Quote for the Day

Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries
by Vincent Van Gogh

"A rising tide lifts all the boats."

John F. Kennedy

One recent morning I woke thinking about this quote. I had been at a continuing education class and ended up talking to the woman sitting next to me about the refugee crisis. She shook her head and said she didn't understand people, meaning those who say ugly things about the Middle Eastern refugees who have had to flee their homes, often with only the clothes on their backs. For some reason, many Americans think that their "boat" is the most important, that a prosperous economy is only for those in the global north, and the rest can stay on their beach. It seems to me that a truly beneficial economy does lift all the boats. What we're experiencing now is lopsided and unsustainable. If we are not raising all of humanity out of the depths of poverty, then something is wrong and we need to fix it.