Taking Action.
Easy with the small frog in the living room.
Not with the big menace, Islamism, political Islam.
Elsa's diary blogs, blog journals on life.

It was easy to
give the mother cat
a home to raise
her kittens.


It will also be easy
taking action
to find homes
for the kittens.

But much more
is needed,
beyond
the easy stuff.

A tiny frog in the living room
vs massive Islamism

I've been thinking ... on how easy it can be to carry through with an immediate small thing - like when a small frog showed up in the living room a couple of nights ago.

... and on how hard it can be to know what to do when confronted by something as huge as Islam's growing presence in the West and the many pressures against Western freedoms.

First, the tiny frog in the living room.

It was supper time for the cats. I called them. One didn't come. I heard a meow in the living room. Was the cat sick? Hurt? Another meow, an urgent one.

I quickly went to see what it was. No, the cat wasn't sick. A small creature jumped. The cat wanted to pounce. I was quicker than he was. I grabbed him, locked him in the kitchen with the other cats.

My next task was clear: to get the little leaping thing outside. It was so tiny, less than an inch, bunched in a corner. The door to outside was over 10 feet away.

How to get such a tiny thing where I wanted it - outside? It took some experimenting - I'm no expert on getting froglets to move. It wouldn't leap into a container. I didn't want to injure it.

I finally figured out that if I lowered a sheet of paper behind it, it would leap the other way. I didn't stop once it was outside on the deck. If it didn't go further, the dogs might get it later. So I took care to get the froglet to hip hop off into the night.

Mission accomplished. A sense of accomplishment.

I wish dealing with Islamism, political Islam - call it what you like - were that easy.

Instead, lots of news. On the appointment of Saudi Arabia to a UN Committee on the Status of Women. On the sentencing to death for blasphemy, in Pakistan, of a 14-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome. On proposed hate laws to stop criticism of any religion (even if the religion is hateful toward other religions), though freedom to criticize any religion is vital to freedom of thought and expression.

This is not a matter of a little frog I can help out of the living room.

I've created an interview series - Personal Journeys Toward Difficult Truths -
but it's such a small thing.

I've also done a number of videos - on my vision of ethics, on thoughts on getting heard when speaking unpopular truths, on what I see happening in the West re Islam - but again, such small things.

I'd like to be convinced there's a quick and easy fix. But it's not good to underestimate what one is up against.

If there is a quick and easy fix, great. I know I can't count on it.

There's something else. The frog, tiny as it was, was visible. Islamism - in much of my world, it can't be seen. People wear what they're used to wearing, think what they're used to thinking.

How to choose what to do? So far, I've done what it feels right to do. It's never felt like enough. That hasn't stopped me from taking action. But it's so much harder for me, than with a hungry cat or an endangered froglet.

Elsa

August 30, 2012

PS. Sorry, no photos of the tiny froglet. I was too concerned with getting it safely back where it belonged, to stop, get my camera, and get photos.

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Taking action? Sometimes it's hard to know what to do.
Sometimes it's hard to feel what we do matters.
Taking action - easy when we can do something quickly.
And sometimes not easy at all.


To go from this blog journal on taking action,
to a blog on universal ethics, click here.


To go to a blog journal on taking action,
to the role of emotion in motivation,
click here.