A bullet zinged by his ear and our world was shaken.
When we saw Donald Trump carried off the stage with blood on his face we got nervous. What could not happen, did happen.
It is a time for soothing words. Here are some of those words.
“If you can keep your head about you when others are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowances for their doubting too.”
— From the poem ‘IF’ by Rudyard Kipling
“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. Do not distress yourself with dark imagining. Many fears are born of fear and loneliness.
And whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. In the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all the sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful, strive to be happy.”
— Desiderata by Max Ehrmann
“A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again, but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is truth called wise.”
— Buddha
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”
— From the “I Have A Dream Speech,” Martin Luther King Jr.
“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have been strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory in every human heart all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when touched by the better angels of our nature.”
— Abraham Lincoln.
“Love your enemies.”
— Jesus
“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom- and that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
— From the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln
“To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands, with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, let me forget about today until tomorrow, far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.”
— Bob Dylan, from Mr.Tambourine Man.
Dennis Gregory writes a bi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com.