Reminders

Yesterday there was a major event on a college campus. A student, probably feeling inconsequential, took two or three guns and walked casually about his campus and killed and shot professors and other students without saying a word to anyone. The event lasted several hours with a several hour break in the middle. Once again, it proves my theory that you can do anything if you do it casually. I proved this point many times by walking into places appearing to belong and have purpose and no one said anything. I dressed appropriately with expensive duds and makeup and moved with confidence and authority. I was asked to sign at a few places and did so using a scribbled Iama Nobody U.C. and walked out of clinics and courts. People who look like they are in charge often cause others to react as if they also believe they are in charge. And what happens to the others who also feel like they are inconsequential or powerless but don’t act out or act away from themselves? Often they give their power to the dominant and feel badly about themselves. When I was little, cousin and roommate until age five, Eugene, who in retrospect never felt very good about himself and was really a reclusive boy often sad, found that his little cousin bonny, who thought he was wonderful, would allow him to take charge. On one occasion, he wanted to look at blood under the new microscope, so he slit my wrist and took a sample. Of course he is not stop the sample site when he had his drops and I found myself feeling “woozy” (a family term) and went dripping to my aunt asking for a glass of water. He often got to go with my beloved Uncle George, his father, since he was 13 yrs older than I. They would say, we have to go and see a man about a horse (another family term). Well I liked horses and that only made it worse. He also was the one that told me to put my letter to Santa in the oven and then go outside and look for him to come. I heard the oven door close and ran to find Eugene reading my personal mail to the bearded one. When I really got made at him, I would try to take a swat at him and he would put his long arm on my head so I could only bat at the air between us. That made me angrier. It is power and it is not that these bullies or emotional bullies have power it is that we give them our power. We give them our power to not react by reacting. The more we react, the more they take the power. It can even be an unconscious thing on the part of the Eugene’s but the result is that we feel powerless about what appears to be our lack of power. What we do on the way to wherever is as important as the journey. A dear man and friend gave me a book last week The Holy Man by Susan Trott. It is a very simple 173 page book with short chapters that you can almost read in one setting. It is about this very thing. We all want to get to the top of the mountain – to see the holy man – to do something. But life is about the journey, the climb, what we see on the way, who we meet, what we say, what we think. Getting to the top or meeting the Holy Man is not purpose, it is the journey. Somewhere in the life of the shooter of the folks on the campus yesterday, someone was a parent, a friend, a lover and someone missed a call, a sign, a need for help. If there is a lesson, it is to walk mindfully aware of the passage the process without a casual attention on the destination but aware of the needs of those walking with you.