Sep
28
By Peg
Categories: Love, The Spiritual Life, Uncategorized
Tags: Love, Spiritual fitness, Truth and Grace, Unconditional love
Sep
28
Just try it. That’s all I ask.
The next time someone irritates the very devil out of you, pause for a moment and look for the ways that person is like you instead of focusing on all those differences that make you want to scream.
The next time someone looks like the root of all your problems — or society’s problems, because goodness knows society has a lot of problems and we sure do want to pin the blame somewhere — imagine for a moment that this person feels the same fear or anger or uncertainty you feel, just packaged differently.
The next time you want to look down on someone who clearly oughta know better or do better or be better, just for a moment remember your own worst moment, a moment you wish you could take back, a time when you should’ve known better or done better or been better. Maybe there’ll be an instant when it’s like looking in the mirror.
Just try it. Once today. Then once more tomorrow. Try it because it sounds sappy and simplistic but it is surprisingly hard and we all need to stretch ourselves at least once a day. Then try it once more. Who knows? Maybe it gets easier.
Changing how I think about other people may not sound like much, but it is the beginning of change. A change in my perceptions. A change in my own level of frustration with daily life. A change in how I interact with that one irritating-as-hell person. Sometimes, one thing changes everything.
Humor me. Just try it. Promise?
Photo courtesy of Mantos Ruzveltas
Sep
26
I’m angry. Mad-as-hell, not-gonna-take-it-any-longer angry.
I’m angry about the widening gap between rich and poor, a gap the American middle-class is falling into. I’m angry about the way people use our country’s very real problems as political weapons. I’m angry that so many seem so determined to do anything except come together for the common good.
So.
If my response to all those circumstances is anger, then I am handing one small battle – my small battle — to whatever it is in us that is driven to divide humanity into “us” and “them”.
But how do I channel my anger? What do I do with a rage that won’t be ignored and wants so much to be thrown out as fuel to the fire?
I don’t know. If I knew, I suppose I wouldn’t feel so helpless and would not feel so angry. As I say that, I wonder this: How many others who seem to be responding to desperate need with dismissive rhetoric and political posturing are simply doing their best to mask their own fears of helplessness? They are not responding from a place of love, but neither am I.
That makes us the same, doesn’t it? All of us, just walking around in the vulnerable skin of humanity and wishing we weren’t, somehow, so vulnerable.
Years ago, I read about a man who decided that each time he judged or criticized someone else, he would say to himself, “And I am that, too.”
My anger isn’t gone. And these 300 words won’t change anyone’s political views or deeply-held beliefs. People will remain far apart in those ways, no matter what I say. But for the 45 minutes it took me to write this, I have remembered how much better it feels to channel my anger into love and to live, even for a few minutes, in the awareness of how under-the-skin close we really are. That’s a very tiny battle won.
