Tag: education

The value of truth telling

The wounded child inside many men is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings.

The wounded child inside many women is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others.

When men and women punish each other for truth telling, we reinforce the notion that lies are better.

To be loving we willingly hear the other’s truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling.

Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.

– Bell Hooks

Continue – Maya Angelou

Continue

by Maya Angelou,

Even the Stars Look Lonesome

Into a world which needed you

My wish for you

Is that you continue

Continue

To be who and how you are

To astonish a mean world

With your acts of kindness

Continue

To allow humor to lighten the burden

of your tender heart

Continue

In a society dark with cruelty

To let the people hear the grandeur

Of God in the peals of your laughter

Continue

To let your eloquence

Elevate the people to heights

They had only imagined

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To remind the people that

Each is as good as the other

And that no one is beneath

Nor above you

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To remember your own young years

And look with favor upon the lost

And the least and the lonely

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To put the mantel of your protection

Around the bodies of

The young and defenseless

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To take the hand of the despised

And diseased and walk proudly with them

In the high street

Some might see you and

Be encouraged to do likewise

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To plant a public kiss of concern

On the cheek of the sick

And the aged and infirm

And count that as a

Natural action to be expected

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To let gratitude be the pillow

Upon which you kneel to

Say your nightly prayer

And let faith be the bridge

You build to overcome evil

And welcome good

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To ignore no vision

Which comes to enlarge your range

And increase your spirit

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To dare to love deeply

And risk everything

For the good thing

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To float

Happily in the sea of infinite substance

Which set aside riches for you

Before you had a name

Continue

And by doing so

You and your work

Will be able to continue

Eternally

[Image: The Way (circa 1950s) by German artist and illustrator Sulamith Wülfing (1901-1989 ).]

The Artist Wrote:

“To people attuned to my compositions, they may well be mirrors of their own experiences. It is because of this that I have left the explanation of the drawings completely to the viewer so that they are not bound by my interpretation of what each picture should be.”

The Smart Witch by Elizabeth

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