You Say You Want a Revolution, Well, You Know...
I do. I'd like a little change around here, a little something to get the blood pumping, get people engaged. To get me engaged, specifically. I'm rather bored with the isolation. It's getting old.
It doesn't take much to start a revolution. It doesn't take any wild 180 degree turns or whole new modes of thought or expression. Those things evolve in time but begin with something tiny. Little things mean a lot. A crazy vagabond preacher who does not carry a staff or a begging bowl coming to a market place to tell people to turn the other cheek (that's one of my favorite and most complex teachings- but that's a whole other post) and to treat people as they would like to be treated is a pretty small thing. It was just a couple of ideas about how to live in this world and all he did was talk about it. People changed.
A woman who does not give up her seat on the bus, a man who looks at the world around him and imagines an invisible force that draws objects toward the ground, a pair of half brothers beholden to the circumstances of their birth spawn a sibling rivalry that is now, thousands of years later, a conflict between nations. Not all revolutions are for the better, but we can make something wrong into something right. If we're paying attention.
It seems that circumstances conspire to come together at a specific place and time to meet one specific person who will make a tiny observation. It takes time, patience, and openness to allow for that awareness. Such a simple thing, yet very hard to do when we are clouded with cell phones, computers, Christmas shopping, holiday obligations, obligations to the capitalist machine (Oiled with the blood of the workers! Mmmm! Yummy workers!), and basic managing of daily life on this planet. It's funny how we can be so involved, so busy, so entrenched in our dealings with other people and as much as we are on the phone, online, in line, and in touch we are often so terribly alone and without contact.
I'm going to try sitting still for a little while and hope a revolution comes to me. If not for the world (I don't know if I'm that person) but at least for myself. I could use a tiny shift in perception.
It doesn't take much to start a revolution. It doesn't take any wild 180 degree turns or whole new modes of thought or expression. Those things evolve in time but begin with something tiny. Little things mean a lot. A crazy vagabond preacher who does not carry a staff or a begging bowl coming to a market place to tell people to turn the other cheek (that's one of my favorite and most complex teachings- but that's a whole other post) and to treat people as they would like to be treated is a pretty small thing. It was just a couple of ideas about how to live in this world and all he did was talk about it. People changed.
A woman who does not give up her seat on the bus, a man who looks at the world around him and imagines an invisible force that draws objects toward the ground, a pair of half brothers beholden to the circumstances of their birth spawn a sibling rivalry that is now, thousands of years later, a conflict between nations. Not all revolutions are for the better, but we can make something wrong into something right. If we're paying attention.
It seems that circumstances conspire to come together at a specific place and time to meet one specific person who will make a tiny observation. It takes time, patience, and openness to allow for that awareness. Such a simple thing, yet very hard to do when we are clouded with cell phones, computers, Christmas shopping, holiday obligations, obligations to the capitalist machine (Oiled with the blood of the workers! Mmmm! Yummy workers!), and basic managing of daily life on this planet. It's funny how we can be so involved, so busy, so entrenched in our dealings with other people and as much as we are on the phone, online, in line, and in touch we are often so terribly alone and without contact.
I'm going to try sitting still for a little while and hope a revolution comes to me. If not for the world (I don't know if I'm that person) but at least for myself. I could use a tiny shift in perception.
posted by Bree O'Connor at 1:36 PM
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