June 2016 – Thinking Moon

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” Robert Frost – Mending Wall

Borders & Walls

Our borders are slowly closing. Fear is taking over nations. As the final day of campaigning takes place for Britain regarding their European Union membership, those of us in Ireland watch, hoping for a remain majority.

Although economically we need Britain, something that grids are the possibility of a renewed boarded with Northern Ireland. With a British exit, this probable border would become inevitable. Yet this is also happening on a global scale, borders are becoming tighter and more complex.

We are letting those who terrorize us control us. Britain leaving the EU would be a backward step for the world, not only economically but socially, and with the advent of a possible president in Donald Trump for the United States, our resolve is waning.

This is what they want. They want to create fear, they want us to be divided. We are allowing fear to rule our lives and this cannot happen. There is much to fear about the world, sometimes so much so that my heart can hardly bear the burden. Yes, we need to be more secure, yes we need to be creative about how we keep our loved ones safe, but not at the expense of shutting the rest of the world out.

Today would have been MP Jo Cox 42nd birthday. Her death is indicative of a fear of progress, a fear of those different to us, and a fear of letting love in. Advancements cannot be made if countries such as Britain close their borders to those of us who believe that the world should be getting smaller, not bigger. MP Jo Cox was murdered brutally, it close and personal, not by a bomb, but by a knife and gun.

I don’t wish to make it appear as if this tragedy should be used to campaign for the remainder, I’m simply explaining that the world is full of terror that often comes from our own neighborhoods, but this doesn’t stop us from leaving our houses in the morning.

If we keep building borders, then peace will never flourish. Those that are now in their millions displaced will continue to perish, without the hope of welcoming arms. Once again I turn to Frost:

“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,”

I plead to Great Britain, please vote to remain, and I plead to the United States of America, please vote for a president that will not build more walls, either literally or metaphorically.

If you liked this post, why not check out my last one?

https://thinkingaheadblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/14/dear-orlando/

If you haven’t already, read Robert Frost’s full poem Mending Wall here:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44266

Dear Orlando…

I promised myself I wouldn’t hate. Everything I read about the Orlando shootings stirs powerful feelings within me. I’m very emotional, and in the midst of those emotions, I would not let hatred or wrath rule. There is no room for it, we need to feel the sorrow and realise that we feel it because we love.

We are the ones who love, we are the ones who want freedom for all, we are the ones who are watching these senseless tragedies and asking, “how and why,” because we give love and receive love.

So I promised instead to focus on that love so that I don’t shy away from the world, and while it makes me sorrowful that some people are afraid to simply walk down the street holding the hand of the person they love, I won’t hate the people who oppose them. I will feel sorrow and understand that it reflects my own inner constitution of tolerance, acceptance, and love.

Please, if you do walk down the street holding hands with your loved one, do it with the knowledge that I and countless others will your freedom to do so. Let us be defiant of these acrimonious people together, and instead of hate and fear, let us, love. I’ll say it again, forget hate, forget fear, remember and feel love.

If you liked this post, why not check out my last one?

https://thinkingaheadblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/03/food-its-surrounding-issues-an-introduction/