COALITION BUILDING

Last week I saw a televised segment in which the person being interviewed postulated how we could change the world for the better if we taught our children the meaning of peace, acceptance and tolerance, while sitting around the dinner table. I could not help but feel that this was the way for all of us, not just for parents and children. As we approach the New Year…new beginnings and the end of old and outdated ways of being in the world, it is more important now, than ever before, that we dedicate ourselves to a new sense of coalition building.

What do we stand to gain when we build these new coalitions? We create a sense of unity and solidarity, but one that eschews any sense of elitism or separatism. This new coalition is one built upon inclusiveness and is an invitation to embrace the things we all have in common as human beings. Those beliefs we all share are greater than the differences that divide us. Our unique individualities are not something which we need fear, but are the legacy that makes us human.

This banding together is not meant to be a weapon with which we arm ourselves against the dogma of disparagement. We win more acceptance and understanding when we demonstrate our openness to diversity…when we can embrace ways of being in the world that may be strange and unfamiliar to us. We encourage that diversity as we also try to educate others that we, too, are deserving of OUR way of being in the world. Our numbers swell when we allay perceived, but unreal, threats. Others can see our sincerity of purpose and our authenticity of action. They FEEL a palpable sense of community and we experience a sense of shared possibilities. Divisiveness cannot survive when the fields of hate are barren. I have often cited the syllogism of hate. The root is an inability to understand and a failure to communicate. We plant the seeds of fear when we are confronted with the new and the different and make no effort towards understanding. That fear inexorably leads to hate and hate to violence.

The way to break the cycle is to make every effort to understand that which stands outside our sphere of comprehension. If we direct our wills towards the dreams, hopes and aspirations we all share, towards the paradigms of peace, tolerance and forbearance…if we can visualize a world without classism, elitism and disdain, one for another, we CAN create a world in which all sentient beings may concentrate on what Jung called individuation…the act of truly becoming oneself. This, in turn, establishes the grounds for a community, a society and a world in which each and every person is allowed to be a vibrant and organic being, to fulfill their own destiny, and to celebrate their uniqueness. The universe finds its wholeness, paradoxically, through the expression of diversity.

We are at a crossroads…you and I and the world. The new kind of coalition we desperately need and seek is within our grasp. We can spread the gospel of peace, inclusion and tolerance as we teach our children, and ourselves, the true meaning of coalition building. It begins at the dinner table and spreads its light throughout the universe!

trickster 108