Ordinary Folk

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..." 
~Charles Dickens, 1849. 

Over the course of the last twenty years or so, in what I can assume would be the summation of my 'adult' life, there has been a pattern of growing complacency tempered severely with outrage in regards to the world at large; disunity, terrorism, fear, apathy... a jumbled juxtaposition of life, often oxymoronic in its particulars. It seems that many believe that we are living in extraordinary times, that we consider social contentions and striking out as some novel idea simply because we are living it now. There is considerable arrogance in assuming that what we face as a nation or as part of a global community is unique to us because it's happening NOW... that we are somehow more educated, more philosophical, more tolerant, more broad minded than any previous generation. I've pondered quite a bit recently on what others have said about the adversities they faced. And here you go:

William Wilberforce (1759-1833) spent twenty years campaigning against the British slave trade, the story of hundreds of years of putrid conditions and the foulest of sins

against human beings. 

"To live our lives and miss that great purpose we were designed to accomplish is truly a sin. It is inconceivable that we could be bored in a world with so much wrong to tackle, so much ignorance to reach and so much misery we could alleviate."

"I am disturbed when I see the majority of so-called Christians having such little understanding of the real nature of the faith they profess. Faith is a subject of such importance that we should not ignore it because of the distractions or the hectic pace of our lives."

"I mean not to accuse any one, but to take the shame upon myself, in common, indeed, with the whole parliament of Great Britain, for having suffered this horrid trade to be carried on under their authority. We are all guilty—we ought all to plead guilty, and not to exculpate ourselves by throwing the blame on others; and I therefore deprecate every kind of reflection against the various descriptions of people who are more immediately involved in this wretched business."

"Is it not the great end of religion, and, in particular, the glory of Christianity, to extinguish the malignant passions; to curb the violence, to control the appetites, and to smooth the asperities of man; to make us compassionate and kind, and forgiving one to another; to make us good husbands, good fathers, good friends; and to render us active and useful in the discharge of the relative social and civil duties?"

Elie Wiesel (1928-2016), Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. The way this history is bandied about these days as a means to an end in arguing both for and against whatever a party stands for, I'll leave it to Mr. Wiesel.

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death."

"... if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices... We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere... When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must- at that moment- become the center of the universe."

"My greatest disappointment is that I believe that those of us who went through the war and tried to write about it, about their experience, became messengers. We have given the message, and nothing changed."

Simon Wiesenthal (1908-2005), Holocaust survivor.

"For me the Holocaust was not only a Jewish tragedy, but also a human tragedy. After the war, when I saw that the Jews were talking only about the tragedy of six million Jews, I sent letters to Jewish organizations asking them to talk also about the millions of others who were persecuted with us together - many of them only because they helped Jews."

"Hatred can be nurtured anywhere, idealism can be perverted into sadism anywhere. If hatred and sadism combine with modern technology the inferno could erupt anew anywhere."

"The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat. So information is a defence. Through this we can build, we must build, a defence against repetition."

"There were millions of such families anxious only for peace and quiet in their own little nests. These were the mounting blocks by which the criminals climbed to power and kept it."

"For your benefit, learn from our tragedy. It is not a written law that the next victims must be Jews. It can also be other people."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1908-1945), theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who lost his life for his beliefs and outspokenness.

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

"Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear... Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now."

"We must finally stop appealing to theology to justify our reserved silence about what the state is doing -- for that is nothing but fear. 'Open your mouth for the one who is voiceless' -- for who in the church today still remembers that that is the least of the Bible's demands in times such as these?"

"We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself."

Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), former British Prime Minister.

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is always what it takes to sit down and listen."

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), minister and civil rights activist

"Nonviolence means avoiding not only the external and physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him."

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous that sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

A couple more: Mr. Rogers and J.R.R Tolkien