| Working for human rights | Dec 10, ‘07 11:17 AM for everyone |
12/10/07
Yesterday or the day before my online friend, humanrightsactivist, asked me how I worked for human rights. He did this in a nice way, after complimenting my photo of a Mayan ruin and saying he found me interesting, but the question set me to thinking. Father Robin (his real name) is a Catholic priest in India.
The truth is I am not doing that much to further human rights. I support Amnesty International and the Southern Poverty Law Center with small yearly contributions; occasionally I send cards of encouragement to the prisoners of conscience AI discusses in its literature. I sign online petitions about Dar fur and detainees at Guantanamo. I have a copy of the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights in a file somewhere. Recently I posted a letter to one of my online groups about the increasingly hostile attitudes toward undocumented workers in the U.S.
I grieve a lot. I grieve about the way my own country, the United States, treated the Native American peoples early in our history; I grieve about the cruel institution of slavery that has been a part of our history from the beginning and about the racism that continues here today. I grieve about the dark side of religious faith that encourages or condones cruelty and murder.
I also recognize with the prophet Jeremiah that “the human heart is deceitful above all things” and so am committed to the ideal of non-violent action. At present the ground of my non-violent action is my own mind /heart which is why I have taken refuge in Buddhism. I believe that righteous indignation is an insufficient cause for action or judgment because of itself it does not confront the problem posed by Jeremiah the prophet: the deceitfulness of the human heart.
Jesus of Nazareth understood that problem.
Jesus quoted another prophet, Isaiah, when he announced his ministry: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed and qualified me to preach the Gospel of good tidings to the meek, the poor and the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up and heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive and the opening of the eyes to the blind. (Isaiah 61:1)
It may be that having a broken heart is a constant requirement for those desiring to work for human rights. In that case, I meet the requirement. Perhaps such work is the only possible healing open to the brokenhearted. There is so much to do in this heartbreaking world. Father Robin has inspired me to do more.
