Divisions and Fear

Someone once asked me what I value most in this world. My response was, "Seeing other people cross dividing lines and work together.

There are many in this world who would divide. We are divided by geography, income, politics, religions, genders, lifestyle, cultures, and languages. Some thrill at diving people and putting each in our place.

But are we not all one - humanity? Do we not all have the same color blood running in our veins? Do we not all live under the same sky, where the moon and sun touch our lives?

I've even seen fellow Christians bicker among themselves over who has what right.

People quote the bible as an excuse to draw lines. "If you're not with me; you're against me!" or "Christ came to divide sheep and goats, so I am called to do likewise!"


Say WHAT?!?

Do you really believe that is what Jesus / Yeshua wants? Did He not tend to the Roman centurion and the Samaritans as well as the Jews? Did He not reach out to everyone who crossed his path, and tell a beautiful story of blessing for the one that stepped across a dividing line to help a fellow human being?

Christ asks that we love each other and work together - not divide ourselves, fight, and hate each other. That is the teachings of the adversary.

Once, I attended a healing Mass with my husband and in-laws. My mother-in-law is Protestant, and thus cannot receive communion in the Catholic church. When the priest saw that she did not come up, he approached her after finishing the line. She refused demurely. When asked why, she explained that she was Protestant and not allowed. To emphasize, she put her hands before her mouth.

The priest pulled down her hands, put the Eucharist in her palms and said firmly, "That doesn't matter." There were whispers all around us; many had plans to report this priest to the church. But I Bless this priest for what he had done. He crossed that line to extend Love.

Fear divides us from our fellow human beings. We fear them, whether we see that as despising them, hating them, or cutting ourselves from them. We are running as fast as we can in the opposite direction, even when we don't admit it to ourselves.

Fear can also be used by others to keep us quiet, obedient to their greed and desires, and have us fight each other. Fear is used to divide us. Fear is used to keep us from saying or doing something to change things - especially when things should be changed!

Why?

Because, division is the antithesis of what humanity is actually growing towards and what we can be. There is a statement that practically screams from my being when I see how much fear has crippled what we can be.

We can achieve far more together than the sum of our individual efforts.

Together - as one.

When we are divided and running in so many different directions, we fail in that.

How much can we do working together? Even as recent as one generation ago, we walked on the surface of the moon.

But we can do much more. When people work together, they erase the dividing lines. They unite in heart and mind and create something strong and lasting.

We create a better world, a brighter world.

We come up with solutions to life's problems, with no loss to any, no answering to corporate greed that sees the poor masses beneath its notice.

We bring Peace into our lives and our world. 

We bring Love to live in our lives and the lives of every one of our sisters and brothers.

We are all one, though fear tries to tell us differently.  Let Light shine to dissolve the fear - and bring us a better world.

~ ESA

One of Them

In addition to the previous post, I'd like to mention another response to Avatar.

In the movie, there are bio-technological hybrid bodies, called avatars that a human can remotely control to interact with Pandora's indigenous humanoid race. While the concept of remote-mind-controlled devices isn't new (especially in science-fiction), I recall wishing I had one too to go in and help the locals.

As I sat in the theater, caught up in the movie, I found myself longing to be part of that world. Not just a visitor, but like Jake Sully, able to be ONE with the people, learn their ways, interact with them on their level in a body just like theirs...

Then something blossomed in my mind. What about this world?

Am I not a part of this world? Have I not learned the ways of this world and interact with the indigenous humanoids of this world? Do I not already possess a body just like theirs?

What, then, is the difference between going several light-years away and helping another race of humanoids and staying right here and helping the ones in this world? There exists here the same corruption, corporate greed and overuse of military power here as what was shown in the movie.

What is stopping me from trying? Why do I long to help another far away, but run and hide from the same here?

- ESA

Bright Lights

Between the news the media covers and how bad news seems to travel further and faster than good news, it is difficult to see the good in our fellow human beings. Instead we look upon each other with fear and suspicion.

Recently, a friend had some people reach out to him and his wife in their need. I admit that my first and primary response was that fear when I heard they not only had his phone number but also his address, saying they will bring over some goods. I warned my friend to be very careful as these people could rob them or worse...

His response snapped me into a better perspective. He told me flatly, there was nothing in his home worth stealing. He was not going to let the fear that we have of strangers stop him from opening the door to those who really do intend to help.

He judged correctly, those people brought smiles, food and things he and his wife could use, a very rare thing in his life and a blessing he received with a gratitude and joy that touched my heart.

Someone really cared for their fellow human beings.

Someone fought that fear and opened their door.

Together that moment has something to teach us all.

We should be alert and open the ways for any of our fellow human beings who truly wish to help others. And while we should maintain vigilance against those who deceive, manipulate and abuse the ways we open, we should never use it as an excuse or reason to let our fears lock us away from each other.

We all share this world. True, there is darkness and evil here. But there are many bright points of Light and Love here too. If we open our eyes to see the difference, we will see not only the bright points, but the ways they illuminate where we can help one another.

We also shouldn't propagate the bad news; just alert others of precautions to take. Instead, we should spread good news, and fight against the fear that has made us mistrustful of one another.

Hand-in-Hand can humanity stand
Against the fear
Trust in Love

- ESA

Worth

Every person in this world has worth. Too often when we look at the people in our lives -- or even strangers half a world away -- and we analyze them; who they are or what they have. Then we categorize people into two groups.

In one group we place people we believe have value. We review their skills, abilities, knowledge and contacts and wonder what does that person have that can help me? In this world, society constantly encourages us to improve ourselves and our positions. So as we look out on our world, we are constantly seek people who will help us climb to that next step.

In the second group, we see people we can help - the poor, the homeless, the downtrodden, the disadvantaged, the ill, the disabled, children, elderly. We volunteer our time and efforts or donate money. Let's admit, it makes us feel good. Then these people are forgotten and we work on culling value from the first group.

Sadly, the people in the second group also have much to offer this world, if only we would take the time to discover that. They have talents and skills. They have experiences from which we can learn when we take the time to do so.

Everyone wants to feel useful. Everyone needs to feel needed. Everyone has something to contribute. We should not dismiss someone as having no value because they don't have the money, education or background we believe is valuable.

At one time in my life, I lost the roof over my head and a friend who couldn't afford to pay her electric and phone bills took me in and gave me a place to sleep.

A family I knew that had so very little still insisted on sharing their lunch with me. I can't tell you how much I appreciated that half of a tuna-fish sandwich.

A 9-year-old showed me how to navigate on YouTube; then I taught my 68-year-young mother.

A 16-year-old told me that I was the first adult who honestly wanted to hear his opinion on something.

I listen and learn from everyone I can.

In fact, the more a person's experience differs from ours, the more that person has to share with us. For you see, each of us can only live in this world for such a small period of time. We cannot experience all there is to experience. The world is too vast and there are innumerable paths to life here.

But we can learn much more by reaching out to ALL fellow human beings and learning what they have to share with us. What they share can be far more valuable that you'll ever imagine.

Reach out.
Share.

-ESA

Legend and Lessons

I have a feeling someone left me a message where I would find it. Said message read,

You can not be selfish and save all from the darkness,
As saving one from the darkness into the Light of God....
One is taken by the darkness
Because of the balance of the universe and life

There can not be love without hate
Light without darkness
Heaven without hell...
As the universe depends on the eternal balance


For those who wonder where such words can flow, they are from the movie "Legend." While they sound wise, one must also acknowledge they are being said by a devil / demon while he is in a desperate moment... His nails were dug deep - sparks eminating from the stone - as he was thrust back, back into the darkness into which he had been banashed by the Light. Evidently, this character did not want to go there and would do anything - say anything - to get another chacter --- a human character, Jack -- to help him so he would not have to return to that cold darkness away from the Light.

It saddens me that one would listen to those words spoken by that character and thow it in my face as truth. It's not truth. Not at all. All things are possible with God. If anything, we're unballanced as we are not where we are meant to be. But the more we reach that point of growing in the right direction, the darkness will redouble it's efforts and try to drag us back into the darkness.

I have to wonder when I recall the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Humanity allegedly had eaten from the Tree of Knowlege; why then do we seem to be so blind to the truth? Why do we not see the lies AS lies?

In simple truth, when one moves towards God there is NO requirement for another to move toward darkness. But the darkness wants us to think there is. When more and more move toward God there is harmony and Love, not unballance. When we move toward God we move into Light and Love and our eyes are washed so we can see past these petulant little lies to the Truth.

The darkness will do its best to influence us in many different ways, but it's sphere of control is starting to shrink even as it creates the illusion that it's growing. Those the darkness attracts, seek to better themselves, in this does the darkness fall for without the unity and harmony and Love found in the Light, those in darkness will scatter and fall as chaff in the winds of change.

- ESA

Random Acts of Care

One of the stories my father told me, and I included in his eulogy years later, was one of caring for our fellow human beings. He was driving along this road late one night and saw someone parked on the shoulder with a flat tire, struggling to change it. As this was well before cell phones, and in a place where it may be hours before a police cruiser passed, my father stopped to help him. It was evident from the start, the man did not know what he was doing, so my father took the tire iron and changed the tire for him. When the man took out his wallet and tried to pay for the job, my father refused the money and, instead, told him this. "You know how you can repay me? Next time you see someone in need where you can do something, help them. If they offer you payment, tell them to pass on the act as payment in full."

While skimming through the headlines this morning, all sorts of horrors were reported, from the Taliban killing a young engaged couple to a 13-year old being accused of theft in Illinois. But then one link caught my eye and I read it through (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30092624/).

In this story, a team of Wyoming snow plows escorted a gentlemen through a blizzard with white-out conditions to the hospital 250 miles from his home so he could receive a long-awaited transplant. I think it wasn't so much the fact that this man finally received his transplant as the fact that several others (a 911-dispatcher, a police officer, and a WDOT boss) took it upon themselves to steer away from their job's official procedure and choose to do what they could to help a fellow human being. In today's economy, jobs are getting scarce. I can easily envision a WDOT accountant complaining that the State shouldn't have wasted the money on a convoy of plows for one man. Sadly, any of those people who helped may have jeopardized their job, and even their family's welfare, in doing so. But they did it anyway.

Too many times in our lives, we just follow the procedures. We move like sheep following one shepherd or another, but rarely the One in our hearts whose only request was to love one another. With that loving flows the incentive to help one another, reaching out to others who may not be part one group or another we proclaim ourselves to be members of, but out to another human being who shares this small blue planet with us.

I'm certain if I hunted for them, I could find other news stories like these. But I think most "good deeds" go unrecorded, best paid if we return to the favor to a fellow human being in need.

- ESA