Drawing a circle

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During the event I went to at a local mosque a few months ago, one of the visiting religious leaders recited a poem that, upon googling, I find attributed to Edwin Markham:

He drew a circle to shut me out,
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win
We made a circle that drew him in.

It’s a sentiment to keep in mind these days: solidarity, inclusiveness, answering condemnation with love.

This is our monthly tikkun olam post, a place to share your efforts to repair the world and take heart from the efforts of others. The usual principles apply: nothing is too small to share. Ongoing things are good, too; don’t feel like everything you say here has to be some new undertaking. If you’ve made donations of money or supplies, volunteered your time somewhere, helped out a neighbor, changed your life to be better for those around you, or otherwise done something to make the world a better place and counteract the forces pushing it in the other direction, share it here. It reminds you of the good you’ve done, gives you a chance to see the good of others, and may inspire you to new efforts you hadn’t thought of before.

3 Responses to “Drawing a circle”

  1. David M. Crampton

    I’m wearing a #NOHATE pin and continuing to teach my children that people are people.

    • swantower

      You’d think all people would teach their children that . . . but sadly, it isn’t so.

  2. swantower

    For me, this has been the month in which I start to encounter the limits of my ability to engage. February is always the low point of the year for me, in terms of energy and optimism; for obvious reasons this year it’s been especially hard. I went to a rally/march in support of Planned Parenthood (and got replies from several trolls when I tweeted about it — whee?), but I missed the most recent Open Mosque night because of a scheduling conflict. I’ve continued with petitions and calling my representatives; I expanded the latter to include my state-level officials after the problems with the Oroville Dam, to tell them that it’s sheer idiocy to keep deferring infrastructure maintenance in the name of “fiscal responsbility.” I still would like to find a better way to keep abreast of the issues happening on a state level, so I can apply leverage more effectively there.

    But I’ve also had to have days where I just say, you know what, I’m going to delete all the political emails in my inbox. The energy isn’t infinite.

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