“If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.” ~ Gelett Burgess
I find with age I have to guard against becoming set in my ways and thinking there’s nothing left for me to learn.
There’s so much beauty we miss when we fail to see life through an unfiltered lens.
Like the boy in this story…
There was a boy whose family was very wealthy. One day his father took him on a trip to the country where he aimed to show his son how poor people lived.
They arrived at the farm of a family he considered impoverished. They spent several days there. On their return, the father asked his son if he liked the trip. “Oh, it was great, Dad,” the boy replied.
“Did you notice how poor people live?” “Yeah, I did,” said the boy.
The father asked his son to tell in more detail about his impressions from their trip. “Well, we have only one dog, and they have four. In our garden there is a pool, while they have a river in their backyard.
“We‘ve got expensive lanterns, but they have stars above their heads at night. We have the patio, and they have the whole horizon. We have only a small piece of land, while they have the endless fields.
“We buy food, but they grow it. We have a high fence for protection of our property, and they don‘t need it, as their friends protect them.” The father was stunned. He could not say a word. Then the boy added:
“Thank you, Dad, for letting me see how poor we are.”
Ahhh — the beauty of looking at life through an unfiltered lens.
I love how this story so perfectly illustrates what life looks like before the burden of expectations distorts one’s perspective.
Think back to when you were young and the first time you encountered a person totally different from yourself; to a time before you were burdened with preconceptions and biases.
For me it was the summer of 1969, after my sophomore year in college, when I went to the west side of Chicago to a community called 5th City.
I was a scrub-faced kid from Seattle who’d never been east of Spokane, ridden on an airplane, or been within 2,000 miles of a ghetto.
What I knew was I’d get a semester’s worth of credit for spending two months studying and working in this neighborhood. 5th City was a pilot community development project of some note.
When I arrived it felt like I was visiting a foreign country. Nothing was familiar, I didn’t understand the language, the customs or the culture of the community, It was as if I was Dorothy and I’d landed in Oz.
I literally had the time of my life and changed in ways I hardly could have imagined. If I ever had any preconceptions of the ghetto they were blown up during my time there.
Strange as it seemed to me at the time, the people I met there wanted exactly the same things in life that I wanted. It was in working shoulder to shoulder with them that I developed a deeper understanding of the meaning of happiness, purpose and destiny.
Prior to that summer my life had revolved exclusively around ME. It was what I wanted that mattered.
- my goals to be achieved
- my future to be secured
- my destiny to be fulfilled
My summer in 5th City changed all that and I knew I had to return. So once I graduated I spent the next decade of my life in this work.
When I look back on that summer I seem much like the boy in the story. The lens through which I saw the world had changed and nothing would be quite the same.
I’m now more than 50 years removed from this experience. I’ve traveled the world and have drunk deeply from the wellsprings of many traditions and cultures.
It is harder work now to be open to learning something new, to question long-held beliefs, to open myself to new connections. But it is so worth the effort.
Just a thought…
Pat
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