My plan to have a lazy day and get some writing done fell partially by the wayside, when a call from a friend got me up off of my butt for a Memorial Day concert in the park, featuring Beatlemania.
I still got another chapter edited and a little laziness (slept in until almost 10), but I also got my meditation in and still had a great, guilt-free time enjoying a beautiful, sunny day with great music and friends. We ended up spending most of the concert next to the stage (I guess the kids call it the mosh pit these days) dancing and singing along.
The hills surrounding the park’s natural amphitheater were covered with gaily colored umbrellas, chairs, blankets, but best of all, happy, grateful people. Though the day is essentially a commemoration of those who died, it is a also a celebration of gratitude for the lives we live because of their ultimate sacrifices.
While I find myself agreeing with those who say that we should also add that we pledge to find a way to stop having to send our young men and women into danger like this, it really comes down to the fact that, since time immemorial, humans have found a reason to fight with each other. Whether it’s been religion or territory or some fabricated reason to take one group’s innate aggressiveness out on another, I’ve yet to see, at least in my lifetime and those which preceded it, a time when people just got fed up with all of the aggression and took the aggressors completely out of the picture. And face it, every single culture, nation, religion or other imaginary separator of humans has its aggressors. There is always someone who thinks they deserve a bigger piece of the pie and has no problem using whatever means they have to in order to claim what they deem their fair share.
I don’t claim to have the answers. All I can do is try to love the haters and focus my attention on peace and harmony. Will my own, small effort turn the tables? Probably not. Will it make a small tear in the fabric of that anger and aggression? I like to think it will. But I have to believe that if millions of normal, average people like me simply focused on love and peace, we might actually see that shift…and in this lifetime!
That doesn’t mean that my heart doesn’t ache when school girls are kidnapped or towns are bombed, or when one, crazy, emotionally damaged young man goes on a killing spree in a college town. It just means that I try to stop my angry, judgemental thoughts as quickly as possible and instead, realize that the actions being taken are there because the individuals taking them do not feel loved. And since we are all connected, then it follows that they come from a place in me that isn’t feeling loved.
So, do I, in essence, gnaw my own arm off, or do I instead, do my best to reach it and remind it that, though it may not feel like it at times, it is always surrounded by love. I may not like the actions taken, but the person underneath still needs and deserves to be loved.
I’m reminded of when my kids were small. I tried very hard to avoid ever telling them that they were bad. Their behavior may have been bad, or at least, not acceptable, but they, themselves, were always good people!
The blackest of hearts is simply a well-constructed wall to protect the soft center from hurts which it believes either have or will occur.
I suddenly got an image of a person in a room. The person is, presumably, a criminal who has been incarcerated. He sits in a room surround by people who do nothing except to send love missiles to him. Their loving energy is run through a machine which stands at the back of the room, and converts it into little energetic missiles which are directed at the wall around his heart. As the wall gives way, he is finally able to feel and receive the love which was there for him all along. But he must not be allowed to fall into self-loathing when he reaches the realization that he did some things which might have been pretty horrible. Instead, the love continues flowing and he is shown that, despite his misdeeds, he is still worthy of love and compassion, especially from himself.
OK, so it’s a little science-fictionesque, but I can’t control the images my brain creates for my viewing pleasure. And you have to admit that it would be a heck of an improvement over current rehabilitation efforts!
As I’ve now amused you yet again with my mind’s way of hopscotching from one topic to another with no indication as to how it made the transition, I will leave you with tonight’s gratitudes.
1. I am grateful for a day spent in the sunshine with good company, good music, and even a little exercise!
2. I am grateful for the people who have made the ultimate sacrifice so I can sit here tonight, typing whatever comes into my head.
3. I am grateful for a lovely beginning to “Birthday Week”.
4. I am grateful for continuing to open up and touch the world’s of the people around me, and for their permission to do so.
5. I am grateful for all of the abundance which touches every aspect of my life.
Love and light.
