There are a few things in this world that no matter how simple they are have an incredible impact on the minds of people. The reason for this is what these symbols represent. Now many have forgotten those meanings and consider things that are powerful to be just fashion.

Today I saw a young adult indian man who had on his key chain a swastika that was cast in silver. I was so appalled by it that I could not even look the man in the face. Even today that symbol is such a painful reminder of a tyrant who destroyed and ended millions of lives. I thought to myself, How could someone even think of that as a piece of decoration in today’s world?

It also reminded me of back when I was in high school seeing a kid I knew well wearing a jesus cross on his neck and when I asked him why he did he said it was his jesus piece, a piece of fashion worn by many rappers who’s lyrics contradict any type of christian teaching.

In this I realized that many people no longer care about what the symbol means but instead wear it to look good or for other vein purposes not realizing the impact that the symbol possessed. So why is this wrong? It is because we live in a world of people who recognize these symbols for a specific reason and in wearing it carelessly they are showing their lack of care for the world. They are admitting without a word of their carelessness towards their fellow human beings.

Symbols are not something to be taken lightly. They make up much of human history and have specific connotation because of it. In wearing it as fashion a person is sending a false message about their beliefs and possible effecting others negatively who are impacted greatly by these symbols.

Unfortunately for me this was not the end of my lesson of the day. After my moment of fury I did allow myself time to ponder why this person would have a swastika on his keychain. Then my perception changed.

For a long time I have been facinated with various religious beliefs and I remembered that there was a religion in India that has existed far longer than the Nazi party. This particular faith (the name slips my mind right now) has a symbol that is meant as a sign of peace. This symbol is a swastika.

After realizing this, I learned the second part of my lesson. I should not have jumped to such a conclusion about the origin of this person’s bling. It is more likely to be a symbol of peace to this person than the more known meaning of this symbol.

So there is something to be said on both sides. We all interact with our fellow men and we all react to certain symbol so they should not be taken lightly. But at the same time symbols have very different meanings thus should not be assumed to be just one thing.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 5:41 pm and is filed under faith, humanity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.