Taking the road less travelled

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.

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.

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)

Treasures of the Heart

I attended a meeting tonight and the the topic was three types of treasures: treasures of the storehouse, treasures of the body and treasures of the heart. We had a dialogue to decide which treasure was the most important. An eleven year old, Selena, spoke right up saying, "We can lose our material things or our lives, but we can't lose the treasures of our heart, so that's the most important."

Then she told a story of living in Texas with her mom and brothers in a big house, but they had very little money and it was Christmas. An aunt came and helped them pay their fuel bill so they could have heat. "It wasn't that cold," she said. Anyhow, on Christmas day, there weren't any presents, but the family was together and safe in the big house and it was the best holiday they ever had.

Her story reminded me of my grandmother. I was supposed to inherit her diamond ring, but while she was in a nursing home, she gave it to someone there. I felt disappointed until my mother told me that a few months before she died, my grandmother told her, "I will always remember Susan's kindness to me." That sentence meant more to me than a million diamond rings.

Just like Selena said, material things mean nothing, but friendship and caring for others will stay with us forever, through many, many lifetimes.

Victory in 2007

2007 is close at hand and now is the time when the people in my faith community look at their determinations from the past year and assess how far they have come. Then they write a new list of determinations and put them in a safe place while they are working on them throughout the new year.

Setting goals or making determinations create openings that seem to materialize where none were there before. In setting goals and announcing them to others, we create a sort of verbal contract that we are going to make every effort to achieve success in these aspirations. Somehow, that makes the goals more likely to reach fruition.

So Happy New Year. May every goal, aspiration and determination result in a victorious 2007.

Turning predictions inside out

Create peace and justice from the inside out. Did anyone ever tell you that you wouldn't amount to anything? Are you living out that false prophecy? Did anyone say you are making the wrong choice of career? job move? educational goal? course selection? Did you prove that person right? or wrong?

We allow other people's false views to become our reality. Why?

We must take responsibility for our own outcome, not follow the predictions of others. How do we break through those abusive labels and create healthy labels of our own? By rejecting those false views and creating goals that fulfill our own dreams.

We can write goals for anything we desire, and by taking action, make them come true. But then, only we are responsible for the joyful results that we attain.

I learned that children should be seen and not heard; that ladylike behavior means acting in a non-assertive manner. I had to unlearn those "rules" before I could speak my mind and disagree without being disagreeable. It took lots of practice.

I still feel afraid and consider my words very carefully before I disagree with another person or speak up when I feel that justice is not being served. But when I finally express my views, I know that I am contributing toward a more peaceful world.

Creating peace and justice from the inside out means taking care of our personal peace and justice in order to show proof to others that it can indeed be accomplished.

Making waves

Creating peace and justice occurs at many levels - at home, in my community, in my country and in the world. What a huge task. Where do I start?

At home, see the commonalities in us all. Look at the good. Create an environment of peace and I will see peace all around me. Create an environment of anger and I will see anger all around me. Create an environment of ugliness and I will see ugliness all around me.

My responsibility is to create an environment that reflects back to me feelings of peace, compassion and justice but how do I do that?

I see myself as a wave in the ocean, emerging from the depths, growing larger, bumping into other waves as I gradually reach my peak and then begin to decline. Other waves are growing and declining at their own rate - some faster, some slower. Some larger, some smaller.

The waves and I shape each other and respond to each other in a give-and-take relationship. Our interactions are part of a whole - the ocean - and as we cycle through our existence, we use our power for good.