"Lots of people have talked about taking that step into the unknown.
Taking that step into the unknown is actually a lot less courageous
than taking a step from the unknown."
...
"Wherever you go, there you are."
... Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of
Christ,
circa 1441
This essay,
A Petri Dish For Miraculous Relationships,
is the eighteenth in an ongoing collection with embedded
Music Videos:
I am indebted to George Richvalsky who contributed material for this
conversation.
It may be a function of traveling extensively and seeing / getting to
know
the world.
But it may also not be that at all. There's so much (maybe
too much) to see if you're going to lay claim to having
(quote unquote) "seen it all". It may be a function of a certain
maturity in life ie a function of a certain age. But it may also not be
that either. Age isn't pegged to intentionality. Whether we intend to
age or not, we'll age anyway. Also: beware of aging carrying with it a
certain note of resignation. It's certainly not a function of
that. What it's a function of, in all likelihood, is transformation ie
it's a function of being transformed ie of
speaking
being
transformed.
What "it" is ie that it to which I'm referring, is
being accepting of life the way it is (and the way it isn't) ie
being complete with life the way it is (and the way it
isn't). Age may not bring being complete with life. And being
intentional isn't pegged to life being complete. So intending life
be complete, isn't likely to guarantee life will be complete.
Being life is complete is what makes life complete
(it's so blindingly obvious it can be easily missed).
Transformation (ie the
recontextualization
of life) is what has life be complete. And with the realization
that life is (now) complete, comes the unavoidable insight that
life is and always has been complete. Nothing needs to
be done to cajole life into being complete. Just
be it's already complete. Just stand for
it's already complete.
In the space of life being complete and having always been complete
(and therefore by extrapolation, it always will be complete) arises
a possibility of a new way of being with life (it would have to,
given our considerations and manipulations would then be out of the
picture) which would have our interactions and relationships with
people take
front and center
stage. By this, I'm referring to being complete with who we really
are, then being in relationship with who others really are. A
transformed life is a Petri dish for miraculous
relationships. Really.
I've traveled
enough to have amassed not one but five "green cards" (ie work /
residence permissions) from five different countries, two passports (ie
nationalizations) from two of those countries, and my children
therefore have two birth certificates each (moi only
has a meagre one). I've seen a lot. I've certainly not seen
it all, and I certainly don't know it all. But there is one thing
however I've seen which I do know with 1,000% certainty: all of us
possess within
ourselves, at every moment of our lives, under all circumstances,
the power to transform the quality of our lives.
We all got it - every human being in every country - whether we're
aware of it or not.
A transformed /
recontextualized
life is a Petri dish for miraculous relationships. And given miraculous
relationships are a Petri dish for miraculous societies and thus for
miraculous countries, when we come from them,
our world
and everything in it transforms (beware of getting stuck in
a bear trap
equating "transform" and "change").
