"The saddest, most grave crime of all, our resistance to change"

[kpete]

Freedom From Fear
Phyllis Kirk - Hollywood, California
As heard on The Bob Edwards Show, January 15, 2010

"The saddest, most grave crime of all, our resistance to change"

I believe that when we permit ourselves to fear, we negate the chance we are each given to contribute through the unique patterns of our respective lives to the meaning and validity of all life. I believe that in merely being alive we have a tremendous responsibility, and that the responsibility is not only to our separate selves but to one another.

I believe it is in fear that we commit the crimes of intolerance and prejudice and what seems to me to be perhaps the saddest, most grave crime of all, our resistance to change. Afraid, we fail to see that the change is the natural and good fruit of knowledge and growth. We cling to the familiar because it is familiar and seems, therefore, to be secure. We butcher the unfamiliar and slaughter justice with the same stroke. Frightened, we seek love only for ourselves and forget to search for love in ourselves. ...from Edward R. Murrow's 1950's series, "This I Believe," an excerpt from the essay by actress Phyllis Kirk, written when she was 25

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Kirk was a member of the ACLU and fought for civil rights in the 1950's, a time when that membership and those activities could cost you your job. Kirk's Hollywood studio did not like her politics. What's striking is not how dated her essay is, but how relevant today. Certainly with respect to indulging fears, we've regressed badly.


more:
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/16719/
http://prairieweather.typepad.com/big_blue_stem/2010/01/the-saddest-most-grave-crime-of-all-our-resistance-to-change.html

[HeresyLives]

1. Well, as Charles Darwin said:

"It's not the strongest of the species which survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change"

[FirstLight]

2. These are really powerful words...

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