Tags
apartheid, courage, extraordinary, human spirit, Meg Wheatley, Nelson Mandela, prison, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Turning To One Another
Recently it seems counterproductive to watch – or even listen to – the evening news. The destruction from weather events is bad enough, but the way people are judging and treating each other around our country and in the world is unconscionable. We need more stories of courage to keep the light strong and our willingness to fan the flames of unifying love alive.
Meg Wheatley has a brief but powerful story that speaks to the power of the human spirit. She was touring Robben Island in South Africa where Nelson Mandela and others struggling against apartheid were imprisoned for over 25 years. She recounts the event as follows.
We were standing in a long narrow room that had been used as a prison cell for dozens of freedom fighters. They lived in close quarters in this barren room – no cots or furniture, just cement walls and floors with narrow windows near the ceiling. We stood there listening to our guide’s narration. He had been a prisoner in this very room. The cold came up through the floor into our feet as we gazed around the lifeless cell. We stared through the bars of the door as he described the constant threats and capricious brutality they had suffered. Then he paused and gazed down the length of the room. Speaking very quietly, he said: “Sometimes, to pass the time here, we taught each other ballroom dancing.”
She concludes: I have never forgotten that image, of demoralized and weary men teaching each other to dance in the cold silence of a long prison cell. Only the human spirit is capable of such dancing. (turning to one another, p.74)
All I see in my mind’s eye in the wake of that story is the face of Nelson Mandela on the day of his release from that prison – and again on the day that he was elected president of South Africa. His smile was so broad it lit up the world.
Let us think on these things when we are feeling bowed down. We say, “Yes, but he was extraordinary.” We need, rather, to turn to one another and draw the extraordinary out of each other – together.
This morning, another entry from Meg Wheatley – from a different book of hers:
Last evening we sat, a group of 12 seekers, to begin what is the last in a series of events that have taken place over the last six years in different places in the Northeast United States. We call them “Wisdom Schools.” Drawn first by the work of our teacher Cynthia Bourgeault to delve into the Wisdom Tradition of Christianity, we have joined an ever-growing network of people who choose spiritual practice as a discipline for deepening our living. Explaining how that happens, we admit, is something difficult to do and generally only seen in retrospect. We will spend the next three days “swimming in that sea” and hope to go home ready to meet the challenges of our everyday lives with more determination and willingness because of having been together.
As I sit this morning looking out at rain that is predicted to continue for two or three days and remember that last night I saw a weather map picturing not one or two but three hurricanes that might possibly come our way (with Florence, the first, sure to damage much of our East coast) I consider just sitting where I am and avoiding every eventual happening or news report of the day. But then I open Meg Wheatley’s little book, Perseverance, that shakes me out of my inertia and reminds me of the need to get about life once again. I want to copy the entire page here as it feels to me like a worthy reminder that, as she says, “We’ve Been Here Before.”
I’ve been engaged in a number of conversations lately where the topic has been the need to let go of what we can’t control – like the weather and the march of time (specifically our aging process). This morning I opened Meg Wheatley’s little book, Perseverance, to a page called “Life Is Life” and found there some words worth my time and reflection. Perhaps we can all benefit from her wisdom.
I’m up early to greet the day with Meg Wheatley’s book, turning to one another. (Yes, the title is written in all lower case letters – most likely to emphasize the desire to have a conversation of equality.) I haven’t visited this treasure for a long time but have been trying to live with its messages nonetheless. It all seems so timely now when, day by day, so much in the world seems so fractured. I don’t know why it called to me as I turned to set my coffee on my side table. Perhaps it’s the appearance of the book itself, skinny but tall and dressed in a coat of red and yellow on its spine. Here are the two paragraphs that wouldn’t let me go this morning.
Looking out and seeing one more snowfall in this third quadrant of the month that is supposed to bring us May flowers, I once more reached for the book called Perseverance for an encouraging word. (Meg Wheatley is good at providing solace in down-to-earth terms when everything looks bleak.) I shouldn’t complain; look at the destruction on the beautiful Hawaiian island of Kauai and other serious weather disasters around the world. And that’s just the beginning of what people are enduring in their lives.
The beginning of the Letter of James says this today:
There is so much to say about Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a “wake-up call” to our nation like no other, shaking us to the roots of our passivity in the 1960’s, and he paid the ultimate price for his courage. His own words still stir me when I hear his clear, booming voice proclaiming: I have a dream today…
I had a conversation recently with someone who had received word that an old friend had died. They had lost touch some years ago, primarily perhaps because this younger woman was not able to allow what she saw as competition for the “best friend” designation in the relationship. We spoke of the sad and destructive power of jealousy. I was reminded of the conversation this morning by Meg Wheatley as I opened to a page on the subject of jealousy from her book, Perseverance. I thought it a worthy topic for reflection since the subtlety of its appearance can cause great harm if we don’t pay attention to our feelings and recognize the need to cultivate its opposite: generosity. Here’s what she says: