A Moment of Noise

I am the quiet one in the room.  I am often surrounded by silence, by choice.  This does not mean that there isn’t a roar of thoughts screaming through my head at any given time.  I don’t normally like to draw attention to myself and when I was younger I actually felt like I only needed to talk if I had something really important to say.

I have some important things to say.

Why are we so afraid of each other? Why do we use religion as a shield?  Why do we let power and greed take over our human abilities to love and care for one another?  We are all the same on the inside.  Just bones and muscles and organs.  We are not born with hate in our hearts.  Hate is taught.  We need to stop teaching hate and start teaching love.  I don’t care what your religion is, any religion that teaches someone to hate another for whatever reason is not a religion.  It is a fear.  What happened to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”?  I am not a religious person, but I still follow this rule.  I feel like people so often forget about this.  How do you want to be treated?  The answer to me seems so simple and clear.  If you are going to say or do something to another person or animal that will hurt them physically or mentally… Don’t Do It.  Just don’t do it.  But we like to make our lives very difficult.  We like to pretend that we are better then others or that our ideas are right and other ideas are wrong.

I don’t understand.  There are so many things that I don’t understand.

I want to make the world a better place.  I want to be a good person.  But sometimes it is hard and I feel like I am not a good person and I’m not doing the right thing.  I make mistakes.  I feel so small.  It doesn’t feel like it is enough.  I can only do so much. I need to do more.

But I will keep doing what I am doing to try in my small way to make things better.  Even if nobody notices.

I will smile at strangers.  I will take my yogurt containers home to be recycled.  I will keep planting and growing things in my yard to try to help the bees and butterflies.  I will stop to pick up the dead cat in the road that somebody hit and move it to the grass.  I will send some love to our neighbors that yell and swear openly at their children.  I will be grateful that I have clean drinking water and a home where I can rest peacefully in my own bed at night.  I will be giving.  I will appreciate this miraculous and incredibly beautiful world that we live in and everything in it.  I will support LOVE in any way.  Love is a good thing.  It is nothing to be afraid of.  I will open my heart.  I will embrace myself and others.  I will try not to hurt others.  I will love my cats and family with all of my heart.  I will stand up for what is good.  I will pay attention.  I will listen.  I will try to understand.  I will try to be a better person.