We are all on this human journey together We have all experienced loss, anger, hurt, pain. We have all hurt someone. We have all been hurt by someone. To hold onto love and not let go of kindness in the face of our differences and similarities requires courage.

Those thoughts floated through my head as I was sitting in the quiet after returning from having driven my eldest daughter to the airport this morning.

Last night, sitting around the dinner table, the conversation turned to today’s political climate and global conditions. There were many views at the table, all of them had as much right to be there as the other.

The challenge, I said at one point as the conversation veered into the right and wrong of differing views, is that because of the polarizing nature of our political leaders today, which has been exacerbated by media feeds and algorithms, we have become camps of us versus them.

In essence, those who are not ‘with’ us are de facto ‘against’ us. We defend against instead of listening with tolerance and curiosity. We create camps of believers designating those outside the tents that proliferate our campground, as others. And in that other dom, we lose sight of our human condition.

In that state, differences become things to fear.

To hold onto love means to allow all differences to be present, without judging, denigrating, or demeaning them.

It means allowing the diversity of our human condition to shine bright, in all its many lights without trying to dim someone else’s in order for ours to be the brightest light.

Not an easy thing to achieve, but if we are to survive as a species, we need to hold onto Love, not war, kindness, not anger.

About the Image

This is the March She Dares Boldly message from my 2023 desk Calendar.