Day of Reconciliation...Maybe?
More about yesterday’s subject: the National Day of Reconciliation, Dec. 4. I realized that I don’t know whether that resolution called for two days of reconciliation only for the year 2001, or for every year. Now that I think about it, I believe it might have been just that year, as the resolution was passed right after the terrible events of September 11.
Nevertheless, I think it would be wonderful if every person would declare a Personal Day of Reconciliation. This country is very divided—very angry—each segment of each thing blaming and despising others. I wish that people could ….no, what I really mean is…I wish they would hold all others in love, in respect, with dignity. (They could, if they would.) We could declare a moratorium on anger, manipulation, deceit, revenge, and the use of the big put-down.
When I speak of the importance of love to my students, many of them think I mean romantic love betwixt two humans—especially two college students of the opposite sex. (Easy to see what’s on their minds!) And I always have to explain that the Romantic Period in British and American literature was not a time of heightened romantic sexual attraction. What I am referring to is agape—universal love. That is the kind of love we all need.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment