ALL PEOPLE, ALL THE TIME, NO EXCEPTIONS
If we were required to state one theme that World Oceans Arts and I would raise on our banner for 2019, I think it would be Respect for the Dignity of All People. Most organized religions on our planet proclaim that the Supreme Being(s) will always insist that people choose kindness over cruelty, life over death, respect over mockery, help over dismissal, generosity over selfishness, peace over violence. Even most people who claim to have no spiritual beliefs would echo these choices, at least in theory. Unfortunately, we as a world society often forget these choices and exhibit the wrong behavior towards one another.
As I heard Greg Cole state recently, non-violence must be an action of both the body and the soul or spirit. We cannot proclaim to love others if our physical actions proclaim hatred. We cannot truly exhibit physical respect for others if, in our minds, we allow ourselves to hate them enough to taunt them. Greg is Executive Director of Emmaus House in Atlanta, one of many worthy organizations who try to help people in severe need to raise themselves up. Poverty, ignorance, persecution and crime will never go away if we allow people on the lower rungs of society to be trapped there in despair. Even those of us who cannot afford a single dollar or an hour of our time to help others can certainly afford a moment to ask whether our minds are in the right place.
I experienced a pinnacle of the quest for mutual respect in 1963 on the National Mall, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When I see young people make fun of Native Americans, or hear people who feel wronged wish for death or retribution toward their adversaries, it makes me sad. We have had thousands of years -- or probably more like two million years -- to learn to get along with one another, to not only pretend respect but to actually feel it and live it. If there is one thing the arts can always do, and always has done, it is to wake people up. We learn much of what we know about love, beauty, dignity, cooperation and truth from the arts. Very few humans have never been inspired by a song or a book, a painting or a dance or a photo or a ceremony.
Perhaps this is the time for us to think about oceans. The oceans belong to everyone, because they are not specifically owned by anyone. At World Oceans Arts, let's think of mutual respect in the same way. Everyone has a right to be respected and live in dignity, because those values do not belong only to certain people.
----James Gibson, Artistic Director
If we were required to state one theme that World Oceans Arts and I would raise on our banner for 2019, I think it would be Respect for the Dignity of All People. Most organized religions on our planet proclaim that the Supreme Being(s) will always insist that people choose kindness over cruelty, life over death, respect over mockery, help over dismissal, generosity over selfishness, peace over violence. Even most people who claim to have no spiritual beliefs would echo these choices, at least in theory. Unfortunately, we as a world society often forget these choices and exhibit the wrong behavior towards one another.
As I heard Greg Cole state recently, non-violence must be an action of both the body and the soul or spirit. We cannot proclaim to love others if our physical actions proclaim hatred. We cannot truly exhibit physical respect for others if, in our minds, we allow ourselves to hate them enough to taunt them. Greg is Executive Director of Emmaus House in Atlanta, one of many worthy organizations who try to help people in severe need to raise themselves up. Poverty, ignorance, persecution and crime will never go away if we allow people on the lower rungs of society to be trapped there in despair. Even those of us who cannot afford a single dollar or an hour of our time to help others can certainly afford a moment to ask whether our minds are in the right place.
I experienced a pinnacle of the quest for mutual respect in 1963 on the National Mall, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When I see young people make fun of Native Americans, or hear people who feel wronged wish for death or retribution toward their adversaries, it makes me sad. We have had thousands of years -- or probably more like two million years -- to learn to get along with one another, to not only pretend respect but to actually feel it and live it. If there is one thing the arts can always do, and always has done, it is to wake people up. We learn much of what we know about love, beauty, dignity, cooperation and truth from the arts. Very few humans have never been inspired by a song or a book, a painting or a dance or a photo or a ceremony.
Perhaps this is the time for us to think about oceans. The oceans belong to everyone, because they are not specifically owned by anyone. At World Oceans Arts, let's think of mutual respect in the same way. Everyone has a right to be respected and live in dignity, because those values do not belong only to certain people.
----James Gibson, Artistic Director
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