Live not by lies.
A huge number of people are either forced to act like cowards or act like cowards without being forced or even asked to. They just look the other way and try to ignore what is happening…For all of us, the moment will come when we will realize that none of the things we achieved by looking the other way and keeping quiet mattered. The only moments that matter in life are the moments when we’re doing the right thing. When we don’t have to look the other way, when we can raise our eyes from the floor and look each other in the eye. Nothing else matters…I call on everyone to live not by lies. I know that it sounds naive, and there is a certain pleasure in laughing and grinning sarcastically as I say it. But there is no other way. There is no other solution for our country right now…I know for a fact that when they isolate and imprison me, another will take my place. Nothing I did was unique or special. Anyone can do what I did. Live not by lies.
Reminds me of Abraham Joshua Heschel's phrase, "The prophet is a person, not a microphone." And Daniel Berrigan's plea that God send us "mystics with hands."
What a courageous man Alexei is! It seems to me that he might well have known a deeper truth about the TRUTH. The real TRUTH needs no defense….it just abides. It needs no support….it just endures. It needs no justification…..it just is. It needs no confirmation…..it remains true, even when denied.Jesus and some others like Abraham Lincoln, MLK, and Mother Theresa may well have known this too. We can relax a bit, just a bit, knowing the real TRUTH will outlast lies, half-truths, distractions, ignorance, falsehoods, exaggerations, dis-semblings, exaggerations, or under-estimations and mis-judgements. No one, just a few years from now, will remember most of the Supreme Court justices, nor most of the politicians now in office. Only the very few who highly esteem the TRUTH and confess the truth might be remembered. It really doesn’t matter who is remembered, after all, Love and Truth abide, all else just fades away, happily:).