I’ve never been to Paris. Not even to France. Not even to Europe. I have lived in West Michigan all my life, and have traveled only a little outside of this country. But even in this country I have been fortunate to meet people of many nationalities and from many walks of life. My experience has been that we all need and want the same kinds of, if not exactly the same, things.
And just as we are human together in the ways we like to recognize, so are we human in the ways we’d rather not admit to. We all feel fear. We react to fear in ways that are not productive for ourselves or others. We react to fear by lashing out at those we believe are causing that fear. We limit freedom for ourselves and others in hopes of remaining ‘secure’, when real security is an illusion. We promote hate and create arbitrary separations in our world, in hopes of maintaining control over it. And so, at this moment in time that so many find so frightening, we have choices to make, as individuals and as countries. Will we respond in fear and anger to something we see as an overt threat, which is really representative of our lack of control? Will we become extremists like the people we fear, by demonizing a particular group of innocent people, and by killing many in the attempt to rid ourselves of a few? Or will we find a way to love, by supporting people who are being constructive in the world, rather than fighting those who are destructive, thus becoming more destructive ourselves? My own mantra/prayer that I repeat when fear threatens to disable me or cause me to behave in unhelpful ways: The Universe is safe and filled with love. I say it over and over, even when I don’t believe it at the time – especially when I don’t believe it. I believe in the little ripples that even my individual thoughts make in the experience of the world. I can start there. I can change my thinking. From there, I can change my words and my actions. I hope my changes will help others with theirs. Little ripples can become big waves. Look at the Nuclear Freeze Campaign that happened about 30 years ago. It was the beginning of some changes, changes that have since gotten bogged down in the very fears and reactions that plague us now. Look into your heart. Look into the hearts of those you love. Banish fear – or at least recognize it and learn not to be reactive to it. Respond to every situation out of love, not fear. “Sure,” you’re thinking. “Sounds easy, but it’s not.” Perhaps. But even choosing to become more aware of the choices is a start. Start.
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The Kun Yang Lin Dancers have been visiting Grand Valley State University this week. I missed their performance on Monday night, and I hope I get to see them perform somewhere in the near future because the lessons they’ve shared with the classes I accompany throughout the week have touched me and spoken truth to me.
Whatever our vocation, and I speak best from the perspective of the performing arts, we tend to work at it very hard, thinking that will bring us happiness and fulfillment and the essence of the art. But we are wrong. While there is unending practice involved, work is a concept that is not helpful but detrimental. These dancers (Jessica and Grace) invited the students to play at dancing and to experiment with movement, within the context of ballet class. And most importantly, they challenged the young dancers to breathe, not just as many teachers have encouraged students not to hold their breath, but to actually make audible breath part of the dance steps. On one combination, I was instructed to give the introduction and then stop playing. The dancers felt the movement and the breaths together, and it was moving and magical! This made manifest for me the idea of us breathing together as human beings, of feeling each other’s presence at all times, and thus of experiencing one another as parts of the same pervasive, respiring and inspiring whole. I truly wish we all could have been there together to feel this happening. It’s something I won’t soon forget; and I hope the dancers in the class had as powerful an experience of this as I did. I hope they carry it with them and find ways to repeat it and draw more people into it. I hope Jessica and Grace and their fellow company dancers convey this message, this experience, and this feeling far and wide because it is about humanity and Godness. It is about all of us, together. |
AuthorThinker, lover, curator of Sacred Space. Archives
June 2016
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