Monday, August 21, 2017

The Power of Stillness


“Sometimes it is better not to talk. At all. About anything. To anyone.” – Unknown
I escaped to the river for a few short hours on a sunny afternoon. Took my kayak and my fishing gear to a spot I could briefly paddle upstream to and try to attempt to catch a few fish. But when I look back at the experience now, it wasn’t about fishing at all. It was the silence of fishing that I was seeking.

Everything around me of late has seemed so challenging. Some of the challenges are quite correctly of my own making, as I tend to take the world a bit seriously these days. My seriousness tends to boil inside of me as silence, seeking all the time to try to act on, or say something, that is better than the silence. I remember telling myself once that a wise, peaceful and compassionate person needs to be found alone at times, saying nothing, listening to no other human voices. Silent. Quiet. Still. No words in books, no music from the radio, no actors or anchors on the TV, no endless knowledge of the internet, no people talking.

So what I came away from the river with was lungs filled with moist river air, that was fragrant with late summer flowers. I came away with gently rippling sounds inside my head of the water flowing over rocks, tumbling over wind-fallen trees and the splashing of the paddles urging me upriver. I came away with eyes filled with turtles sunning on the floating logs, sparkling fish, cedar waxwings dancing through the branches, an osprey hunting above me and green shades of late summer as far up and down the river as I could see.

Surrounded as I was with the quiet of nature, I barely knew what was transforming inside me. The quieter I became, distanced from the civilized world’s noise, the more I began to hear.

What I heard, but did not recognize till later was that I may not be perfect, the world is certainly imperfect, but watch us both improve. As time passes, I realize how much I have improved as a person. I look at the long recorded history of the world, one that is filled with great discoveries and great tragedies, but it has improved.

So what did I really go out to do that sunny summer afternoon? I went to find hope, and to continue when appropriate, to remain silent when those around me expect me to be enraged.


Tuesday, August 15, 2017

What If No One Came to See It?

"Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come."-- Carl Sandburg
Racists. White supremacists. Anti fa. Communists. Black separatists. Anti-Muslim. Socialists. Neo-Nazis. Republicans. Democrats. Black Panthers. Black Lives Matter. KKK. LGBTQ (Add more letters as applicable).

Imagine if you had a group of white supremacists and neo-nazis or any other group standing around a statue of a figure from the southern side of the American Civil War. Imagine they are chanting hate-speech or other offensive things to the area surrounding this statue. Imagine they are dressed in attire that reflects their stance, brandishing signs with offensive slogans and are waving flags of a racist and offensive matter.

Are you mad yet? Then their tactics worked. And the human species suffered because of it.

Time for a brief disclaimer: I am for free speech. I will defend your right to it. Offensive speech generally turns me off from that speakers perspective. As Evelyn Beatrice Hall said (though this is often attributed to Voltaire): I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Why engage these people at all? Why not ignore them? Do we need to know that when a tree falls in the forest it makes a noise, or if bears shit in the woods? Or if someone is spouting hate speech that there is anyone to hear it? What these groups do when they are engaged is turn their opposition into the aggressor, when they are the ones that are usually the lovers of peace.

Did the likes of Gandhi, the Dali Llama and Martin Luther King not teach people anything?

So many questions.

I would offer this to ponder about. Suppose you consider that before man existed, conflict waited. The ultimate practice of conflict awaiting man, the ultimate practitioner of conflict. Now apply it to current events of violent nature that all to frequently abound in the world.

Then throw in a televised news feed and some talking heads to fuel the fire.

Recipe for Charlottesville.