I think of that pain now, a pain that heals and doesn't. I still have difficulty saying good-bye to someone, trusting that we will meet again and yet, I also feel my father with me, especially in the early hours of this day.
I read the news. There is so much fear and distrust. I think if people really recognized what a short time they are here, they would mobilize a little more kindness toward themselves and the world in which they want to live.
Why do people teach their children to be afraid? My father was not afraid. He had survived parachuting out of a B-17, landing in a farmer's field and being turned in to be taken to a prisoner of war camp in the north of Germany. He was never angry about that. He read books. Thanks to the internet, my brother and I connected with a man who was on the plane, was in the camp.
I read of teenagers so afraid as to report people talking naturally about where it is safest to sit on the airplane.
How many of us have made similar remarks about the safest place to sit. I think of the old story about seeing a stick and thinking it is a snake. Fear cripples, isolates, and destroys. The world runs on trust. I trust that you pay attention when you drive. I trust that my dentist is well-rested when she works on my teeth. I trust that we care about each other, and that my children are yours, and your children are mine. The world is a village. Be kind.
Ginahelen posted these words yesterday. I think they are important to remember and integrate each day.
"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him." Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is an article on children taught not to trust.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010201695.html?hpid=topnews%3Fnav