The Ones We Should Be Listening To

The other day we met a woman… who had two reactions to the shirt I happened to wear at first she smiled… then she walked up to us and immediately began to share…
 My shirt had a mouse reading a book on the front pocket… this is what made her smile but the message protesting book banning on the back of my shirt is what connected us for a while. (A little history…between March and October of 1933 over 25,000 books considered un-German…were burned in Germany) This woman was born into that book burning's fiery aftermath. She grew up with the loss of all that literature and art and still remembers that part of her childhood with sorrowfulness in her heart… She said it was sad growing up in Germany back then… and once the scourge was over she thought it would never happen again. (A little more history: just as difficult to understand… Since July of 2021 15,940 books across 43 states and 415 school districts In America…have been banned) A few times while she was talking… her eyes welled up and her beautiful voice would break She couldn't understand how America didn't learn from Germany's mistakes. (A final historical note: Hitler and his Nazi philosophy (which she hoped would fade into obscurity was based on power, militarism, expanding his kingdom and racial purity.) She said, "Good and evil down through the millennia have always been competing and it's up to us to do everything we can to stop evil history from repeating." So before we commit another Holocaust…or start another senseless war… instead of listening to our politicians… perhaps we should listen to the people who have lived through this before.