Essay by Luke Foster
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Desmond Tutu
I think my mum Maria Foster and the Dalai Lama from a distance have been training me up my whole life to be a success and compassionate person. However, throughout my life when I was in my twenties and early thirties I fell in with the wrong crowd and made many mistakes. I don’t know how I came out of that alive. All I could do when things got bad was literally run away from people. Literally jump on a plane and escape from their clutch.
Mum in particular kept taking me back in again and again and when things got really scary, I would climb into bed weeping and she would hug me.
Mum literally went without to set me up for life with savings and my own apartment by the beach. She would berate me when I would buy a coffee every day and the only time, we ate out was on one of our birthdays.
I think I was sort of a rotten apple but I became good and innocent again as I was mums, primary carer and would cook, clothe her, sit outside the shower in case she had a fall, go grocery shopping and mow the lawns, put the rubbish out and buy her many books from the op shop where I worked two days a week for her to read which she loved reading in bed after watching tv of an evening. I would kiss her on the forehead every time I walked past her and say love you mum.
Me and my brother Mark tried to teach her how to use an I pad that I gave to her but it was too confusing for her. But my sister in-law Narelle would help her with internet shopping for clothes on her I phone and laptop.
“A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.”
Dalai Lama
I feel I have to be transparent and honest about everything particularly the mistakes I have made.
“There should be no discrimination against languages people speak, skin colour, or religion.”
Malala Yousafzai
I think I feel safer in the world now as there is growing a stronger balance of platonic love amongst men and women in the world rather than men dominating everyone. However, I am not talking about the Dalai Lama or Desmond Tutu who have always been very wise and kind.
“Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.”
Michelle Obama
I have been to scared for years about revealing the mistakes I have made throughout my life as I have been too afraid that I would wake up one day with everyone hating me. Sometimes I would shiver and shake for hours thinking about my mistakes decades ago.
In conclusion I feel the only way out of the myriad of complex problems in the world is for people to be transparent about the mistakes they have made themselves rather than digging up dirt on people they don’t like. I think vulnerability breeds, compassion.
I also look up to the excellent male role model Pope Francis.
“Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.”
Pope Francis
