I got to sit for about an hour this morning and listen to the discussion between President Obama, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and two moderators in Berlin during the German Kirchentag (Church Day). It was wonderful to hear them answer questions in such a thoughtful and deliberate way. They touched on refugees, wealth disparity, separation of church and state, conflicts between different religious ideas, and much more.
A statement by the Chancellor struck me in a particularly deep way. She said, "My freedom is not unlimited. It is, indeed, limited by the freedoms of the people around me."
Think about that for a minute.
We Americans love to talk about our freedoms and our rights. These are wonderful things, and yet we forget that they are, indeed, limited. We have a certain sense of privilege as a nation, and the trick for us, as I see it at this point, is to learn anew how to respect the freedoms and rights of those around us and to see the impact they have on our own.
Here is my dad's example of the chancellor's statement when he worked with students who would stand up for their actions which had hurt someone else. "We're sitting here in my office. It's my office and I have every right to stand up and walk around my office swinging my fists through the air. My right to swing my fists, however, stops where your nose begins."
Let's make sure we learn to see the noses around us and respect where they begin!
A statement by the Chancellor struck me in a particularly deep way. She said, "My freedom is not unlimited. It is, indeed, limited by the freedoms of the people around me."
Think about that for a minute.
We Americans love to talk about our freedoms and our rights. These are wonderful things, and yet we forget that they are, indeed, limited. We have a certain sense of privilege as a nation, and the trick for us, as I see it at this point, is to learn anew how to respect the freedoms and rights of those around us and to see the impact they have on our own.
Here is my dad's example of the chancellor's statement when he worked with students who would stand up for their actions which had hurt someone else. "We're sitting here in my office. It's my office and I have every right to stand up and walk around my office swinging my fists through the air. My right to swing my fists, however, stops where your nose begins."
Let's make sure we learn to see the noses around us and respect where they begin!
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