EMPATHY

EMPATHY © ARC June 6, 2016 @ 2:00 P.M.


I may be 75, but it seems like yesterday:
helping Mom walk with polio crippled feet;
watching her cry as she told of first baby’s death;
seeing the pennies, nickels, dimes grow in canning jars;
riding with family on daddy’s day off to lake/ice cream treat.

I loved rare visits to first generation family in nearby state:
grandmom never learned English/spoke Sicilian dialect;
Mom’s eleven siblings birthed awesome cousins;
love, comradery, laughter, familial pride, were abundant;
encouraged by all: be best Americans with high intellect.

My eldest brother was sick with rheumatic heart fever:
second too had problems, but third and me were well;
followed: younger sister, brother, 2 miscarriages, last retarded joy;
mom admonished those who grieved: God had good reason;
I witnessed after birth prejudicial neighbors turned from hell.

EMPATHY transformed prejudice to acceptance:
they put on the `cloak’ of what if it was them;
and that’s when I understood divine mystery;
evil was allowed so that choice could be free;
re-occurring: those who love, those who condemn.

I was grateful immigrant ancestors made it in time:
they were around to applaud the social programs;
I helped mom walk to welfare office for relief;
made to feel humiliated and ashamed of our faith;.
uncles in war embroiled in holocaust and pogroms.

Now, once again, I watch a volatile political battle:
ones who rancor the loudest have the least empathy;
the irony is not lost on me – remind me of childhood;
profess a faith that is opposite of what they preach;
it’s the attitude of conquer/slavery – manifest destiny.

A white Anglo Saxon man is leading the charge:
spews prejudicial, misanthropic, chauvinistic pomposity;
like Hitler hypnotizing his volatile lemmings;
sans leaders with no backbone to stand up;
analogy Emperor With No Clothes: ludicrosity.

I pray, use talent to educate and speak out:
ladies and gentlemen, I implore you to assume the other;
visualize what if it was you: immigrant, minority, poor;
can you see yourself as a different sex or color;
loving neighbor as self; as your sister and brother.

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