#RWISA “RISE-UP” TOUR, DAY 12, @PURSOOT #RRBC #RRBC_COMMUNITY

If we stand united by our humanity, a whisper of hope becomes a roar.

Have you ever asked yourself what you would do to make this world a much better place if money and time were not barriers in your life?

I have.

Many of my dreams for the future, are based on my unerring certainty that someday we’ll be united as a species.

I must hold on to that certainty. Am I simply impossibly optimistic? Perhaps. How did I come to be that way?

I’ve walked more than a mile in the shoes of people who found themselves devoid of hope.

I’ve lived the soul-destroying life of the homeless. The streets of any city anywhere in the world all resound with the echoes of their muttered despair.

Those streets are cold, hard, places to be. I’ve watched on in helpless rage as older folks succumbed to the winter cold, no longer physically or emotionally able to endure yet another season of deprivation. I’ve huddled around a fire burning in a forty-four-gallon drum, exposing my eleven-year-old self to the company of strangers. Strangers who shuffled around and made room for me in their circle.

I’ve slept in doorways and in rat-infested shells of buildings ready for demolition.

I’ve experienced the gut gnawing hunger of despair.

We as a species are bombarded by the images of man’s inhumanity to man. Everywhere you turn the media in all its forms will use a battering ram against your tolerance levels. Until you are wrung out by the ugliness of it and find yourself becoming desensitized to all that pain. You may find yourself disconnecting from it. You try to protect yourself, wrapping your emotional firewalls around you like a security blanket.

Perhaps it’s because you feel so powerless to change any of it.

But you aren’t powerless. You have the opportunity to alter your environment. How? What can one person possibly do? Perhaps the simplest way to make a contribution to changing that harsh reality is to open your eyes and take a long look around at your immediate surroundings.

Why is that child four houses down wearing shorts and a tee-shirt to school in the midst of a cold winter? Do you say nothing, only to feel overwhelming guilt when a tragedy unfolds? A tragedy that could have been prevented if only someone, somewhere had asked a question.

Your neighbor’s front garden has been untended for weeks when it had once been her pride and joy. Is she unwell? Has anyone seen her recently? Ask the unasked questions.

Are we going to make a difference by speaking up? Hell yes. I know it from personal experience. My life’s journey altered its path because a total stranger looked into my eyes and asked me if I was okay. It was the first time another human being had ever asked me the question. More importantly for me, she listened to my answer.

It was the beginning of me recognizing that kindness still existed. More importantly, it was the start of me learning to dream of a life not tainted by the dark tragic embers of despair, but resplendent in the warm glow colored by hope.

Together our voices would cease to be a vaguely heard whisper. If we stand united the volume of sound we generate will become a roar.

Reconnect with your humanity. You can make a difference.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  ~ Unknown

~RWISA Author, Suzanne Burke

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Thank you for dropping by today’s RWISA “RISE-UP” stop.  We hope that the message contained here has moved you in some way to RISE UP and do something; one small change could impact the life of another without you even knowing it.  Don’t just sit around talking about the problem, be part of the solution.  It doesn’t take much when you decide that you are going to RISE UP!

Click HERE to follow along with the rest of the tour.