by Rev Dr Doe West
On my wall, there is a collection of photos and quotes freeing my spirit to find expression and, I hope, evoking compassion and empathy from all those who see it and so see me.
The photos on my wall include:
The Unknown Protester, the unidentified man who stood in front of a column of tanks on June 5, 1989, the morning after the Chinese military had forcefully suppressed the Tiananmen Square protests.
Quang Duc, the Buddhist monk who burned himself to death on a Saigon street June 11, 1963, to protest alleged persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government;
John Filo’s Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was fatally shot by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State;
The rail fence where Matthew Shepard was tied, bludgeoned, and left to die on the cold high prairie—stark statement of the hatred directed at the LGBTQ community;
Ada Wright, lying on the ground being beaten and kicked for fighting, along with all the other Suffragettes, for my (and all women’s!) right to vote.
I could cover an entire building with photos of resistance, recovery, and resurrection. These images speak millions of words directly from my inner spirit to my outward actions.
What images move you? In particular, what image will move you to vote on November 6? The latest mass shooting? Continuing photos of desperate children and desperate parents separated from each other? Starving polar bears?
Photos abound of faces contorted in rage and hatred; bodies twisted in portrayals of mockery; acts of violence against the freedom of the press. But there are also images of survival and hope such as the one of The Unknown Protestor, and the one of Mary Ann Vecchio that begins this post. Perhaps both types will motivate you to the same actions.
I feel the need to cry out and plead for us all to nurture our moral engagement, promote the moral engagement of others, and allow that moral engagement to compel us into political engagement on behalf of the grandest moral principle of all—the Golden Rule. Find the candidates who support love, not hate; truth, not lies; peace, not war; social justice, not discrimination. Regardless of any sense of disillusionment or hopelessness that might cause you to hesitate to vote, do your best to find the most worthy candidates, vote for them, and use all you have learned to prepare to do even better in the next election.
This is YOUR vote to cast. Your moral engagement to act upon.
As Linda Dupre urged in her comment on my last blog post: VOTING MATTERS!