excellent steve. a film which illustrates this point well is fierce grace, about ram dass. in it ram dass is turned to for consolation in situations where it would be easy to think that words could do nought to assuage such massive grief....but they do, he does, it is remarkable.
--- On Wed, 30/9/09, Steve Peterson <[email protected]> wrote: From: Steve Peterson <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [MD] Boromir's Journey To: [email protected] Received: Wednesday, 30 September, 2009, 6:05 AM Hi Matt, >>> Steve said: >>> ... >>> For example, a mother cries with a smile on her face as >>> she consoles her daughter who has just had her heart >>> broken for the first time. Everything is wrong in the world, >>> but will get better. Everything always is exactly as it >>> should be. >>> >>> Matt: >>> Ah--interesting. But notice the condescension in the >>> smile: "if you only understood," while all the daughter >>> wants to give such knowingness is a big fuck-you. Tell >>> the people living in shit, literally in the case of Indian >>> untouchables, and if they _don't_ give you a fuck-you, we >>> might want to wonder why not--don't you _want_ things to >>> get better? >> >> >> Steve: >> If the smile were condescending, the girl wouldn't keep going back to >> her mom for comfort. But she does. I know for a fact that she does >> because they are my hypothetical people, and they do whatever I say >> they do! But I also think that people like the made up mother really >> exist and that people are drawn to such people--people who are >> completely engaged in the world (with hope) and also have a sense of >> an imperturbable calm about them (faith). They can sympathize with >> us, and we don't need to worry about dragging them down by our >> sorrows. I think we all know people like that, and the words >> "condescending" and "arrogant" don't come to mind when we think of them. > > Matt: > Perhaps. The notion of "teenage angst" probably looms > larger in my mind than yours. > > To me, the non-perturbation would _not_ be what I was > going for in venting to a person. I think of sympathy as an > imaginative effort, on the analogy of "putting yourself in > someone else's shoes," and if they just sat there serene, I > would think there was a disconnect going on, at the > least--either an unknowingness (not enough imagination) or > a knowingness (oh silly person, you must transcend these > ephemeral delinquencies). Steve: I agree that when we are venting to someone we don't want someone to merely empathize (know how we feel) but also sympathize (feel with us), and I do know where you are coming from with the "oh silly person" smugness. My complaint is that the religious people touting their faith in a "we have something that you don't have" sort of way, don't really have anything that I want or that I think they ought to be smug about. They only seem to have a bunch of factual beliefs rather than anything of spiritual worth. Likewise, those that do have this something aren't smug about it at all. Smugness would be a clue to me that a person does not have this something worth seeking. Based on reading about such people and knowing some people who seem to be closer than others to what is called Enlightenment, I think it is possibly to feel extreme outrage and deep sorrow and also have a deep sense of inner peace. Unfortunately, the phenomenon of holding these two perspectives simultaneously tends to only be spoken about in religious terms such as in the quotes below. Best, Steve “It is possible to grieve for a child’s death with all your heart and at the same time to realize that everything is as it should be. The world according to God, the world that includes death is far more beautiful than the world according to our desire. What we must constantly keep learning is not to interfere—to receive, to accept, to trust the supreme intelligence of the universe (I am what I am). If Jesus had reversed one death, that would not have taught us anything useful. But for him to show us how to die and how to accept the death of those we love is a teaching beyond price.” Maria Rilke “What is “the good news”? That true life, eternal life, has been found—it is not something promised, it is already here, it is within you: as life lived in love, in love without subtraction or exclusion, without distance. Everyone is the child of God—Jesus definitely claims nothing for himself alone—and as a child of God everyone is equal to everyone else.” Nietzche Stephen Mitchell: What is the gospel according to Jesus? Simply this: that the love we all long for in our innermost heart is already present, beyond longing. Most of us can remember a time (it may have been just a moment) when we felt that everything in the world was exactly as it should be. Or we can think of a joy (it happened when we were children, perhaps, or the first time we fell in love) so vast that it was no longer inside us, but we were inside it. What we intuited then, and what we later thought was too good to be true, isn’t an illusion. It is realer than real, more intimate than anything we can see or touch, unreachable, yet nearer than breath, than heartbeat. The more we receive it, the more real it becomes. . . The luminous, compassionate intelligence of the universe, is not somewhere else, in some heaven light-years away. It didn’t manifest itself more fully to Abraham or Moses than to us, nor will it be any more present to some Messiah at the end of time. It is always right here, right now. That is what the Bible means when it says that God’s true name is “I am.” Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ __________________________________________________________________________________ Get more done like never before with Yahoo!7 Mail. Learn more: http://au.overview.mail.yahoo.com/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
