Learning to Walk

Ever since I can remember I've enjoyed walking.  Whether it's down a country road or along a city street, walking connects me with the world and breaks my isolation.  It doesn't have to be a very long walk, either--though I'm amused at how often it includes a task--a stop for some groceries or to pick up the morning paper.

I've made a discovery as I walk...actually, make that discoveries.  Cash.  That's right...cold hard cash.  More often than you might imagine, too.  Oh, it may only be a quarter.  Sometimes it's a buck, or even five.  Last week I found a twenty. 

But I have to watch, you see, because it turns from a game into an obsession before I can say "easy money."  Suddenly all I'm finding is that my entire focus has turned to the ground around me. 

Being that focused on where I'm walking may keep me from tripping over uneven sidewalks, but it trips me up.

I looked up.  Was it the silvery light?  I looked up and there she was...a giant orb shining in the evening sky, and a silhouetted pair of palms: the moon and her friends, and I nearly missed it.  I'd been looking down, you see....for the cash.

Money is the past.  It is stored value that we can use today and maybe tomorrow.  Maybe. 

The moon is today.  She will soon be gone.  If we don't look up we'll miss her, and tomorrow we won't even have a yesterday to talk about.

(c) Steve Fiechter, 2015
 

Looking for Someone

We see ourselves in others.  Isn't that why we turn?

We see our hopes and dreams unfulfilled.  Isn't that why we hurry by?

We see our frailty, our vulnerability.  Isn't that why we, ever so carefully, step over?

We fear the other, the stranger.  We shrink from the odd clothes, the strange behaviors, the obvious oddities...and we become less and less and less.

Until we are hardly human at all.

Recently I read, in fairly religious terms, that "God doesn't make strangers, we do."  I felt power in that phrase, mostly because I've experienced it myself--the sideways glance, the unreturned smile, the blank look.  I've felt diminished by a lack of connection and I know you have too.  And I wonder if...no, I know...if we were to simply acknowledge the full humanity in others...even of those we fear...if we were to really see them and let them see us, this world would become better--connected, fearless, loving.

Isn't that what we all want?

Ism & Ogy & Ity?

She stormed in, fit to be tied.  She was angry and argumentative.  She was demanding and demeaning and derisive. 

We just listened. 

After a while--after the spew of poison slowed down to a trickle--after the walls came down--behind them we could see the stress, the anxiety, the fear. 

No one ever said it would be easy.  Believe me, that was no sin of omisssion.

It's not a religion.  It's not a creed.  It's not a doctrine.  It's not a philosophy or an organization or a methodology.  It's not a law or a rule or a guideline.  What carries us all through, what gives us all strength, what ties our tongues and opens our hearts so that compassion flows even as the venom spews, is--simply and unequivocally--love. 

It scatters the darkness.  It is our only hope.

Is there hope for you today?

"Love never ends."

So glad if you enjoy reading these...please feel free to share!  If you're reprinting, it's always nice (and legal) to ask. (c) 2015, Steve Fiechter