“Oh, Universe—Hear Our Pain”

 

Oh, Universe—Hear Our Pain

At the break of dawn, when silence still blankets the sky and the earth has not yet fully awakened, I sit by my window and whisper to the Universe. I whisper not out of habit nor in vain, but out of desperate hope that somewhere, something divine is still listening. Oh, Universe—hear our pain.

The world is spinning, but not as it once did. It spins now with heaviness, under the weight of grief, greed, and growing indifference. There was a time when we looked to the stars for guidance, when the moon’s phases held sacred meaning, and when the Earth’s soil was touched with reverence. Now, we tremble not in awe of creation but in fear of our own undoing.

Every day, headlines echo with horror. Children vanish. Forests burn. Cities fall under ash and bombs. We scroll past images of lifeless bodies, displaced families, and starving eyes as if tragedy is now background noise. How did we get here?

Oh, Universe—was it our arrogance? Was it when we began to see ourselves as separate from nature, from each other, from You? Somewhere along our climb toward progress, we lost our soul. We forgot that we are all woven from the same cosmic thread. Whether Black, white, or brown—whether born in a mansion or a refugee camp—we share a sacred breath.

Yet today, that breath is choking.

We choke on polluted air and poisonous thoughts. We choke on division fed by politics, by fear, by the illusion that we must destroy to win. And we are losing—losing our humanity, our compassion, and our ability to feel. This is not progress. This is a slow unraveling.

Oh, Universe, if you are watching, if you are listening—do not turn away. Do not give up on us, though we have given up on each other. You birthed us from stardust, from ocean tides and thunderous winds. You gave us forests to breathe, rivers to cleanse, and sunlight to warm our bones. You gave us each other.

But what have we done with your gift?

We have built walls instead of bridges. We have filled the air with noise instead of truth. We have traded empathy for efficiency and peace for power. We have declared war in your garden, Mother Earth, and dared to call it righteous.

We no longer gather under the stars to dream. We gather in echo chambers to argue. We scream across social platforms, not across valleys. We’ve forgotten how to listen. We’ve forgotten the language of stillness.

I ask again—Oh, Universe, hear our pain. Not because we deserve your mercy, but because we need your grace. Shine a light in this hour of darkness. Remind us that even broken things can bloom. That a soul cracked open by sorrow is still capable of love.

We are your children, still learning. Still lost. But not beyond redemption. Let this be the beginning of a new awakening.

Once, the laughter of children was the clearest sound of innocence—bright as morning birdsong, pure as the mountain spring. Children were once symbols of hope, the sacred flame we passed forward. They carried our dreams. They reminded us to wonder, to forgive, and to play. But now, a darker truth pierces the hearts of parents, teachers, and even strangers: many of our children are no longer innocent. Some have become cruel—not because they were born that way, but because the world around them has failed to protect their light.

Cruelty is not innate. It is learned. It is absorbed from violent homes, bitter streets, broken systems, and glowing screens that reward division and mock vulnerability. We fed them chaos, and now we wonder why their hearts are restless. We exposed them to war and asked why they’re angry. We filled their young ears with hatred, then questioned their lack of empathy. Oh, Universe—do you see what we’ve done?

In cities across the globe, children now wear fear like a second skin. Some no longer flinch at gunfire; others barely react to death. They scroll through videos of violence like it’s entertainment. They mimic cruelty for laughs. They bully with words sharper than knives, online and off. The world has become a classroom of aggression, and too often, we are the teachers.

How can they believe in love when all they see is war?

How can they learn peace when they wake to hunger and sleep to sirens?

How can they grow into kindness when we drown them in fear?

Oh, Mother of Mankind, do you weep as your children hurt one another? As they push each other off emotional cliffs just to feel powerful for a moment? As young boys learn to suppress tears, and young girls are taught they are not enough unless they are beautiful, obedient, or broken? What kind of world teaches children to harden their hearts so early?

Cruelty is not a cause—it is a consequence. A consequence of silence, neglect, and misplaced values. We praise competition over collaboration. We reward ruthlessness and mock compassion as weakness. We do not teach our children to heal—we teach them to hide their pain and strike first.

But even in this darkness, there is still hope. For every child that lashes out, another learns to forgive. For every cruel word spoken, a kind one waits to be heard. Children are not lost forever—they are waiting. Waiting to be guided back toward tenderness. Waiting for someone—anyone—to model gentleness, to show them that strength lies in love, not violence.

Oh, Universe, help us reclaim our children’s light.

Let us put books in their hands instead of burdens on their backs. Let us teach them the poetry of empathy, the music of sharing, and the dance of unity. Let us raise them in gardens of safety, water them with understanding, and root them in purpose. Let their dreams grow wild and vast—not be cut down by poverty, prejudice, or pain.

When children become cruel, it is not only a tragedy—it is a warning. A siren call to look deeper, to heal faster, and to love louder. We must answer that call before it becomes an echo of what could have been. Before we lose a whole generation not to war or famine—but to hopelessness.

Let us remember: children are not the problem. They are the mirror. And if we see cruelty in them, we must first ask what cruelty exists within us—and dare to change.

Across the earth, rivers of blood run deeper than rivers of clean water. Bombs fall more frequently than blessings. And the scent of gunpowder often overpowers the aroma of bread in too many neighborhoods, cities, and entire nations. We live in a world that bleeds more than it feeds. A world that funds wars with billions while schools crumble and stomachs groan from emptiness. Oh, Mother of Mankind—how did we get here?

We are drowning in paradox. We manufacture abundance, yet millions go to bed with nothing but air in their bellies. Our skies are crowded with satellites, but our hearts are void of connection. Nations spend fortunes on weapons but can’t find pennies to patch broken roofs or fill lunch boxes. The child who dies of hunger is not an accident—it is an indictment.

We have allowed the value of a human life to be measured in minerals, markets, and military strength. Food is a weapon. Water is a bargaining chip. Shelter is a privilege. How can peace exist when so many must fight simply to survive? What future can blossom from a soil soaked in blood and salted with greed?

Let us not be fooled by polished speeches or promises wrapped in flags. The truth is visible in the eyes of a mother who can’t afford milk. In the cracked lips of a father who feeds his children and not himself. In the aching silence of a child who stops asking for food because the answer is always the same.

We have mistaken profit for progress.

We have confused dominance with development.

We have glorified destruction while neglecting creation.

Oh, Universe, hear our shame: we are building more prisons than libraries. More bombs than books. More digital lies than physical truths. Too much blood, not enough bread.

But even amid this cruel imbalance, let us not forget: we are capable of better. The same hands that forge steel for tanks can forge tools for farming. The same minds that strategize invasions can engineer irrigation. The same resources used to flatten cities could instead build homes, schools, and hope.

It is not a question of scarcity—it is a failure of priorities.

There is enough food to feed every mouth.

There is enough knowledge to heal every wound.

There is enough compassion to bridge every divide.

But these things cannot flourish in a world addicted to war, obsessed with borders, and blind to suffering unless it affects the powerful.

Oh, Mother of Mankind, rise in us. Wake us from our apathy. Push us to ask the hard questions: Why is there always money for bullets, but never enough for bread? Why do we call it “aid” when we return only a fraction of what we've taken? Why do we turn the hungry into statistics and the displaced into threats?

This cannot be the legacy we leave behind.

Let us raise our voices—not in anger, but in resolve. Let us demand that humanity be measured not by GDP, but by how many children are fed, how many homes are safe, and how many hearts are full. Let us bake bread where bombs once fell. Let us sow seeds where blood once spilled.

Let us turn our agony into action.

Because a world with too much blood and not enough bread is not a world worth inheriting—but it is one we still have time to transform.

We used to kneel in prayer to the heavens, whispering to the stars for guidance, love, and mercy. Now we bow before screens. We measure our worth in likes, followers, and fleeting attention. We chase wealth like it’s salvation, fame like it’s fulfillment, and power like it’s protection. But what we worship is killing us—slowly, quietly, thoroughly.

Our altars are no longer built of stone or spirit—they are made of status, greed, and illusion. Our gods have new names: Capital. Ego. Image. Speed. We sacrifice our peace to keep up, our health to impress, our relationships to accumulate, our children’s innocence to entertain. We’ve become loyal disciples to a cult of more—more stuff, more noise, more validation.

And in this frantic devotion, we are starving our souls.

What is the cost of this new religion? It is the loss of authenticity. The erosion of joy. The disconnection from nature, community, and self. In worshipping progress, we’ve forgotten purpose. In pursuing luxury, we’ve dismissed love. In glorifying competition, we’ve abandoned compassion.

Every scroll on a screen pulls us further from stillness. Every purchase we didn’t need becomes a prayer to an idol that doesn’t love us back. Every moment spent comparing ourselves to curated illusions chips away at our confidence, our peace, and our sanity. We are living in a time where convenience is god and content is king—but neither feeds the heart.

We celebrate those who climb over others to reach the top, forgetting that the top of a broken system is still a broken place. We honor those who hoard while the earth heats, the poor sink deeper, and the air grows harder to breathe. We throw parades for wealth, but barely glance at wisdom. We build monuments to consumption, but tear down forests that breathe for us. We buy water in plastic bottles while rivers die of thirst.

And all the while, we say we are free.

But how free are we when our gods demand our health, our sleep, our time, and our truth?

Oh, Mother of Mankind, cry out through us. Help us remember what is sacred—not profitable, not marketable, but sacred. Remind us that joy doesn’t come in a package, that meaning can’t be monetized, that silence can be a sanctuary. Remind us that the most valuable things in life have no price tags: a child’s laughter, a quiet sunrise, the comfort of being known.

We must reimagine worship—not as reverence for gold or glamour, but as devotion to life itself.

Let us worship justice.

Let us worship kindness.

Let us worship stillness, integrity, and shared humanity.

Because what we worship becomes who we are. And if we continue down this path, we may wake up one day surrounded by everything we ever wanted—yet feel utterly hollow inside.

We are not here to consume. We are here to connect.

We are not here to compete. We are here to care.

We are not here to worship what is killing us—we are here to heal.

Let us tear down these false idols, brick by brick, lie by lie.

Let us build new temples from truth, love, and liberation.

The hour is late. The illusion is fading. Let the awakening begin.

A Love Letter to the Forgotten

To the ones whose names are never written in headlines,
To the ones who sweep the streets before dawn,
To the mothers who sacrifice dreams for survival,
To the elders, no one visits, the sick no one sees,
To the refugees crossing borders with only hope in their pockets—
This is for you.

You who are deemed invisible by the world’s cold metrics.
You who are overlooked by systems that worship profit, not people.
You who carry centuries of silence in your bones, and yet rise, again and again.
You matter.

This world may not recognize your worth, but I do.

I see the tired hands of the factory worker, the quiet dignity of the janitor,
the courage of the girl selling fruit on the roadside,
the resilience of the boy whose classroom is a war zone.

I see the pain in your eyes when your voice is ignored,
when your truth is dismissed as noise,
when you are asked to be grateful for crumbs while others feast.

And yet, you still find ways to smile.
To give.
To create joy out of scarcity.
To build a life out of broken things.

This is a love letter to your endurance.
To your uncelebrated beauty.
To the wisdom you carry like sacred fire passed down through generations.
To the lullabies sung over empty pots.
To the dreams whispered in darkness, never forgotten.

You are not the background of history—you are the heartbeat of it.

They may try to erase you from the story,
but you are the story.

You, who teach your children kindness even when you’ve known only cruelty.
You, who plant gardens in dry soil, who dance on weary feet,
who hold the line between chaos and community.

You are love made flesh.
You are courage in motion.
You are proof that divinity walks in dust-covered shoes and speaks in accents the world refuses to learn.

Let this be the chapter where we remember you.
Where we honor your names, your labor, your truth.
Let us write you into the fabric of our future, not just our past.
Let us fight for a world where you are no longer forgotten,
but seen, heard, cherished.

Because the world changes when the forgotten are remembered.
When the invisible are seen.
When the broken are believed.
And when love returns to the center of everything.

So, here it is—
A letter wrapped in warmth, sealed with tears and truth,
Whispered into the winds for all the forgotten souls to hear:

You are not alone.
You are not lost.
You are not forgotten.

You are loved.
Always.

The Politics of Empathy

Empathy is not weakness.
It is not a luxury or an optional virtue we practice when convenient.
It is a radical force—
a revolution waiting quietly in the hearts of those brave enough to feel deeply.

In a world governed by profit margins, political agendas, and division,
empathy is an act of rebellion.

Because to empathize means to pause and listen,
even when the voice speaks a language not our own.
It means to recognize another’s pain and treat it as if it were ours—
not out of pity,
but out of shared humanity.

Yet, somewhere along the road, we buried empathy beneath bureaucracy.
We replaced compassion with calculation.
We let policies speak louder than people.
We learned to speak about others instead of with them.

And so the world cracked—
Not from a lack of intelligence,
But from a famine of feeling.

We created borders not only between countries, but between hearts.
We locked empathy in cages of “us” and “them.”
We turned suffering into statistics and forgot the names behind the numbers.

We politicized kindness.

We made compassion a debate topic.

We asked, “Who deserves to be helped?”
“Who qualifies for mercy?”
“Which child should eat, and which one should wait?”

But the truth is this:
Empathy is not finite.
It does not diminish when shared.
It expands—like light breaking through darkness.

A society led by empathy would not tolerate the starving child,
Nor would it criminalize the immigrant,
ignore the addict,
or vilify the poor.

In such a world, prisons would be replaced with pathways.
Hospitals would not bankrupt the sick.
And education would not be a privilege—but a birthright.

Empathy, when practiced politically, looks like housing for all.
It looks like restorative justice.
It looks like mental health care without shame.
It looks like foreign policy grounded in peace, not power.

It looks like leaders who cry.
Who listen.
Who kneel beside the suffering instead of speaking over them.

The politics of empathy demands that we govern as though every person is our neighbor.
That we write laws as if our own children will be subject to them.
That we spend as if every dollar carries the weight of a human life.

Empathy should not be a footnote to leadership—it should be the headline.
Not a campaign slogan, but the cornerstone of civilization.

The future depends not on how fast we innovate,
but on how deeply we care.

So let empathy be written into our constitutions.
Let it guide the hands of policy-makers, educators, and CEOs alike.
Let it inform how we vote, how we work, and how we live.

Because when empathy rules, dignity rises.
When empathy rules, war fades.
When empathy rules, humanity remembers its heart.

And perhaps then, oh Mother of Mankind,
your children will stop destroying what you so lovingly made.
Perhaps then, we will stop asking, “What separates us?”
and begin asking, “What connects us?”

Empathy is not the end.
It is the beginning—
of justice,
of peace,
of the world, we keep pretending we cannot build.

The Mirror of the Earth

Stand still for a moment—
Not in a room, not in a city,
But in nature.

Barefoot on the soil.
Under the open sky.
No filter. No Wi-Fi. Just breath, and birdsong, and the distant hum of life older than history.

Now listen.

The Earth is not just our home.
It is our mirror.

Everything we see in her—the chaos and calm, the beauty and decay, the abundance and the loss—
reflects who we are becoming.

She cries, but we do not hear it.

The rivers dry, and we call it a season.
The forests burn, and we call it a fluke.
The animals vanish, and we call it evolution.

But the Earth doesn’t lie.
She tells us exactly who we are.

We pollute her oceans like we pollute our minds—
flooded with waste, noise, and distraction.
We scar her mountains like we scar each other—
with extraction, with greed, with the hunger to take more than we give.

Yet even in pain, she forgives.

She still grows gardens after the war.
She still sends rain to lands we abandon.
She still provides breath to a species that’s forgotten how to pause.

But there will come a time—
and that time may be now—
When she cannot carry the weight of our carelessness.

And what we refuse to heal within ourselves
will echo in droughts, floods, hurricanes, and melting ice.

Because climate collapse is not just environmental.
It is spiritual.

The Earth reflects our imbalance.
She mimics our disconnect.
She magnifies our failure to live in harmony—with her, and with each other.

And yet…

If we return to her,
not as conquerors but as children—
curious, humble, wide-eyed—

We may remember the rhythm of enough.

The sun never rushes.
The moon never competes.
The tree does not hoard its shade.
The ocean does not resent the shore.

In nature, there is balance, not domination.
Cycles, not conquest.
Grace, not greed.

What if we governed ourselves the way ecosystems do?
What if economies mimicked forests—diverse, regenerative, and interdependent?

What if we measured wealth in the health of our soil,
the clarity of our water,
the joy in our communities?

What if success looked like restoration instead of consumption?

We are not separate from the Earth.
We are her expression—her voice, her reflection, her experiment in consciousness.

And she is tired.

So look into the mirror she offers—
the cracked glaciers, the smog-choked skies, the falling bees.
Not with guilt. But with urgency.

Because if the Earth is breaking,
So are we.

And if we can heal her,
Perhaps we’ll finally remember how to heal ourselves.

 Oh, Mother of Mankind

Oh, Mother of Mankind—
How heavy your heart must be.

You who gave us rivers to drink from, arms to be held in, and lullabies passed down in every tongue.
You who birthed civilizations in your womb, nursed empires through famine and flood, and watched your children grow—only to see them forget the sacredness of your breath.

Where did we go wrong?

We, your wayward offspring, who once gathered beneath stars and worshiped the rhythm of rain—
Now raise monuments to vanity and war.

We destroy what we do not understand.
We laugh at the weak, worship the cruel, and silence the kind.
We chase status instead of connection, profit instead of purpose.

And all the while, you wait.

Wait with patience only a mother can know.
Wait with arms open—not because we deserve forgiveness,
But because you love us still.

Look around the world today.

Children cry themselves to sleep in war zones they did not create.
Women barter their dignity for safety and silence.
Fathers drown at sea searching for bread for their families.
Elders die alone in homes where no one visits.

And yet, we scroll.
We tweet.
We gossip.
We consume.

We live in a time where we know more—but feel less.
Speak louder—but listen never.
Own more—but cherish nothing.

Oh, Mother of Mankind—how long can you watch us break ourselves?

Your silence is not consent.
Your softness is not a weakness.
Your grace is not infinite.

You are weary. And we should be, too.

We should be tired of pretending that a stranger’s suffering is none of our concern.
Tired of pretending borders make some lives matter less.
Tired of pretending that justice is only for those who can afford it.
Tired of pretending that wealth without compassion is success.

It is not.

Success is clean water in a village no map remembers.
Success is children laughing where bombs once fell.
Success is a society where no one eats alone, dies invisible, or begs to be seen.

Oh, Mother of Mankind,
Teach us again to be human.

To sit by the fire without reaching for our phones.
To hold a friend’s grief without trying to fix it.
To see a stranger’s eyes and whisper: You are not alone.

Remind us that softness is not weakness.
That dignity belongs to everyone.
That there is no other—only us,
fractured pieces of the same divine flame.

We have tried it our way.
And look where it’s led us—
to loneliness disguised as freedom,
to power that feeds on fear,
to a planet gasping beneath our ambition.

Maybe it’s time to return to yours.

To the way of the nurturer, the healer, the weaver of community.
To the sacred feminine, not in gender—but in spirit.

To mercy. To mindfulness. To mean.

To the mother in all of us,
waiting to awaken.

Oh, Mother of Mankind—
Let this be the moment we remember your name.
Let this be the hour we kneel not to gold, but to grace.
Let this be the dawn of a new humanity—
where love is no longer radical,
but required.

When Silence Speaks

When silence speaks,
It does not whisper—it roars.
Not in thunder,
but in the tremble of an old woman’s hands
Who lights a candle for a son lost to war.

When silence speaks,
It carries the ache of those
who have no platform, no privilege,
no audience but the moon.

It speaks in children who cry without sound,
in mothers who pray with empty eyes,
in men who bury their joy beneath debt and duty.

It lives in villages erased from the maps,
in lovers who never made it home,
in oceans filled with names we’ve forgotten.

And still—we scroll.
Still—we build.
Still—we conquer,
believing silence means surrender.

But silence is sacred.

It is the soil where truth takes root.
It is the space where grief becomes prayer.
It is the mirror that shows us
what noise refuses to reveal.

Silence knows the language of the oppressed.
It speaks in hunger, in exile, in crushed dreams.
It speaks in every grandmother’s song
and every rebel’s unspoken vow:
“I was born to be more than what this world allowed.”

So when silence speaks,
let us not turn away.
Let us sit with it,
weep with it,
learn from it.

Let us build from it—not towers or empires,
but bridges.
Bridges made of listening,
of tenderness,
of truth.

Because in the end,
When the wars are over,
when the wealth has faded,
when the screens go dark—
What will remain
is not what we owned,
But how we loved.

So let the silence speak.
Let it remind us
that to be human is not to dominate,
but to hold hands
across borders,
across wounds,
across generations.

And say, finally,
“I see you. I hear you. I am with you.”

By Mackenzie Lodimus
Founder of Caribbean Quest Travel, Writer, Explorer, Solitude Enthusiast