By Guy Farmer
Blissfully easy,
Categorizing a
Human being as
Defective, lazy,
Unworthy of care,
Compassion.
Cruel exercise,
Rendering a person
Featureless,
Expendable,
Trash decomposing
In a gutter.
Crucial shift
From apathy, scorn
To compassion,
Understanding,
That is me
But for chance.
By Sr. Simone Campbell
Let gratitude be the beat of our heart,
pounding Baghdad rhythms, circulating
memories, meaning of the journey.
Let resolve flow in our veins,
fueled by Basra’s destitution, risking
reflective action in a fifteen-second world.
Let compassion be our hands,
reaching to be with each other, all others
to touch, hold heal this fractured world.
Let wisdom be our feet,
bringing us to the crying need
to friends or foe to share this body’s blood.
Let love be our eyes,
that we might see the beauty, see the dream
lurking in the shadows of despair and dread.
Let community be our body warmth,
radiating Arab energy to welcome in the foreign
stranger—even the ones who wage this war.
Let us remember on drear distant days,
we are a promised Christmas joy
we live as one this tragic gifted life—
We are the Body of God!
Sr. Simone Campbell, SSS is a Catholic sister, lawyer, and lobbyist known as an outspoken advocate for social justice. This poem was written after she visited Iraq soon before the U.S. invasion.
By Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet, diplomat, and politician.
By Robert Browning Hamilton
I walked a mile with Pleasure
She chatted all the way,
But left me none the wiser,
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne’er a word said she;
But oh, the things I learned from her,
When Sorrow walked with me!
Robert Browning Hamilton was an American poet.
“…In a similar way we enter into solidarity with the poor when distinction between we and they no longer applies. The distinction breaks down and we are the poor, one among them.
We have, it is true, differing talents, life experiences, but the fundamental point is that we stand together as one, of one mind and heart in the midst of political, economic, and social structures that oppress. We approach the world with the same outlook. We approach it aware of our different backgrounds and roles, aware of our sinfulness, limitations, and weaknesses, but with mutual love and common cause.
The experience of God in this Way of Solidarity is the experience of the justice of God…We have freed ourselves from our superiority, our illusions, our discouragement and disillusionment, our guilt, and our romantic notions of the poor…It does not mean…that we pass beyond our struggles, sufferings, or are protected from misunderstandings and even persecution. But it does mean that we experience God saying to us: Blessed are you poor…for you shall see God.
…Like the enlightened one of Buddhism, we have returned to the market place. We experience a solidarity with the poor and with God. We may experience this only occasionally as a unity and peace at the core of our being, or we may be aware of this oneness more or less habitually. It is what directs our lives and actions, gives us energy, and expresses itself in an inner peace that is the consequence of a reconciliation within ourselves with the poor and with the God of the poor…Solidarity becomes the motive force of how we view the world and live within it, and of how we experience God.”
Ted Wiesner
We continue to identify ourselves with the poor in our way of living; we continue to simplify our lifestyle. We also become engaged in the struggle for social change. This usually leads to involvement in such things as protests, boycotts, demonstrations, actions of resistance, even civil disobedience, arrest, imprisonment. We often become a part of… a network of persons with similar ideals and goals. As a result of this involvement, we experience the fact that others—friends, relatives, family, members of our community—simply do not comprehend what we are about. We feel misunderstood, alienated, criticized, even persecuted. These experiences, in addition to our efforts to live more simply, become a part of our way of living.
Ted Wiesner
Reflect: As a result of your struggle for social change, when have you felt misunderstood, alienated, or criticized?
BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF. You are a child of the Universe no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive [God] to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Cassie Cromwell, ecological activist
Must we simply recognize that we are more competitive than compassionate, and try to make the best of it with a ‘healthy dose of skepticism’? Is the best advice we can give each other that we should try to live in such a way that we hurt each other as little as possible? Is our greatest ideal a maximum of satisfaction with a minimum of pain?
“Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.” -Sara Ahmed
Sara Ahmed is a British-Australian writer and feminist scholar.
“We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don’t fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity.” -Fred Hampton
Fred Hampton was deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party and founder of the multicultural Rainbow Coalition in Chicago. He was assassinated in 1969.
“The stranger who tells our stories when we cannot speak not only awakens our spirits and hearts but also shows our humanity—which others want to forget—and in doing so, becomes family.” -Ishmael Beah
Ishmael Beah is a Sierra Leonean author and human rights activist who rose to fame with A Long Way Gone, his acclaimed memoir.