Let me share two situations in which I found myself in the past weeks. I'm not doing this to shine a light on me. Rather, I am sharing them because I realize how easy it is to sit in the dark - let the world happen out there - talk endlessly about what can be - speak and tell stories that will hopefully inspire new life.
I am blessed with all sorts of friends and acquaintances that I consider as people who live on the edge. It is an edge in which their everyday lives are made available for the well-being of others. That is an edge of life that most folks avoid. It is much easier to turn back from that edge and focus on the well-being of my own kind and how I can protect that which I have fooled myself into believing is mine - all mine. And yet, I know so many folks who seem to walk off that edge - every damn day - in all sorts of ways - and it is as though that is simply the life they live - no reward or praise needed. But when I look closely at them they shine and they make the world shine and most of the time the brilliance take place within the simplicity of being utterly human without partiality and with the courage to be self-giving for the well-being of all.
These blessed ones may or may not be religious folks. The inspiring part for me is that they are folks who step in and go about doing. They don't act up because it is a part of their job - they act up because they consider that being available to others is a vital part of how they are humanly present in the day. They act up on many levels. They write letters. They take time to physically stand with and for those who need the presence of others. They risk saying and doing that which is not a part of the pattern of the day. They use their language and ideas to open up the possibility for a life of healing and then they put meaning to those words through the actions of their everyday life. They see injustice and bias and bigotry and they make sure those sores are laid open so that the miracle of healing can be seen by everyone - even those who are unwilling to acknowledge the wounds around us. Nothing is put off for later. Service is not something that is done in another place and time. What is and what has been is simple a part of that which could be and therefore they do not settle for that which is.
I have always found that as I am near these folks who act up and are willing to expand the meaning of what it is to be truly human, it is like being in the middle of prayer - or - some might say - mindfulness. I begin to see things and hear things and feel things I know I too often have passed by on my way to build the day or the world as I want it or like it. These folks are willing to explore life that is beyond their own way of living face and therefore encounter surprises that disrupt their thinking and acting and begin to shape a new way of living. These folks are ones who are not colorblind because they want to see the differences and the variety and the strangeness of what it is to be fully human. These folks see time as a gift that we are handed and a gift that we are able to share with others - and they have the audacity to explore the contents of that gift - right now. These folks read and study and ask questions and risk being wrong because they understand that when they think they are right or must be right - they may fall into the many groups of people through history who saw no value in others and even saw them as expendable.
So, what did I do recently that is making me reconsider everything I do within the realm of my ordinary humanity. I made a phone call. And then, on another day, I turned the car around. I will leave it at that.
TRRR
No comments:
Post a Comment