent people, and ruining not just America’s and the world’s economy, but creating decades of dire problems for our children and our planet. This is overwhelming enough but add to that the continuous drip, drip, drip of blaspheming or changing beyond all recognition what some of these people say they believe as a world view, Christianity, and that they even say they want to be our national “religion” (something our nation considered a dangerous oxymoron) but a belief system if when looked at honestly, stands against everything that we see coming to horrible fruition today; a Faith which is truly and in actuality the moral imperative good people of all religions or just all good humans are called to follow. We have slid down the slippery slope the oligarchs and capitalism have long been slipping on. 

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But despite what we are hearing: Exceptionalism isn’t individualism, it is holding oneself to an exceptional standard; leading without morality isn’t leadership, its narcissm; and empathy is not a weakness but the best way to understand the onus of the greatest power the universe knows — Love. I know there are enough people in America who remember what we are called to be at our best — caring, sharing, accepting, just, truthful, and free. There is always light, no matter how dark it may seem, if we look hard enough. Keep looking ahead; keep looking around you; keep looking for the helpers. And keep hoping. Be the Light you are called to today.

And What Would the Children Say?

By Jane Tawel

Mine Own

And What Would the Children Say?

By Jane Tawel

October 20, 2023

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And what would the children say?

If they were allowed to speak?

Would they ask the adults,

why they always want war

instead of a world where

each man, woman, child, has enough,

and enough to share?

If they were allowed to speak,

could the children teach us to care?

Would they sing songs of love,

and hymns sweet and long,

singing our world into peace?

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And what would the children do?

If they were allowed to act?

Would they begin dancing

instead of marching?

Would they play and laugh,

voices raised in loud joy?

Instead of raised voices

of mothers and fathers

and teachers and governors,

and princes and soldiers

would they grab hold of hands,

tear down false walls between lands,

would they show all in power

that it’s more fun to create?

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And what would the children pray for,

if anyone could hear their prayers?

Would the children say softly,

“Please, please, Someone care.

It seems the world’s crumbling

like building blocks rumbling,

and some times, we’re afraid,

that the mess grownups have made,

will leave nothing for us to repair.”

Would the children lie down

in their beds at bedtime,

and quietly whisper,

a prayer to a God,

a God who still hears

a small child’s quiet question:

“Will you save us, dear God?

Will you save all the world?

Are Your hands, my dear Papa,

big enough to enclose,

my small self, my small hopes,

my small fears, and small faith?”

“I know I’m just a child,

but a wise man once did say,

‘A small child will then lead them’,

and so, God I pray,

make adults see we need them

to stop causing pain,

and remember what it’s like

to be a small child again.”

“And the children of the world, God,

we will help you, dear God,

if you’ll just let our voices be heard.”

Oh, how would the world,

turn around and be changed,

if adults turned their hearts

to the children?

If a child had a voice…

If a child had a choice…

What would children do now?

If they could?

© Jane Tawel, 2023