When do we get insight to move forward? To take action? To do a kind deed? When we are engaged in some other activity. Suddenly, an idea pops into our heads to deviate from the planned course and do something else. Most often, we dismiss this idea. We're too tired, too stressed, or our favorite show is about to begin. So we fail to take action.
We never know the joy we missed by not taking that sidetrack. We just go on, mechanically doing the same things we have always done.
The other day, after working all day, I went to a study meeting to learn more about my faith. In one way, I had to be there, as I was leading the discussion. In another way, I wanted to be there because I wanted to be part of the activity. When it was over, my plan was to take my friend home and go home myself.
But then a thought popped into my mind. This would be a good time to visit another friend who had called me earlier that day from the emergency room asking me to notify some relatives that he had been injured on the job. I wasn't even sure if he had been admitted, but I made a U-turn and headed toward the hospital.
I saw that visiting hours ended at 8:30 and it was now 9 pm. But the automatic outside door opened, and someone inside triggered the switch to open the inside door. No one was at the desk to tell me if my friend had been admitted, so I proceeded to the emergency room to find out.
I walked in and a security guard asked me if he could help. I told him about my quest and he directed me to a clerk who told me my friend's room number. The security guard escorted me to the right room and showed me how to find my way out when I was ready to leave.
It was the right thing to do. My friend looked tired and gray because of two broken ribs and a collapsed lung, but he was happy to see me. We visited for about a half hour, and then I suggested that we chant for a few minutes. He agreed and as we chanted together, although he was in pain, his color improved as he breathed deeper from chanting.
Seeing the color return to his face was the best return on my investment of a little bit of time. I left my study materials with him, and when I arrived home, he called to tell me how much the first article he read encouraged him, and how much better he felt after my visit.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Getting out of my comfort zone
Creating peace and justice begins with me. I must move out of my comfort zone into an area where I know I would like to be, but have difficulty getting there. It's not life-threatening, just scary.
So how do I make the move? First, I decide on a goal. Say it's to attend two peace and justice activities in my community each month. Then I have to implement the goal by looking for those activities, figuring out where they are and how to get there, and then following through by attending and participating.
A great resource in southeastern Virginia is Hampton Roads Network for Nonviolence (HRNN). To get on their recipient list for bimonthly announcements of events in the area, just post a reply to this blog and say, "Add my address to your list."
Another thing I can do is invite someone to go with me. That doubles my effort and gives me someone to talk to on the way there and back. But when I get there, I have to make the effort to talk to people I don't know. It's too easy, and a cop-out, to just hang out with people I know and not make new connections. It is the new connections that create peace and justice, and enable us to grow beyond our own small universe.
So how do I make the move? First, I decide on a goal. Say it's to attend two peace and justice activities in my community each month. Then I have to implement the goal by looking for those activities, figuring out where they are and how to get there, and then following through by attending and participating.
A great resource in southeastern Virginia is Hampton Roads Network for Nonviolence (HRNN).
Another thing I can do is invite someone to go with me. That doubles my effort and gives me someone to talk to on the way there and back. But when I get there, I have to make the effort to talk to people I don't know. It's too easy, and a cop-out, to just hang out with people I know and not make new connections. It is the new connections that create peace and justice, and enable us to grow beyond our own small universe.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Building the cathedral of peace
I'm going to let Ingmar Bergman speak for me because I think his wisdom applies to the topic of creating more peace and justice.
“People ask what are my intentions with my films — my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. This answer seems to satisfy everyone, but it is not quite correct. I prefer to describe what I would like my aim to be.
There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building was completed — master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres.
Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself.
In former days, the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God. He lived and died without being more or less important than other artisans; 'eternal values,' 'immortality' and 'masterpiece' were terms not applicable in his case.
The ability to create was a gift. In such a world flourished invulnerable assurance and natural humility. Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest bane of artistic creation.
The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering each other to death. The individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny the existence of each other. We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal.
Thus if I am asked what I would like the general purpose of my films to be, I would reply that I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon's head, an angel, a devil — or perhaps a saint — out of stone. It does not matter which; it is the sense of satisfaction that counts.
Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.”
from: Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman (1960)
“People ask what are my intentions with my films — my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. This answer seems to satisfy everyone, but it is not quite correct. I prefer to describe what I would like my aim to be.
There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building was completed — master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres.
Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself.
In former days, the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God. He lived and died without being more or less important than other artisans; 'eternal values,' 'immortality' and 'masterpiece' were terms not applicable in his case.
The ability to create was a gift. In such a world flourished invulnerable assurance and natural humility. Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest bane of artistic creation.
The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering each other to death. The individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny the existence of each other. We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal.
Thus if I am asked what I would like the general purpose of my films to be, I would reply that I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon's head, an angel, a devil — or perhaps a saint — out of stone. It does not matter which; it is the sense of satisfaction that counts.
Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.”
from: Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman (1960)
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