United

I’m borrowing the title for this blog post from a yet unreleased original song by the same name. In fact, it is the chorus lyrics in this song that have inspired this post. The song was written, music and lyrics, by an up-and-coming Australian singer/songwriter who was classically trained on the piano for ten years and recently decided to stretch his love of music to all genres. His name is Dom La Ferlita. His originals (all instrumental) are available on Spotify. Recordings of his covers of songs can be found on You Tube. And you’ll find me occasionally sharing his original music here because I feel that other ears need to experience it.

It is almost the 20th anniversary of the events of 9/11 – and anyone who was alive at that time will ne’er forget the events, nor the actions and reactions in the days and months that followed.

And united we were after that fateful day. No division by race, color, gender, sexual preference, political party preference – just Americans who came together to fight against terrorists who sought to take down our great country. If you remember what followed, then you remember that we joined hands, did what we could, didn’t think about refusing to help someone of a different race, etc.

I’ve said more than once, and maybe even in a past blog post here, that seeing our country so truly divided makes me wonder if we need another “kick in the butt” to wake up and realize that we, as the song lyrics say, “all have the same blood in our veins”. It’s actually that line that hit me the last time I heard the song.

If, hypothetically, you needed a blood transfusion to save your life, would you honestly CARE about race, color, sexual or political preference of the donor whose blood you are receiving? If you needed an organ donation and one became available to you, would you turn it down if you knew the donor was of a different race, religion, culture, etc.? HELL, NO! Why then, if you are willing to accept blood or an organ or, in some way, the gift of life without thought to from where it comes, do you otherwise hold people who are ‘different’ than you in some regard as ‘inferior’ or with ‘less value’???

I live every day with a little niggling fear inside me that our country is more susceptible to an outside attack than we were 20 years ago. We are so divided, and we’ve added political division to the list of ways we’ve always been divided. If we don’t figure out – and soon – how to “live and let live”, we have only ourselves to blame for what happens to us and to our country in our future. It took me a long while after the events of 9/11 to feel safe enough again to go back to living life. I don’t know if I have the energy to do that again!

Please, I beg of everyone, it’s time to accept that we are all different in many ways, but we all choose to live our lives in the places where we are, and peace can only be truly found when we learn to co-exist despite those differences! I can’t wait until this song gets released….and you have my promise that I will put a link to it here, and on all of my social media, in the hopes that more people will listen and ask themselves if they need to be more accepting of their fellow human! Remember, first and foremost, we are the HUMAN RACE!

Thoughts?