In today’s world where so much hate is being seen everyday in the media I felt the need to share my small perspective. Even as a member of an NPC sorority there have been numerous stories emerging on how members of fraternal organizations continue to unknowingly contribute to the civil unrest that is occurring on a daily basis throughout our world. As a sorority woman I was taught that my organization has seven values that we uphold and although all seven may not matter in the context of this blog, I only really want to concentrate on two in particular - justice and purity.
Now thinking back to 1912 when my organization was founded using the idea of justice as a value made sense, for at the time women simply did not have the same rights and privileges of men who were also give membership into their own fraternal organizations on campuses of the day. Our founders were looking for justice and equality and continued to fight for those rights, when finally in 1920 women were give the right to vote.
The idea of purity comes from a very different place. In 1912 the idea of purity meant chaste and women did not pursue sexual relationships because they were told that ladies do not do those sorts of things. That made sense in 1912. Fast-forward to 2020, over 100 years laters, and let’s look at the idea of purity in a very different light. Being pure of mind and heart when going into any situation or conversation revolving around difference offers a very different perspective in 2020. The definition of purity means free from contamination or pollution. The image used below gives us an example of how pure love, excitement, joy at seeing one another left the innocent children to run toward one another in a way that we see as something we can share with the world - as it should be! Nothing fake or impure about their thoughts or feelings, just simple pure happiness to be reunited.
If we taught our children this very simple lesson, our world may be in a very different place right now. We have numerous opportunities to make daily decisions on how we treat one another. I choose to uphold my SEVEN sorority values as I was taught (a very long time ago), and I choose to continue to teach our younger members those same seven values.
I think about our justice system system and almost every courthouse in America has a statue or painting depicting Lady Justice - who is holding the scales of justice and is wearing a blindfold. That to me says enough of what we need to be doing as a country in order to ensure that we are abiding by what our founders first wanted us to be about and treat one another with respect, justice, honor, along with a pure mind and heart. I find that is the best we can be doing now and in the future!