Whose Responsibility is Awakened Action?

How much awakened action am I able to offer the world?

Mr. Rogers taught our children innumerable lessons of kindness, self-worth and love. Why are those messages that children were so receptive to and so benefited them, now so difficult for adults to hear? Can we not find the simple courage to remind ourselves that immigrant children are no different from our children? Would we wish any of what these children have experienced on children we know and love?

“Love is at the root of everything” wasn’t a dogmatic lament to soothe others’ temperaments or egos, or even Mr. Rogers’ personal belief. There is a visceral, felt, peaceful presence in one who is awakened to who he is spiritually. It shows up as an inherent kindness, a quiet, slow and constant attention to that to which he or she is present.

While noticed, felt and lived as real, that awakened presence never shouts or demands or even calls attention to itself. It just lives in each of us, ceaselessly, constantly. When one identifies with that presence as being who he/she is, everything in the world changes, though on the surface everything remains the same.

An effect of an awakened presence is that one knows him/herself to be all others, not rhetorically, but literally. This is where Mr. Rogers’ care for children originated.

If we acknowledge it, our relationship to these immigrant children is no different than Mr. Rogers’ felt understanding of his relationship to children.

Immigration policy has many solutions for those who care to think well and listen to their inner voices. Compassionate courage is also required, a quality distinctly lacking in the methodologies recently employed by this administration.

Am I suppressing that which I know myself to be?

How much awakened action am I able to offer the world?