Ruminating On Rumi

As you start to walk out on the way, the way appears.

~ M. Rumi

Friday, May 24, 2013

The Whole World Is Watching


“The Whole World Is Watching," chanted by antiwar demonstrators outside the Chicago Hilton Hotel during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago*  became an iconic slogan of the time. It was a time when journalists really made a difference.  Truth was paramount. A war, the Vietnam war, MUST be stopped. A friend of mine who demonstrated said that to mock and humiliate protestors they were dumped into garbage trucks full of garbage and taken to jail. This did not stop the protest. We know the outcome, the war did finally end. How the Vietnam vets were treated is a whole other story of disrespect and shame . The difference was that how the protestors responded to inhumane conduct empowered whereas many vets disempowered took on what was really the whole nation’s shame.

Once again, in a different medium, we have the opportunity to connect as a whole world watching, listening and sharing. Social media closes the borders of time and distance and allows us to come together as one. It is our choice to turn and look a lie in the eye. 

We have the power to wake up to and become a wave in the ocean of transformation. It is us who can choose change. Beginning with respect for all things sentient and non-sentient, “all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful.” And yes, all environments, all the shadows and all the light that is life. 

The biggest disrespect we do to one in another is to say you, they or I don’t count. Your voice. Your vote. Your action. Every choice you make or don’t make counts. Every time we turn and look a lie in the eye, we make a difference. We disempower by indifference, by turning a blind eye to injustice, by not voting, by not speaking up. We don’t have to be big to make great changes. 

We make a difference every time we say “No” or “Yes.”We make a difference when we sit in meditation or prayer. We make a difference by what we choose to eat, what we choose to buy, what we choose to wear, how we choose to care for ourselves and others. Every behaviour either affirms or denies this whole existence and how we are all in this together, as one. 

This, my friends, is what being present, waking up is all about.




*Wikipedia

1 comment:

  1. Well said! Hello Tomm. I knew you as Linda, way back in the PR days. I happened to find your blog as Inwas surfing around the web. Hope you are doing well - it looks like you have found your way in life:) Blanca

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