OPEN DOORS TO OPEN HEARTS & HANDS VOLUME II

This introduction for both volumes of ‘Open Doors to Open Hearts and Hands’ describes a world of oppression of ordinary people by indifferent or despotic rulers and the sufferings caused by war, famine and unemployment which are both material and also emotional and psychological in terms of alienating people from any sense of power, positive roles in society and ultimately self-worth and dignity. I take this further and see that a separation from a faith in a living God contributes greatly to that suffering and that mankind needs to find true faith in God, open the door of their lives to Him and simultaneously each other and with it act from warm, loving hearts and caring, generous hands. These poems, though mostly written many years ago, do contain some prophetic and predictive notes in their verses. As I have drawn them together for publication, Russia led by an old-guard, ultra-nationalistic and paranoid post-Soviet leadership is a living exposition of what I have been writing about. At the moment Ukraine has been invaded and slowly but systematically overrun by the massive Russian army but it is entirely possible that at the very least all the former Soviet Union countries will be invaded in the next year or more. I have avoided using the term ‘former Communist’ to describe this tyrannical regime as it has more in common with Hitler’s Nazi regime in spite of their declaration to free Ukraine of all its neo-Nazis. Sometimes paranoid, mentally disordered people project their own inner condition on to a targeted enemy in order to justify themselves, their sanity and correctness. I dedicate my poems to all those who are suffering in Ukraine and all who will suffer in future days all over Europe. The poems’ proceeds will in part go to helping such peoples.