This Town, That Town
Recently, someone was speaking about a small town who had taken a hard stand to be the town that may not exactly be on the most upstanding end of the scale. (Think informed decisions to ignore mold in a school and E. coli in the town water.)
I heard about another small town who had taken quite a different approach about the town they were going to be. This was the kind of town who was making plans to put food pantries in parks and had a reputation for accepting and being successful with special needs students whenever other schools had given up.
You see, even towns decide the kind of story they're going to tell. And be honest, which town would you want to live in?
Why does it matter what kind of person you're going to choose to be? We could take the fear approach and talk about legal repercussions. We could take the selfish approach and talk about how we have the expectation to receive something from it. To me, it's still bigger. To me, there are reasons that are nearly impossible to put into words because they're on that wavelength of intuition, connection, and love.
To do what is just and right is bigger than I just don't want to get into trouble. But what is it? It's a spiritual relation that happens simply because I want you to be okay and truthfully, if you're not okay, then I'm really not either. It's this beautiful web that matters because we truly are woven from the same string, so if we don't stick together, the whole thing falls apart. It matters. Are you hearing me? It matters. Your decisions, your actions: they all matter. Because when you're missing the mark, we all are.
And if we're going to take this whole, big, beautiful place on a whole, big, beautiful journey, we all gotta be doing our part. And we all gotta be cheering one another on. And we all gotta be taking a slightly different approach than shame.
When we see each other flat on our faces, we gotta quit walking by or throwing a little jab in there. We do this all of the time. We've all done it. I've done it. The story that comes to mind is the story of the mother who lost a child in the zoo. I'm sure we all remember that. Now this is not to point fingers, but this is truly what goes on. That poor woman lost her child. Sit there for a minute.
Her child is gone.
How does one human get through that mere fact alone? So we all agree that's probably one of the most devastating things any human can go through. That is not where it ended for her. What came next? Shame. All of the things she could have, should have done to prevent it. Do you think she's not already telling herself this story, reliving it every single day? Chances are pretty high that she is. Many, many of us did not embrace her in love. What happened to her was pretty sickening, honestly, guys.
My point here is not to shame the people who shamed that woman. We all do this in one way or another: politics, religion, sports teams, etc. My point is to call us to higher way of interacting, a higher way of loving and living. We can do it, you guys. But even more than that we have to do it. We have to. We're killing one another. And remember, we're all connected here, so we're killing ourselves. We need each other. We need people to rise up off their face and tell a new, strong story. We need everyone to do their part. We gotta start choosing to be towns that love our citizens and taking it personally whenever one of us is being mistreated. Enough is enough, you guys. I want better than this for me and for you and for my little girl.
With lots and lots of love to you all!
"Question: How are we to treat others? Ramana Maharshi: There are no others."
x Keely
