Looking for Love

Recently, my dear niece posted the following as her Facebook status:

“The hate that is going on in this world is absolutely disgusting.”

I understand her frustration.  Upon even cursory examination, man’s inhumanity to man can quickly put any caring individual into a spiraling depression.  For our own survival most of us turn a blind eye to the horrors and atrocities of war.  Human rights violations, slavery and terror can, when scrutinized for even the fewest of moments, lead one to despair.

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On global and local scales are individuals and organizations that fight for the rights and humane treatment of others.  If you choose to join one of those organizations or stand up against your local instances of injustice, I wish you well and success.  But what of the average person who trudges through daily life, with all of the accompanying burdens and responsibilities?  How does one get involved or matter in the world?  How does one avoid sinking deeper into hopelessness?

“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.” ~ Mother Theresa of Calcutta

The only advice I can offer is to be concerned with you.  I don’t mean it in a way that condones selfishness.  I mean, in times of trouble and/or strife, focus on you.  Centering your focus on the misdeeds of others is not a productive path.  Focus on your own motivations and your own reactions; your own solutions to the perceived ills before you.

In my opinion, the majority of people in this world are constantly focused on what is wrong with other people.  For many, it is perhaps an unconscious means of shifting their personal responsibility away from themselves.  Meaning as long as they’re looking at others for the cause of their life’s problems, they don’t have to look at their own life nor take responsibility for it.

Others are do-gooders or those with a holier-than-thou attitude that inwardly directs them to proselytize to others about what those others are doing wrong, when all the while their own lives are nothing short of a train wreck.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta is often credited with a quote that was originally written by Kent M. Keith when he was a college student in 1968.  A hand-written copy was found pinned to a wall in Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta and included in a book about her, published in 1995.  Since then the Paradoxical Commandments have been slightly rewritten and attributed to her.  In this version, there is an added coda:

“…for in the end it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.”

And that sums up my point.  As depressing as this world can get, as sad and as heart-wrenching these passing events may be, ultimately the only person you can change, the only person you have to be concerned with is you.  You are the only person you must be concerned with.

If there is a person in front of you who needs help and you are compelled to help, then do so!  If you choose not to help, then don’t.  Inside yourself you will know what you did.  After your passing from this physical realm, you will stand in the Light of Truth.  You will see what you did with your life.  You will see if you lived with compassion or ignorance.  In the Light of Truth you will know if you lived a life of Love or hatred.

You can’t create a better world by berating others and telling them your way is the best or only way to live.  Everyone is walking their own path.  You can’t create a better world by taking money from others to give to those less fortunate.  You have to do this on your own.  This is your life.  What will you do yourself to make the world a better place?  Stop pointing the finger at others and point it at yourself.

When the ills of the world depress or anger you, you must ask yourself what you have personally done to make it better.  What act of kindness or humanity, no matter the size and scope have you done today to make your home, your street, your town, your country, your world a better place for those who inhabit it with you?  Don’t worry about the numbers!  Do what you are capable of doing!

Instead of being depressed, go out and help another.

Look for the Good!

Another thing I try to do is look for the good in people, the good in life.

On a recent trip, I stayed at a wonderful hotel in Winslow, Arizona, called La Posada.  One evening, the owner of the hotel had a friend visiting from Japan.  The man, a research biologist, was a marvelous guitar player.  When the two men were in college, some two decades past, they sang Simon and Garfunkel songs together.  The Japanese man was only in town for one day and after dinner they took an hour or so to sit in a large lounge and again sing together.  Passersby stopped to listen to the talented voices of a scientist and an hotelier.  Between songs, the owner got up and began pushing chairs into the room so we could all sit and enjoy the casual and impromptu concert.

“…’til a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest…”

As I said, the friend was a marvelous guitarist and their voices blended beautifully. While enjoying their talent, I watched the faces of the two friends as they shared with us their joy of music and their affectionate friendship for each other.  When I focused on their love of music, their shared memories and the immediacy of the intimate moment, I was quite moved.  These men hadn’t seen one another in 20 years and they would only be together for this evening.  Yet they relived their past joy of song for a cherished hour and me, a wondering fool, was privileged to be a part of it.

It’s a Maze!

One afternoon, I was out on the grounds, strolling through the gardens and I came across a maze that had been constructed from bales of straw.  As I surveyed the structure, I was met by the groundskeeper.  He wore dirty, sweat-stained work clothes and was pushing a mower.  I looked to him and he smiled a semi-toothless grin.

“¿Que es esto?” I asked, grasping for the few Spanish words I can recall.

“Eets…. Ahh…” He raised his hands in a grand gesture while he searched for the English word.  Finally he exclaimed, “¡Mace!”

It’s a maze!

“A Maze?!”

“¡Si!

“¿Por los niños?”

“¡Nosotros!” he said with a loud laugh.

“Us?  Did you go in?”

“No,” he grinned.  “You go!”

“That’s okay,” I smiled at him.

We spent the next five minutes talking, each trying to speak the others’ language.  In no time at all I had discerned that he was the groundskeeper for the hotel, he lived in the gardener’s “shack” that was at the West end of the property and he was from Durango, Mexico.  I later learned that he went home to Durango for the first three months of each year and it took him a five hour train ride, an eight hour bus ride and then an hour-and-a-half clinging to the top of a truck to get home.

He was soon telling me of his family at home and the work he did here at the hotel.  He pointed out the vegetables growing and proudly pointed to the row upon row of corn.  He told me it wasn’t ready yet and then said, “Jew comb back on fifsteen een Septiembre.  Ees don den.  Ees ready?  Yes?  Don?”

“Done, yes,” I said.

 “Jew comb to my house and I kook corn for jew. Ees da best and sweet!”

I shook his hand and thanked him.  We exchanged names and I asked Manuel if he’d mind posing for a picture with me.  He was quite happy to do so.

I left him to his work and, before I was more than 20 yards away, he called after me, “Fifsteen een Septiembre!”

I smiled as broadly as I could and waved to him.  I continued my walk with a slight lump in my throat.  Here was a man who works as a gardener.  He works hard and sweats for his pay.  He lives in a “shack.”  He has so little, yet within the span of a five to ten minute conversation, he had invited me to come back to his home to share his food with me.  Me, a total stranger to him.  Yet he was willing to share what little he had just because I had stopped to talk with him.

When the tragedies of the world get me down, I do my best to shift my focus so that I see the love and kindness that is in the world.  It is all around and if you look for it, you will find it.  If you choose to, you can be it.