Mind-Body-Spirit, no Open-and-Shut Case

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Regular readers will know that I am a great believer in both free speech and agreeing to differ. The info on the link below appals me.

https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2019/05/islamophobia-definition-unfit-for-purpose-say-campaigners

I would no more support Islam than any other world religion, but neither would I ever reject anyone for their religion alone, however much I might dispute its dogma. Furthermore, I have met many Muslims, especially among younger people, who also would not presume to pre-judge a person by their religion or non-religion, as the case may be. 

Who we are - the person we are - is the sum of all our parts; taken individually, these same parts cannot be taken to represent us.

Now, I don't subscribe to any major religion because I have issues with many aspects of their various dogma. To suggest this makes me a bigot or racist is, to my mind, absurd. Similarly, I have issues with many if not all political parties. Do I deserve to be shouted down for saying so? I think not, even if human nature, self-obsessed as it is often found to be, might well argue otherwise.

Religion is not a side entrance to politics, which is exactly how it is being made to appear time and again on the world stage; Islam is no exception, nor should it be seen to be.

I have worked alongside men and women people from all walks of life and of various socio-religious-political persuasions and met others at poetry readings I have given around the country. 

I deplore bigotry in any shape or form; there are those, though, who have expressed reservations (to say the least) about LGBT people, usually couched in such a way that they cannot be accused of being overtly politically incorrect. People will often confide that, while they mean no offence, they are simply 'not comfortable' around us, although I have to wonder why, in that case, many of those same people have been ok with working alongside a gay poet and even attending his poetry readings ... ?

We are a common if diverse humanity, whose individual differences do not make us any more or less a part of it, whoever or wherever we are; our contributions to it may well vary in shape and form, but human history will be the best judge of that while (hopefully) passing on any lessons learned. 

Those among us inclined to put Mind-Body-Spirit in the dock from time to time, not least our own as much as anyone else's - will be only too familiar with open verdicts.

This poem is a kenning.

MIND-BODY-SPIRIT, NO OPEN-AND-SHUT CASE 

I am more than any religion,

politics, social standing in a world

preoccupied with the parts

comprising who we are rather than

the sum of these,

attacked for being unfit for purpose

by any who disagree,

appointed judge and jury by default

to human nature

I am more than stereotypes

love to make out, convey my all

to a world preferring

assumptions to finding out for itself

what makes us tick;

never a simple equation in archives

of human history,

ever tailored to measure according

to cloth and clout

I am more than you observe

on any street, in any public forum

where that other self

I choose to show to family, friends,

may well stay hid;

but give me the benefit of any doubt,

go the last mile, and let’s see

if a common humanity can’t reconcile

on common ground?

I am Personal Space, that life-secret

last heard of passing an open verdict

Copyright R. N. Taber 2020

[Note: This post-poem also appears on my general poetry blog today.]