Imagine there’s no Heaven

It’s easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will live as one

In the world we live in we have shrunk our global neighborhood with the advancement of technology. We can reach anyone in the world via the internet and travel to any country we desire as easily as we travel through the United States. In many ways, this has been very positive. We have gained understanding of all cultures and enjoy many experiences.

But in a time that reminds me of the upheaval of the 1960′s I have to ask, are we any more tolerant than we were then? We see horrific war time drama played out in the news daily. Our country is going through growing pains again in huge spurts. This is not new. The other night I was watching a documentary of the 1960-1970s. We had three major assassinations (President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King) within such a short time we didn’t have the ability to grieve them individually. Then we had riots in Watts, unrest at Kent State and Wounded Knee along with another “unpopular” war in Viet Nam. The daily news displayed the horrific drama of war and these are only a few highlights of those two decades. And when we today are unsettled by the gas prices I am reminded that in 1976 I was pregnant in mid-summer waiting in a gas line that ran for blocks hoping to get enough gas to fuel up. That gas station had a list of customers and if you were not on the list you didn’t get gas.

I started to fall into the fatalistic emotions that these are the “worst of times” when I realized we have been here before and grew and learned. And we will again. But this time I am more aware of the political unrest as now I personally know German nationals, naturalized citizens and find that my family and friends are a huge a melting pot of ethnicity and religion. So when I hear someone I know criticizing another group I wonder, why? When I was in Germany I sat in the home of friends and listened to them tell me all the things that are wrong with America. But when I wanted to talk about the affects of Nazism well, that was different because I was told they didn’t live then and didn’t want to be responsible for that part of their history.

Then I met naturalized citizens who have chosen to become Americans, took the oath, denounce their prior citizenship only they still have emotions about their “mother” (or father) country so dual citizenship in theory is harder than I understand. It started in the 1980s when I had people from Viet Nam in my home for dinner from there I met Japanese, Chinese, Greek, Native American and African friends along with the German friends we have gained. Now I have broaden that out to Pakistani and Hispanic and shoot I don’t know how many others ethnicities! Because it simply isn’t important, what is important is every person I am a friend to or related to I love them for their diversity and cultural differences. So why the discord, I think of my friends from Germany and how I do not want to be held accountable for things I did not do, decisions I did not make. Nor judge others for their beliefs. When I receive emails that are right wing, left wing I am not mad, I am thankful we live in a country everyone has a right to speak up and say what they want to. What I don’t want, what I can’t agree with, is blaming. Blaming has become the air we breathe, it has got to be someone’s fault so let’s blame someone, anyone.

Being the “old Hippie” I am I do believe that we can live in the world that John Lennon describes above. And like he said, “you say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one……..and the world will live as one.

Cultural Diversity, hmmm….

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