It is time for those of us who want to live in communities rooted in peace and compassion to take powerful action to create those communities, to create that world.

It is time for us to take a stand – not AGAINST weapons and fear-mongering and environmental hazard and political and corporate abuse – but take a powerful stand FOR the world we want.

It is time for the most powerful voices not to be those of tribalism and scarcity, but the powerful voice of standing for what our humanity makes possible.

It is time to move beyond the fear and greed and reactivity that we share with the animal world. My dog can react in fear. My dog can fight or flee. The ability to hold a gun or detonate a bomb is no different than the ability to bare teeth.

It is time to take a powerful stand for what makes us human…

To take a stand for our uniquely human sense of connectedness to something bigger than ourselves – something we cannot see or touch but that we know is not only there, but is more important and more powerful than our individual lives.

To take a stand for our capacity to consciously de-program our instincts and re-program new instincts – free will.

To take a stand for our ability to imagine things that do not currently exist – to invent, to create something from nothing but our imaginations, to envision the future, to envision what is possible.

To take a stand for our combined capacity for empathy, compassion, logic and reason, imagination.

It is time to move beyond the ridiculous notion that this is our “softer side.” It is time for us to see that our humanity is our power. 

It is time to move beyond the ridiculous notion that such a world is utopian. It is time for us to know – unequivocally, without reservation and with absolute authority – that the reason we sense such a world is possible is because it is.

It is time to move beyond reacting to what we don’t want in the world – ending poverty or war.It is time to create the world we do want.

It is time to move beyond lamenting and hand-wringing and watching the news in despair. It is time to stop leaving it to others, reading inspirational blog posts and wishing there were something more we can do.

Each and every one of us is being called to move this world beyond fear.

Each and every one of us is being called to Stand Up – to take positive, proactive, powerful steps to BE the world we want. To advocate for societal systems that reflect our humanity as our day-to-day reality. To move our leaders beyond assumptions that are rooted in a scarcity that simply does not exist. To vote and speak and write letters, advocating for what our humanity makes possible. To volunteer and participate with those who are working towards what is possible – those who are moving beyond reacting to what is wrong.

Each of us is being called to powerfully move our own lives towards the compassion we want to see in others. To move beyond condemning and blaming and stereotyping and to move towards finding common ground.

Each and every one of us is being called to be the humans we have the potential to be.

Right now. It is time.

-Hildy Gottlieb