I have found one of the greatest gifts I can give myself is to be kind. This includes being gentle with myself. Each day we face many challenges. Mine is that in so many ways I am a walking contradiction. Yet despite my confusion, I attempt to listen to my heart. My greatest concern is to be gentle both with others as well as with myself, since I believe we are all one and the same. I ask myself, can I remember to follow the example of Mother Teresa and Gandhi so to perform similar kind acts? Just the simple act of caring or showing kindness has a tremendous ripple effect. We can further enjoy life by more compassionate relationships with people, plants, animals, bugs, and rocks since we all rely on each other for our survival.
As guests on earth we may chose either respect or disregard for our delicate world. Kindness is about making the intention toward a peaceful journey forth. Can we as a people have the courage to find how we can best go forth with compassion in our daily encounters? The more I am able to open my eyes, the more I can see that we are all lovers wishing to expand our smile upon the world.
For too many years, the human race has been like a child playing with explosives. The kind of wisdom, or rather non-wisdom, we are applying to life is questionable. We worry over whether we can afford a nice place for our retirement while we destroy many forms of life and deplete resources. To where will we retire? We need to remember, humans are a part of the other 30 million diverse species on this planet. Can we face the fact that all things are connected and we humans are interdependent with, not independent of all things?
Can we acknowledge that ultimately we are renters on this land Earth, since eventually we end up being buried in it? Devastation of land, cultures, indigenous people, species, and ecosystems are immoral, and undemocratic. We must invest in non-violent sustainable ways to encourage democratic ideals that support the building, not destroying of communities. Innumerable opportunities will come when we shift our culture based on consumption that depletes to one of conservation that replenishes. We must renew and raise our commitment for a democracy that provides opportunity for all, and not just for the few. Free trade must insure fair trade with a new emergence of human and ecological rights. A new respect for people, places and things must unfold so that commonly accepted standards of environmental integrity are developed. Non-violence must be given equal time in our media coverage. We are losing our spirit when we allow so much negative press to penetrate our souls. Our present style of media coverage may very well reinforce further acts of terrorism. We must set a better stage.
We are now experiencing the terrific extremes of peril and prosperity. While globalization has lifted more out poverty, the scales have been tipped in the direction of unparalleled wealth for the few. The world economy pumped out nearly $41 trillion of goods and services in 1999, 45 percent of the income went to the 12 percent of the world’s people who live in western industrial countries. Half the people of this world live on less than two dollars a day, and one sixth live on less than one dollar a day.
In the last twenty years we have doubled what we consume. This unbalanced consumption has created many forms of disparity. Our affluent minority has a monumental responsibility for the purity of our fragile planet. We must alter our focus from seeing only the monetary worth of commodities to exploring value in terms of quality of life. E.F. Schumacher once noted that high standards of living do not necessarily means high standards of life.
Critical domestic issues facing us—education, energy and the environment, health care—are competing for the same resources we are now diverting to insure our national security. The question is how will America secure its future quality of life? Will we rekindle the values of ingenuity and thrift our founders exemplified?
How we relate to our world is important. Exercising kindness in the process of relating to our environment can stimulate positive outcome. Selfishness and self-interest can no longer be the way we do our lives.
Our prosperity on this tiny planet will only continue when we go forward with kind acts, not mean ones. This is a critical time for us; we must learn to develop an attitude of friendliness and gentleness. Through meditation and prayer we can foster a clearer vision of how we as a people can walk on this dangerous razor edge we have created from having closed our hearts. If we can shift from a society of indifference to one that cares then we as people may develop a new sense of hope to replace our daily ominous despair. We will continue to be tormented until we each can radiate a prayer for compassionate kindness, until we each ask in our hearts how we can benefit all things on this fragile Earth. Such a prayer may be the first step to making this world a better place. We must now act with grace and behold what we have been blessed with. Being kind to others, to the world and to ourselves, is all one and the same.
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