A sneeze attack this morning that made me giggle and my little dog bark and dance around me. When the attack subsided I pondered the silence. Why does someone say "Bless you" when you sneeze? Is it the age old belief that you almost die, a prayer to keep evil spirits away? No one answer or superstition has been confirmed, but we do, instinctively a blessing for the other pops out.
Closing my eyes, with a smile I whispered "Bless you." In the pause between the blessing to myself and my giggle, I wondered why we wait until that superstitious moment to bless another. I flashed back to my first experience on the Boston subways as a teen and the 13 years commuting during rush hour in California ("rush" hour is the epitome of a misnomer). The sea of faces not looking at each other. I thought of the 22% of children living in US poverty, 1 in 4 women live in domestic violence as do over 3 million children. So many statistics, numbers and unseen people behind the numbers, just like commuters they pass by us unseen. And I wondered if the world would change if at that moment, 2 billion of the 4 billion people on earth sneezed and the other 2 billion said "Bless you."
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
To Mark Another's Calendar
My ability to read fading so fast, I do not use the precious gift to read the news, the news of violence. I did so last night and my soul felt as faded as my eyes. Then my spirit whispered of the wounding that leaves life but penetrates and tears asunder the heart.
The closing of one's heart to another sends forth an arrow and bullet that shatters not the physical self but wounds the essence of the other's I AM. Can I not see a group of people, or even one, and in closing my heart allow their bodies to continue but steal from them, he or she perhaps the very thread they needed to believe? No reporters would gather, the world or community would not be in shock. That sentence a blessing for the closer and yet sad that no one would notice the victims.
We mark the days of violence with anniversaries. We will not forget. And yet today, for some, for those whom I close my heart and wound, today will be a day they will never forget.
Sweet mercy, may their hearts calendar boldly write only of a blessing.
The closing of one's heart to another sends forth an arrow and bullet that shatters not the physical self but wounds the essence of the other's I AM. Can I not see a group of people, or even one, and in closing my heart allow their bodies to continue but steal from them, he or she perhaps the very thread they needed to believe? No reporters would gather, the world or community would not be in shock. That sentence a blessing for the closer and yet sad that no one would notice the victims.
We mark the days of violence with anniversaries. We will not forget. And yet today, for some, for those whom I close my heart and wound, today will be a day they will never forget.
Sweet mercy, may their hearts calendar boldly write only of a blessing.
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