Laying your face in your hands can be a very comforting thing. Also eating an entire Cadbury mega-bar can be a comforting thing. Slowing down and watching the pup and the kitties play can be comforting. And I am certain that there are many other things. My week has been anything other than comforting. And today, topped the barrel off (I use this analogy because of the winery where I spend my days and hours-it seems appropriate.).
Do you think sometimes that there are people in this world that were just born to be good? Just couldn't help it if they tried? I mean, they go meekly through life and they make mistakes, sometimes tell lies, take parking spaces, muddy up the kitchen floor, yell at the dog...but still the goodness seeps out of their pores like a good stiff shot of garlic? Those kind of people. Maybe at some point early in life, they even killed a man...but it was a tragic mistake and the world paused only briefly over the fact? I want to believe this. And I think of it, because there is a man that I work with who sweats humility, perfumed rapturous purity of heart, goodness like even Santa never dreamt of. And knowing what little I know about his life, I think he's probably thrown a punch, taken too much change, or runover some woodland critter. But, I forgive him for it immediately. His soul or substance requires it of me. Just looking him in the eye, I feel salty, raw and inhuman, guilty for all my bad thoughts, for every mistake, for the utter core of me that feels gutteral and seething with impurity.
I am making this man out to be quite a character, huh? But, I never really see him...he works elsewhere. I run into him at big meetings or picking up paychecks, and I rarely give him a thought. But, today because of the day, I really absorbed what he felt like in passing, what the smile on his old griselled face seemed to convey. He isn't really old, but he looks like he's lived through a lot...so I don't know. Anyway, I started this paragraph to say that he's really not my story, but he is used here to make my point (which I may get to one day or another).
This man is nothing like me. If I walk past a doorway with someone standing in it, I leave an essence of carelessness behind me. I feel like the bad in me bubbles into small volcanoes almost constantly. Yet, really I don't do anything bad...not so bad, not VERY bad. But, I have always felt the badness at my core. And as much as I work to walk through the world and leave goodness, I feel it might be impossible. I received such a mean email today from a friend of a friend. She misunderstood a situation and she attacked me over it. And in her misunderstanding, I believe she could be called right or even possibly justified in her complaint. But, she never found out the story and she gave me words that felt like daggers. And I can dismiss them, I can...I can let go of them because she does not know the story, cannot judge the outcome. But, it made me think that no matter how I try to live my life...I sometimes leave a bad interpretation. I know what you are saying...it's someone else's interpretation. But, I wonder what my soul says. I really do. That this man who I do not know, can give me the sense of forgiving...because I know, I KNOW, that even if he did it, he didn't mean to...and this isn't through knowing him, it's just through his presence. But this friend of a friend knew me, and how could she think so wrongly of me?
How can you give off such a wrong impression, when you give every attempt at the right one? Do we all make mistakes the same way? Are we all accountable in the same way? I don't easily point a finger and never have. Maybe that's why people sometimes feel pristine to me...it's the mystery of them. That I enjoy and do not necessarily want to discover. I've never felt so right that I could hurt someone intentionally. But, that's just me.
I guess I am done with this for now. I have some pictures to share of the "family".
4 comments:
The family is beautiful; I love Banjo in the flower pot!
Sometimes I think maybe our own center sees and brings out the beauty in other people. Like what you are seeing in this lovely man you describe; you wouldn't see it if that beauty and goodness wasn't in your lovely soul.
If people could see the good that is in every soul, I think the world would be a much better place. If we would just assume the positive in a situation and not the negative!
I hope you're right, Leslie. Sometimes I just don't know.
First of all...if someone has a legitamate complaint about something..email is the WRONG place to air it out. So much can be misinterpreted in emai...you can't see someone's expressions, you can't hear the inflection in their voice etc. That person should have called you or talked to you in person if they have a true beef....emails are not the places to air out issues or feelings because too much can be misconstrued w/out the real human inflection. My opinion and also have had experiences w/things being misunderstood because they could not hear the intent or sarcasm or humor in cyber words.
Good description about the man also....I have a feeling though he has stole a lollipop or 2 from some little girl at one time or another heheheheh.
Thanks for that. I agree with it. It's definitely the easiest form of communication, but efficiency doesn't always pay off when it comes to human emotions.
I too, am certain that he has flaws...I just love that they seem so insignificant.
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