Thoughts and Prayers

I never offer my prayers. It’s not that I’m anti-religion, it’s mostly that I feel that the phrase is a cop-out. What does it accomplish? If I let them know that my thoughts and support are with them, they can understand that I stand with them. Offering prayers seems too late and what if they don’t really want my prayers. The bad thing already happened.

Quite frankly, even thoughts seem too weak. Better than thoughts would be actions. What can I do to affect change? What can I do to help? What can I do to raise awareness? Thoughts and prayers are passive. When something happens in our world that stirs the thousands of “thoughts and prayers” comments, it is something big… something emotional… often something horrible.

Can you imagine the effect of thousands of people taking action versus millions of people offering “thoughts and prayers”? Before anyone thinks that I’m telling you that I am perfect, I stand up as offender. I might not offer prayers, but I stand in with the thousands who fail to act.

As I watched the tragedy in New Zealand, I realized that I am part of the problem. They survived and they took action. In a very short period of time, I watched them grieve and then turn that grief into a call to action. Not only did they call for action, they implemented it. So, far all the people who hold New Zealand up as an example of the United State’s failure, I simply remind you why we fail to take action. I pledge to try for action instead of passivity.

Action can take many forms. For the introverts of the world, we don’t suddenly have to become national spokes people, with bull horns and big gestures. We can quietly find candidates who support our actions and put our support behind those categories. We can join marches to show the people already in power that there are thousands demanding change. We can use the mediums that we excel at – art, writing, dance, song, etc… to educate. We are power if we all act in our own way.