I first posted this blog August 1, 2014 and then in again in September of that year and now it needs to be posted again When are we ever going to learn? (I wrote the poem in 1995 and it is still relevant.) 

Do you remember a post where I mentioned that a marriage counselor once told me I think too much? Well, you know, he may have been right after all. It seems to me that more of us should do more thinking. I don’t mean random, willy-nilly, helter-skelter thoughts, but deep down, deliberate thoughts that lead to changes in the way we see ourselves and others; the way we see our world and the way we live in it.

In 1995 I wrote this poem called The Victim. It’s about crimes and war and unsound government, and the entire world possibly becoming victim to all of these things. And then thinking about the poem in a new light, I realized that it’s not only crimes and wars and unsound government that hurt people, but the way we treat each other on a daily basis. The sad part of all of this is the take heed part. If we don’t take heed, nothing changes, and if we do?

THE VICTIM

People dead

before their time,

victims

of some heinous crime.

Callous killers,

world’s worst foes,

victims

of God only knows.

Wars created

through sheer greed,

victims

of abnormal need.

Governments

whose rule a hoax,

victims

of the peoples’ votes.

Our planet Earth,

soon indigent,

victim

of our ignorance.

World, take heed!

The time has come

for remedy

lest you become

the victim.

©1995

When I stop and think about it, I don’t mind being the victim of too much thought. Please join me; let’s help make the world a better place by looking at the way we think, and changing what needs to be changed. Only by recognizing that our part in global destruction may begin in our own thought patterns, the thoughts we hold about ourselves and each other, may we be a part of the solution.

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement…Romans 12:3