Happy December, everyone! Guest coach at Coach's Corner coming up! In the meantime, after the uptick in anti Semitism, and the very public forum that it is being given, seems a prescient time to recall the words of South African anti apartheid activist and 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Bishop Desmond Tutu:" If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."To be clear, silence is complicity. Silence is not 'doing no harm.' How many times, in situations of abuse, have we heard that the victim was told to, 'Shut the f#$% up." Unsee what they had seen, detach from what they had experienced, keep quiet about the abuse, about the injustice... and then maybe they could save themselves. But it does not work like that. Once one surrenders one's integrity, once one turns away, the cancer of the abuser spreads to them, and allows the malignancy to grow unfettered. Speak up, act up, call out. The only way to excise the cancer of bigotry is by shining light on it and refusing to be deterred. Call out the double speak, as in Putin's shameful appropriation of the term 'Nazification' to detract from his unprovoked assault on Ukraine. Speak up for fairness and for transparency. Battle fear with kindness, compassion and inclusion. Do not relax with the word, "tolerant". To tolerate something is to inhabit the purgatory of apathy. Some things are black and white.As Lin-Manuel Miranda so beautifully said, "Love is love is love is love is love..." so it is with truth.If this incarnation is it, make it count. If your faith decrees our endeavors here dictate our next, accrue some good karma. It is not only history that holds heroism. We, every day have a chance to be heroic and to live a life of truth, and purpose. You write your history with how you live your life. Be a legend.
One Love xo