Consider Beauty

Peace

On this 9/11 I praise the peace-builders. So much unresolved grief, anger and fear, on scales public and personal extends that cycle of grief, anger, and fear. Love is the answer, the reason. No other path leads out of the madness of the world. May seeds of peace be spread far and wide, be nurtured by hope and love. 

Literacy of choice and hope

From Upworthy, Ray Flores: When this teacher saw that her 5th-graders were suicidal, she changed her curriculum

You know, I wish I could share this video prominently and make sure everyone saw it. I, too, was 10 when existential despair set in. If only hope and choice-making were taught so clearly in every school. If these principles were taught in private and public schools, to kids of every class including the disappearing middle class and the rich, maybe the policy-makers, lawmakers, corporations and governments, bankers and lawyers and movie stars and sports figures, and even the media, would choose hope and helping over nihilism and selfishness.

How lucky we are to have teachers like these (and schools where teachers are allowed to make curriculum decisions!), and books, where there are no teachers, to provide life lessons! I just joined the local Friends of the Library board, and we had a presentation yesterday from Make Way For Books, an organization which is providing not only books to HeadStart and other Early Learning Centers, but to foster care kids and other families--books within the home, and programs that teach parents how to share books and reading with their kids. In Arizona, which is like 50th in child education. Our lawmakers use 4th grade reading scores to determine what prison space they will need in the future. This is what 30-40 years of canned curriculum and teaching to tests has brought us to.

But it's not only Arizona and schools of the South. It's high schools and colleges across the nation. How have we become a society where even people of goodwill and intelligence don't stand up and do the right thing? Don't make choices that put public welfare above profit? Don't feed the hungry?

As this wonderful teacher explains, unless we make the small choices in our daily lives, to do the right thing, to be kind to one another, to learn--to have hope!--then we can't make those other choices. We have to start where we are.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is more than acceptance of the past. It's releasing the unhappiness 
and pain of the past. When we haven't forgiven, we keep visiting the pain of the 
past and giving it a home in our hearts right now. And making that pain new is 
something we are doing to ourselves.

Forgiveness seems to be that actual step of choosing joy instead of pain and 
maybe even being actually glad things happened the way they did. I have not been 
able to get that far very often, because I am a sad, cranky person in my middle 
self. My lower self is a happy dancing kid, my higher self is twirling in 
ecstasy in the deep heavens; my middle self has been trying to figure out how 
much to blame who, what for. I am finding that it's generally safer to blame 
hormones, and the way to keep the hormones balanced and happy is to choose to be 
happy.

In a paradoxical way, to accept the past is reliving it, while forgiving 
releases the past. I know it's all been said before; I haven't ever understood 
this much of it before. I wanted to really understand forgiveness. I watched 
part of an online Oprah about forgiveness and there was a beautiful shining 
woman who said she had forgiven her molester, yes, she would (basically) invite 
him to her home and wash his feet like Jesus did. I was jealous of her freedom 
and her smile, and I immediately turned off the program. But I have been asking 
soul questions about forgiveness ever since.

I think I've been confusing forgiveness with an emotion instead of an act of the 
heart. "Forgive thy brother seventy times seven; turn the other cheek." This is 
alien advice to the fragile self. And yet. The work of the Spirit is to create 
balance and joy; for every act of evil, thoughtlessness or meanness, God's will 
and promise is to bring forth love and joy. Whether I am the victim of meanness 
or its perpetrator, it is my job then and there to replace it with mercy and 
love. A new world, a world of loving kindness for all, is created person by 
person, heart by heart. It begins with each one of us, to do unto others not as 
we have been done to, but to love as we wish we were loved. There are really no 
excuses. In a heart filled with love there is no room for hate. As wonderful as 
it is to feel justified,  if I still hurt, it's really by my own choice. As Yoda 
said, "There is no try, do or don't do."

I still wish my heart would be immediately replaced by God's heart. I want to be 
the flower, not just the seed and stem and bud growing. But that is my reality 
now. As one flower-in-training to another, I salute you, I wish you sun and rain 
and joy.