Humanity

I have a friend in the middle east too and my heart goes out. She has suspected for quite some time that her husband has been unfaithful to her. She recently got a hold of his cell phone and put all the suspicions to rest. There it was, all the love letters in the modern-day form of text messages. Unfortunately, in her culture, there is not much recourse for her. Women in her culture are not much more than property, with little or no voice. I hurt for her. She is a very sweet person with two daughters and a dream of happiness that we all have. She doesn’t fit the mold of her culture, submissive, and silent. She is an iconoclast of sorts, bucking the system because she knows that women have rights around the world simply because they are human beings. My friendship with her has made me look at American women differently. I see how strong women are here, and rightly so. Not because of gender, but because of their humanity. It saddens me to see around the world how women are treated like possessions and not treasured gifts. We all are gifts in one way or another, to someone. We live in a society that allows us to be anything we desire. I guess we take that for granted until we see how others live or are stifled by theirs. I know there has been injustice here too, I’m not blind to it. We have come a long way, and the journey is far from over. Martin Luther King exhorted us not to judge a person by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. That is such wisdom. It can be applied to everyone or any “group” that may be different from we are. And hopefully, they will apply it to us too. We are all very different, yet we are so much the same. As individuals, we bring different gifts to the table. But it will be a better world if we come to the table of humanity humble, and willing to learn from each other. Well as usual I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent. I am not an expert on woman’s rights, or human right’s for that matter. I simply believe that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Are you living the dream?