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Moment of Silence For Norway, Friday, July 29, 8:26 am
Published on 28/07/11
by randy
Moment of Silence
Almost one week ago a human being with a very closed mind, tortured in feelings of isolation from a closed mind, caused tremendous harm to so many. His actions stole the lives of so many and forever changed the lives of us all. And here we are, still yelling at each other, ‘thinking’ our way of seeing the world is the correct way. Well, maybe that’s just the way we’re built, forever struggling with the poisons of greed, fear and our ignorance to our interdependence upon one another. Yet, for me there’s Big Hope that we can touch a higher ground. Shortly after 9/11, an eleven year old boy suffering from a fatal disease, captured that higher ground. Mattie Stepanek wrote the following poem on that day:
For Our World
We need to stop.
Just stop.
Stop for a moment.
Before anybody
Says or does anything
That may hurt anyone else.
We need to be silent.
Just silent.
Silent for a moment.
Before we forever lose
The blessing of songs
That grow in our hearts.
We need to notice.
Just notice.
Notice for a moment.
Before the future slips away
Into ashes and dust of humility.
Stop, be silent, and notice.
In so many ways, we are the same.
Our differences are unique treasures.
We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts
To nurture, to offer, to accept.
We need to be.
Just be.
Be for a moment.
Kind and gentle, innocent and trusting,
Like children and lambs,
Never judging or vengeful
Like the judging and vengeful.
And now, let us pray,
Differently, yet together,
Before there is no earth, no life,
No chance for peace.
September 11, 2001
This is a request for you to consider a pause from your busy mind to touch that higher ground, that ground that stands above greed, fear and our ignorance to one another as brother and sister. For a moment let us, stop yelling, fighting, and hurting one another. For a moment, let us open our hearts and minds to one another in the very gift of this next breath. For a moment, let us meet the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Norway, the land of peace and harmony. For a moment, let us just listen deeply to one another.
Stillness
“Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned, all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean and what their purpose is. Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for. We do not know. Let every image held of everyone be loosened from our minds and swept away.
Be innocent of judgment, unaware of any thought of evil or of good that ever crossed your mind of anyone. Now do you know him not. But you are free to learn of him, and learn of him anew, without the past that sentenced him to die, and you with him. Now is he free to live as you are free, because an ancient learning passed away, and left a place for truth to be reborn.” Course of Miracles, Chapter 31:1, verses 12-13, p. 648
This is real courage. This is commitment to Truth, to an open mind, to birthing action from hope and faith, knowing we are forever supported. It’s knowing that feelings of aloneness and separation have been born from thought, thoughts that can be released. As we release these thoughts into the eternity of ‘this moment’ we find relief from restlessness, touching the stillness. We find “a world in which there is no fear, and everything is lit with hope and sparkles with a gentle friendliness. Nothing but calls to you in soft appeal to be your friend, and let it join with you.” CoM, p. 641. The cultivation of this stillness is what provides the courage to face impermanence and the sensitivity to touch “the universal Will” that all living things remove obstacles to awareness of Being whole. In stillness, there is non-duality. In stillness, we experience that nothing remains unchanged but the Truth of our One-ness, and our fear to face it.
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