Reflections/Jonathan Gramling
Stay Hopeful and Positive
Dawn Shegonee emailed a week or so ago to tell me about an exhibit on Call for Peace that was being displayed at the McFarland United Church of Christ. She wanted me to come out and take some photos because she felt that during this holiday period, that their message for world peace was an important message. Dawn has a way of being persistent and so I relented.
I was glad that Dawn was persistent because once I got to the church, it brought back so many good memories. José J. Madera had drummed for them along with Eddie from Atimevu. Cultures from the four corners of the world were represented, each giving way to the other to drum and dance and then also to play and dance in harmony with one another.
In these times when political forces are trying to divide us and pull us apart and even wonder what it does mean to be American, it is important to remember that we are all bound together by our common humanity.
I have been fortunate in my lifetime to have witnessed and experienced that truth of our common humanity. And in their own way, I feel that all of the religions of the world express this truism in their own way and form. As I was brought up a Catholic — and it being Christmastime — I will talk about the message of Jesus Christ. His message — and that of prophets from other religions — called for us to reach a higher level where it wasn’t just about me as an individual, but about us as a people. It called us to arise from our “dog-eat-dog” existence and to look out for one another. “love they neighbor as thyself.” The tale of the Good Samaritan taught us to care for strangers and people perhaps different from us.
It is this calling from Christianity and the other religions of the world to a higher existence that made modern civilization possible and still shapes the world we live in today.
During my lifetime of travels and 26 years in publishing multicultural newspapers, I have again witnessed this common humanity. I have been fortunate to have lived in Madison for most of my adult life for it contains innumerable portals to the world and the people who live within it. You just have to recognize the portals and not be afraid to walk through them.
Through my journalism, I often tell people that I am getting to know the human race one person at a time. And through this, I am able to recognize that gem that lies in all of us, that makes us who we are. And withing that individualism, there are the cultural and historical trends that impact their lives. We must understand and respect those trends as well. Everyone is not just like me and I celebrate that for I have only scratched the surface of the people of the world and the people who live within it.
And so in this time of reflection and hope, I hope we understand our common humanity and that good people are present in the cultural, racial, political, religious and other qualities that define us.
I was reminded about this by a story that Dr. Richard Harris told me. He talked about the origin of the South Madison Neighborhood Center, about how a conservative Republican congressman from Waukesha County had intervened with the powers that be so that the old army barracks at Truax could be hauled to the site of the present day Boys & Girls Club building on Taft Street and serve as the first iteration of the South Madison Neighborhood Center. That congressman’s name was Glenn Davis, an army buddy of my dad’s who fought together in World War II. And we would spend part of the Fourth of July at Glen’s home in Waukesha.
Madison was far away from the congressional district that Glenn represented both in terms of geography and political beliefs. And back then, I would guess that just a handful of Black families lived in Waukesha County. And yet, Glen interceded with the government so that the South Madison Neighborhood Center would have a home.
For me, that act is the calling of our world’s religions and holds the true meaning of Christmas.
Our modern society sets our sense of humanity to be divided and conquered for the benefit of a few. With social media and smart phones and all kinds of conveniences, we can live in our own little worlds unaware of the humanity around us. As I drive around the Madison area, I often see people walking around self-absorbed in whatever their cellphone is showing them at the moment and unaware of the humanity that surrounds them. In essence, they are closed off to the portals of humanity that surround them and choose to exist in a world of their making, susceptible to manipulation by actors within their world because they don’t have the real world experiences to counteract the stereotypes and negative imagery that invades their digital world.
And ultimately, that will lead to the destruction of America as a people. We will become a collection of individuals, which is no match for an organized effort from within or without.
And so during this holiday season, I hope that you will celebrate our diversity and reflect on the fact that there are good people with good intentions in all corners of the earth. And so we have to stop hating and thinking the worst and start entering those portals so that we can see our common humanity and live the lives that Jesus — and others — led us to in order to live in peace and harmony. Peace to all!