The power in Examples of great lives!

X – The power in eXamples of great lives!

Post #24 of the series: Instilling Social Equality in Children

As I was writing the post U on opportunistic forces  I dived so deep in my mind thinking what is that one thing which would stand tall against all the forces that want to divide us that I dozed off on the laptop’s lap. When I woke up to see the multiple random alphabets on the screen I had keyed in while dozing off, miraculously I spotted the word Bell.

From nowhere it rang a bell in me of one of Mark Nepo’s writings. It narrated how amidst the devastated state of Nagasaki in 1945, someone managed to crawl through the deads to reach the church bell. Ringing the bell was the first signal of hope and it was rung thrice everyday continuously to raise the collective spirit of people to get up and get going again; for we now know the magnificent resurrection of this land that would have seemed hopeless then, we should wonder at the power of, what is now called the Bell of Nagasaki

From the depth of this story that had brought tears in me years ago, there came the force to write about inspiring children to be united at the roots. As they grow up, no matter what comes their way to split the society, as long as their roots are healthy and connected, they will either not fall apart or will rise again even if they had to fall.

There’s a power, isn’t it, in the stories of great lives and revolutions?

I imagine children listening to such stories envisaging in their minds the struggle, grit, determination, and strength the then people should have developed that it could create histories for centuries to come.

Whenever time permits or as a daily routine, share with your children inspiring examples that have revolutionized the traditional thinking patterns of humans. Here are two that comes to my mind at the moment:

An inspiring read from Dr. Abdul Kalam’s life:

“….As Kalam recalled: “Every evening, my father A. P. Jainulabdeen, an imam, Pakshi Lakshmana Sastry, the head priest of the Ramanathaswamy Hindu temple, and a church priest used to sit with hot tea and discuss the issues concerning the island.” Such early exposure convinced Kalam that the answers to India’s multitudinous issues lay in “dialogue and cooperation” among the country’s religious, social, and political leaders. Moreover, since Kalam believed that “respect for other faiths” was one of the key cornerstones of Islam, he was fond of saying: “For great men, religion is a way of making friends; small people make religion a fighting tool.””

Some thoughts of Einstein:

“Einstein thought that patriotic zeal often became an excuse for violence: “As a citizen of Germany,” he wrote in 1947, “I saw how excessive nationalism can spread like a disease, bringing tragedy to millions.”

“His true allegiance was simply to the human race: I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever.”

“Einstein moved to the United States in 1933, after fleeing Nazi Germany. At the time he commented, “As long as I have any choice in the matter, I will live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law are the rule.””

Do you remember such inspiring words and stories you have read that you would like children to listen to? Please share!

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