Wow
Tears to my eyes, too: what a moving speech!
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Found Exhortation (Less Clearly Seen Than Would Be Most Optimal)
I cannot tell from looking at the image on my Blackberry whether the words “faith” and “hope” that appear on this statue can be discerned in the photo, but they are there when standing and seeing the statue in person.
This morning, when I was reading through the news, I came across a curious headline that averred that the killing of Osama Bin Laden had brought us a “rare moment of unity.” This saddened me, as did the reportage of spontaneous celebrations.
I am calling on my reserves of practice so that my sense of faith and hope for humanity, for peace, and for social priorities is not as faint as the way the words appear in the photograph.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
A Walk to the MLK Jr Memorial
I was moved to walk to the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial today, seeking inspiration for what more and how better I can contribute to a just and compassionate world.
When I was down at the tidal basin, a hawk flew so close to me, coming from behind, that I heard the movement of its wings before I saw it fly off across the water. I did not get a photograph of the hawk. Here is one of a gull at the reflecting pool in front of the Capitol that I saw on the way home. Below that is a picture of the Memorial.
On Seeing
When I paused to photograph this marker on a DC sidewalk yesterday, I wondered how many hundreds of people have walked past it–once or hundreds of times–without noticing it at all. I connected this sense of acute awareness with a conversation I had with Douglas Brooks in India, in which he said to me that he guaranteed that at that moment he was seeing more than I was seeing. He had experienced the place before, studied it extensively and intensively, and was still open to seeing. I did not take offense and none was meant. I am one who notices, but it is a given that study and experience, if one retains an openness to new understanding, maximizes the opportunity to witness.
Paul Muller-Ortega describes the expanding ability to see and understand in terms of the essential interrelationship between jnana and vijnana–book knowledge and experiential knowledge. One without the other does not permit for complete understanding. The two together, with ever-expanding and present openness is what leads to wisdom.
Thus, though I am one who tends to notice much of what is in my field of vision, I could not, on my first visit, possibly have seen as much in the immediate landscape as one who has devoted much of his life both to studying and experiencing it.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
