I've been short on perspectives lately. Oh, I don't mean I'm short on opinions. We all have plenty of those, but watching the war, destruction, senseless killing, and rumors of more has left me numb. Listening to news that you know is propaganda, half-truths, outright lies, or never told at all leaves me feeling we've all been duped for longer than we know. Perhaps, things have been this way all along, but I've chosen or been influenced to see the good that is there; to dream a bigger dream. I also realize that perhaps this is what life is for --- a laboratory of living and experiencing that leads to being confronted with your own values in the face of injustice and other sorrows.
What has become so real to me since the beginning of the IRAQ War, and other misjudgments, injustices, long-term failed leadership, and broken systems that have been revealed since, is that we as a nation, and has people, need to take a second look at ourselves and what we've allowed ourselves to become.
As I've written before, for reasons I cannot explain, I have always been drawn to old books. The books I like are not necessarily classics, but instead ones that someone wrote from the heart about life and lessons learned in their time. There is something comforting about discovering that people before us struggled too. They lived and experienced, leaving us with their wisdom.
In a book written nearly 60 years ago, Take a Second Look at Yourself by John Homer Miller, he shares a poem about three monkeys talking about us humans:
Three monkeys sat
In a coconut tree,
Discussing things as
They're said to be
Said one to the others,
"Now listen you two;
There's a certain rumor
That can't be true,
That man descends
From our noble race.
The very idea!
It's a dire disgrace.
No monkey ever
Deserted his wife,
Starved her baby,
And ruined her life.
And you've never known
A mother monk
To leave her babies
With others to bunk.
And another thing
You'll never see,
A monk build a fence
Around a coconut tree
And let the cocoanuts
Go to waste,
Forbidding all the other
Monks a taste.
Here's another thing
A monk won't do---
Go out at night
And get in a stew.
Or use a gun
Or club or knife
To take some other
Monkey's life.
Yes, man descends---
The ornery cuss---
But Brother, he didn't
Descend from us."
--Author Unknown
What do you see in taking a second look at yourself and our nation?
I welcome your insights.
Debbe Kennedy
Founder of the Global Dialogue Center
Come visit us ... www.globaldialoguecenter.com
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