03-25-2017, 06:38 PM
Thank you for sharing Nicholas. I think that's another key point to this dynamic. My heart is so saddened to think about how refugees and immigrants feel when they witness the rhetoric from closed-border nationalists. There is such a sense of rejection and uncaring from that culture, no matter how well-intentioned it can be.
Imagine how powerful a message it sends to say, "Yes, you seem to be different, you have a different culture, you may have different values, you come from a different land and you look different - but we welcome you and want to help you anyways."
Not every single refugee will be moved by such sentiment - in the dog analogy, not every dog with behavior problems can be cured by love and kind attention alone - but such sentiment creates an environment of healing and love which can be extremely transformational for everyone involved.
(I really can't help but feel more than a little uncomfortable in using the analogy of dogs to refugees, but I do think there is truth in the similarity of the dynamics, at least when it concerns the open heart.)
Imagine how powerful a message it sends to say, "Yes, you seem to be different, you have a different culture, you may have different values, you come from a different land and you look different - but we welcome you and want to help you anyways."
Not every single refugee will be moved by such sentiment - in the dog analogy, not every dog with behavior problems can be cured by love and kind attention alone - but such sentiment creates an environment of healing and love which can be extremely transformational for everyone involved.
(I really can't help but feel more than a little uncomfortable in using the analogy of dogs to refugees, but I do think there is truth in the similarity of the dynamics, at least when it concerns the open heart.)
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The only frontier that has ever existed is the self.
The only frontier that has ever existed is the self.