I DON’T THINK THE WORLD IS CHANGING IN THE WAY I’D LIKE IT TO.
In these times of upheaval, confusion and anxiety, however, I think it may be useful to consider this:
“There is beauty all around us, only for so many people it is buried and perhaps obscured by fear, hurt, frustration, anger, hopelessness, confusion…….
I will share an experience that I had when I was 20 years old.
I grew up in Malta, and I happened to meet an interesting guy at a party one night. I started chatting with this man, and discovered that he was one of England’s leading meteorological experts and that he had been hired by the government to help set up a met office in Malta.He told me that he went to a fishing village a few days before and he was chatting with a local fisherman. The fisherman looked out across the sea and up to the sky and said:
“Tomorrow it will rain”.
The met office expert went on to explain to the fisherman, who was illiterate, had never been to school, and had never traveled more than a few miles from his village, that the met office was able to determine with the help of modern technology that the next day would be a sunny day.
A wise old owl sat in an oak,The more she saw, the less she spoke. The less she spoke, the more she heard. Why can’t we be like this wise old bird?
In the mid-1980’s I served an apprenticeship with a Native American medicine man, Sun Bear.
When I introduced Sun Bear to an audience, I said:
There are different ways to listen. One way is to listen with your head, to try to understand, explain, interpret, evaluate and take notes.
I had an interesting conversation with an eight year old girl.
I picked her up from school. When I asked her how her day was she replied “I’m having a sad day today”
I asked her what was making her sad and she replied “I think I’m stupid”.
What makes you think that? – I asked.
Yet as a society, we seem to be going around in never-ending circles, dealing with violence rather than with the underlying causes. Often we meet violence with violence. The hunger in the stomach, our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, are not being met.
In his book “Fear of Life”, Alexander Lowen writes: “We are like the inmates of a mental institution who must accept its inhumanity and insensitivity as caring and knowledgeable to be regarded as sane enough to leave.”
