Anne Frank, lived in hidden rooms in her father's office building for two years before being betrayed and taken to a concentration camp. Her diary published posthumously, has been a source of inspiration to many. With beastliness reigning outside, equipped only with a pen, she gave to the world from the beauty within her. Here are a few quotes from her diary that amaze me:
- “I have often been downcast, but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the same time. In my diary I treat all the privations as amusing. I have made up my mind now to lead a different life from other girls and, later on, different from ordinary housewives. My start has been so very full of interest, and that is the sole reason why I have to laugh at the humorous side of the most dangerous moments.
- “It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death.
- I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.
I was 12, the age Anne Frank began writing in her diary, when I first learned the details of the holocaust. I only read of the atrocities, and yet I had trouble holding on to a sense of the beauty of humanity. I concluded that the holocaust occurred because most people turned their heads and looked the other way. I swore that I would not do the same.
Within a few years, I was getting drunk or stoned on a daily basis. Looking back on those years, I realized that I had slipped into a teenage wasteland because I could not bear the pain that resulted from my worldview. I did not have the resources to be able to face or respond to social injustice and human destructiveness. I have spent that last 29 years trying to gain the resource and spiritual power to be able to face these.
In order to be effective in responding to the suffering of this world, I have had to face my own suffering. It has been painful but necessary to realize the power that exists inside each of us to choose our perspective. We human beings have the power and the ability to appreciate this life. The question becomes: “what is it that brings us a lasting sense of appreciation and fulfillment?”
Without a doubt one of the greatest tools for our fulfillment is the ability to recognize beauty. Today's service asks us to develop our ability to discover beauty when things happen that seem beastly. Turning from harsh realities or simply claiming to be positive won't cut it. It takes skill and practice to be able to live with an awareness of beauty. I would like to introduce you to the major schools of thought which have given me a chance in situations where my first impulse might be to scream “beast,” to discover the beauty that is present.
The first influence are words attributed to Jesus moments before his death. He said: “Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do.” Thich Nhat Hanh wrote of this passage: “This teaching helps us to look at the person we believe is the cause of our suffering. If we practice looking deeply into his situation, and the causes of how he came to be that way now, and if we visualize ourselves as being born in his situation, we see that we could have become exactly like him. When we do that compassion arises in us naturally, and we see that the other person is to be helped and not punished.”
Jesus liberalism rejects the notion that people get what they deserve. It rejects the notion that a person's status and power in life are purely a result of their merits, skill or worth. It rejected the notion that punishment or brute force is the right way to treat those who didn't follow the rules of society. We turn away from the beauty in another human being when we accept and even enjoy people's suffering believing that they are getting what they deserve.
The gospels teach a different philosophy with the story that ends “ Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” This is the thinking that enabled a Mother Teresa to live and work in the streets of Calcutta with the poorest of the poor. Mother Teresa was not naive in facing people. She knew of the many forms of depravity that inflict people in desperate situations. She wrote, that at times she looked into the eyes of the suffering and outcasts, and she beheld the eyes of her savior. She felt his love. She experienced his compassion and his joy. Where others saw beasts she beheld her beautiful savior.
At age 25, I was exposed to two schools of thought which support vision of beauty in the beast. The first was the Course In Miracles. It teaches that “people are either loving or they are asking to be loved.” I noticed that I really like the results I get when I act upon this premise. One result is more ease in seeing the beauty in people.
The second was the theory of Reevaluation Counseling. Harvey Jackins, founder of Revaluation Counseling wrote; “when the entire situation is taken into account, every person has done the very best that he or she possibly could do, and therefore deserves neither blame nor reproach. This is true in particular of you.” Even though I had my doubts, I found that this premise added quality to my interactions.
Some have argued that such an approach might be well and good for normal basically decent people, but that there are evil people who know what they are doing and who intend to harm. Others may simply question, if people are good, then how do you explain theft and violence. It seems that many people do not care what impact they have upon others.
The theory of Re-evealuation counseling states that people are either showing you their inherent nature or they are showing you their conditioning, showing you how they have been hurt in an attempt to become free from this hurtful conditioning. Jackins asserted that human beings are designed for intelligent cooperation, that our nature could be trusted, respected, explored and appreciated.
Many adults have trouble believing in human goodness. In general, children seem more trusting. I recently had an experience of this. During our last soup lunch, Kane made room for me so that I could set next to him. Later in the kitchen, he asked if we were friends and gave me a hug. Well I'll tell you there is a quality in that 4 year old boy's hug. I hadn't felt anything like that in a long time. Talk about precious!
Is it just that children haven't yet figured out the reality of humans, or are they still in touch with the reality of our being? Could there be just cause for their faith in humanity?
As adults we can't ignore history. Fortunately, it isn't necessary to have blind faith in human goodness. What is useful is a willingness to suspend prejudices and explore based on not on a yet known possibility. When someone behaves in a way that we don't like, and we call them “bad”, or when we believe that it's just the way they are, this is the end of our exploration. Having formed our story or belief about them, we have closed our minds and our hearts. Then we don't see the beauty in them. What's less obvious is that we also lose touch with the beauty in ourselves. We assume that we are playing “the good guy” and we set out to conquer, subdue or dominate the bad guy.” These static images separate us from the changing reality that is us and flows through us. This force, might be called “I am that I am becoming.” It is the beauty in our hearts. Disconnected from it we become more likely to be willing to use force, coercion and punishment in order to prevail.
When I was a practicing Reevaluation Counselor (from 85-97) I operated on the assumption that if someone was doing something that was rigid or unloving, they did so in attempt to show how they were hurt, and in an attempt to get help to get free of their accumulated past distress. Proceeding from this assumption, I began seeing things in a new light. Where I might be tempted to say “oh that's just the way so and so is,” I began to see people struggling with mental-emotional burdens, doing their best and hoping for some help. There was a problem with this viewpoint, though. It had me as the decider of when people were acting irrational or outside of their inherent nature.
I then discovered Barry Neil Kaufman's “Option Method (and similar approaches) that state love and acceptance are the best and quickest ways to get to know someone. Inquiry with an attitude of acceptance will likely uncover the beliefs that a person is putting into operation. I found this approach so freeing, and surprisingly productive. To this day, when I choose to listen to people based on the assumption that they are their own best expert regarding what they want, when I offer acceptance and remember that others have choice, it has a positive impact upon me. It helps me to remember that I am also free to choose by beliefs and my actions, and I start to be able to imagine the possibility of using acceptance to get to know myself better. I find that discovering the beliefs we are holding is incredibly empowering as long as we realize that we are the ones who choose our beliefs.
“Option” is done with the assumption that we all want to be happy, that everything we do is done because we believe it will somehow contribute to our happiness. Paying attention to our power to choose our attitude went a long way to help me see beauty in our humanity. I don't necessarily like, appreciate or agree with all beliefs or belief systems, but I see the beauty in people using these beliefs in pursuit of happiness.
The last several years, I have been influenced by insights and practices set forth by Marshal Rosenberg and by the generations of others who have built upon his work. Rosenberg's key insight is that everything that humans do is done in attempts to meet needs. Similarly, he said that “every moralistic judgment is a tragic expression of an unmet need.” According to Rosenberg, it's tragic because expressing a need in that manner sabotages the likelihood that people will want to contribute to us in a way that we will find fulfilling.
When I practiced Reevaluation Counseling, I tuned in to how people had been hurt. With the “Option” method I tuned in to what people believed. Rosenberg's “Nonviolent Communication” has taught me to to listen into people's words, voice, expression and behavior in order to hear what life serving need or value they are expressing. The key isn't the word “need” or “value.” The key is in learning to tune into the force of life, the energy that animates.
Sometimes its hard to connect to the beauty of humanity, not because someone is being so beastly, but simply because they talk without transparency as to what is going on inside of them. Focusing only on people's thoughts, we may agree or disagree, but we'll be less likely to experience their inner beauty. However, when we shift our attention from words about the outside world, to the feeling, values and energy inside, then we will connect with something mystical and beautiful.
Let's say that someone screams obscenities or steals or inflict physical harm on another. We could then create a belief that they are a bad person. Or suppose someone compliments us, or give us money or food. We could then create a belief that they are a good person.
However beliefs are dead things that keep us living in our head. When we listen to what is alive in people, we might not appreciate their chosen strategies, but we will see their humanity and our own. I can't begin to tell you how this has taken my sense of awe, my appreciation of the divine and brought it into life in a practical, tangible way. We can discover something that is dynamic, alive and beautiful. We can learn to relate to people rather than to our ideas about people.
I hope that I have challenged and encouraged you to explore what comes alive inside of ourselves and others. This is the realm of feelings and values, not words so much as energy. (pause) To what do we give our energy? We can learn to pay attention to what is important to people. We can learn to connect to people's hearts. We can experience the life force that moves through each and all of us, and pay attention to what contributes and supports life.
When we connect with the humanity of others, when we sense the ever changing flow of life moving in them, we will know awe. We will experience a new sense of connectedness, a new sense of community, a new sense of being alive. Perhaps best of all we will pierce through our own ideas about ourselves and discover the miracle of who we are and who we are becoming. Then we will see no beasts and we will know great beauty.
Blessed Be.
