------YOLANDA WEBB------
"AND SO IT GOES"
The "Be Attitudes of Inclusion” ©
"Imagine there's no heaven...it's easy if you try."(C)
When certain photos pop back up and into our timeline, memories come flooding back in. And this photo I took on a trip to the Vatican, popped back up today.
First, yes, I was that close to the Pope (no long-range camera lens), and he was blessing the family next to me, those I came with, me, and a man from Russia who had lifted me for me to take this photo.
Before this photo popped back up, I had for the past week both John Lennon's and Randy Crawford's versions of Imagine on repeat.
If you haven't heard one or the other, I recommend listening to both. The lyrics are poignant and striking. "Imagine there's no heaven... it's easy if you try."
The recent incidents in Montgomery, Alabama (the Boat Brawl), and the killing of a gay man whose only crime was dancing (voguing) at a gas station, have made me tired all over again, and questioning, as Crawford and Lennon asked us...imagine there is no heaven.
Just asking myself that question, is hard for me to do.
But I believe as they both sang..."maybe I'm a dreamer," but I'm not the only one, and I'm asking you to join us and become dreamers as well. Imagine all the people sharing the world.
I'm tired. Yes, I'm tired, but this fight to have a more just, more inclusive, more equitable world is worth the fight because it's for my grandchildren and all the children who will come behind them.
A friend told me the other day that my approach to corporate social responsibility and equity and inclusion was so logical - and why didn't everyone try to approach it from that perspective?
I told her I think it's because people not only want to be "right" about what they believe a good society is, but they also want their right to be your right.
As I walked around Vatican City that day, nearly three years ago now, taking in the sites of the statute of St. Paul, St. Peter's Square, St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, Museo Chiaramonti, and the Catacombs, it struck me how alike those humans who lived so long ago, were to us.
Recounting many of their same struggles and understanding the reasons many of them lost their lives - it came down to simply their differences in culture, religion, and life.
Someone wanted what they thought to be right (religion, ethnicity, beliefs) to be right for those who didn't support their beliefs. The things we are fighting over today come to mind - the revisionist history in Florida, a man simply dancing at a gas station, a young homeless man choked to death on a subway simply for asking for food or money, all, because someone wanted what they thought, was how someone else should live life right.
All week I've been feeling some kind of way, so I put off writing this blog post. I'm not sure what it was. Just fatigue that we keep going around the same mountain when we talk about equity, diversity, and inclusion. About what's right. Yet, we see very little change. Why? Because the voices of love must begin to be louder than the voices of hate and difference.
Difference? Yes. the idea that your different is somehow better than my different. And that if I don't agree with your ideas, I'm somehow a bad person. We must learn to communicate our differences with understanding, perspective, and patience. We must learn to communicate our differences in the "Be" Attitudes.
Some of my friends and family all know that my childhood dream was to become a Nun. My father convinced me that I could do good in the world by spreading my gifts and talents, and even by becoming a mother and now grandmother. For that, I thank him.
As I think about the power that inclusive societies can bring to their people, I think of what Christ taught that day, under the very same sky I looked up at while at the Vatican and where the Sermon on the Mount was being delivered.
The Beatitudes or the Be-Attitudes.
Imagine...how far we could have come had those listening to that sermon that day, really listened. Imagine...who we could all Be.
Imagine all the people,
Living life in peace,
You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I am not the only one,
Maybe someday you will join us,
And the world will be as one.
"And So It Goes..."
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"All things are the echo of the voice of God."
“Be Attitudes of Inclusion” ©2023
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