A celebration of the International Women's Day

Today, I pause to give thanks for all the women 

who have struggled and continue to struggle
for dignity and beauty,
against tyranny and injustice.

Happy International Women’s Day!

Gratitude to all the women
who embody the two essential qualities that uplift and redeem the whole cosmos: love and service.

If there is a loftiest of human endeavors, it is the radical unselfishness of “care”, to project the “I” into the “thou”, and to bring together love and action.    All of us are here because we were cared for at some point.

And in spite of this, far too many of us live in situations where women are deprived of rights that are theirs.    These rights are not taken, they are truly stolen.   Equal right for equal beings, equal pay for equal work, equal recognition for equal service ,equal access, that is all we are talking about.

The human community will be free and dignified when justice and equal rights are guaranteed for all women,

for all who are marginalized,
for all who live in poverty and under occupation.

Ultimately here is one of the key insights of the International Women’s Day:

Women’s rights are human rights.
Women’s right are not from some other planet, some other sphere.
They are the rights of human beings, female human beings.

Until and unless women have access to the fullness of human rights, all of us are bound to live as either oppressed or oppressor.   And all of us deserve better than that.

Our suffering is connected together because our dignity is connected together,
because our spirits are already intertwined.

Our struggles are bound up together.

These images are some of the women who have shaped my life.
I give thanks for your, for your courage, for your vision, for your passion, for your care, for your leadership.

Happy International Women’s Day.