Signs Around Town
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The Other Side of the Building
This is the view from the corridor just outside my office door. On the left is the Tax Court. On the right, is the homeless shelter where Mitch Snyder, advocate for the homeless, committed suicide. In between, the highway emerges out from under our building. At rush hour, especially on a rainy day, it is completely congested. Even on a cloudy day, not much light comes in the window. It is a north-facing view, and the windows are tinted.If I were to be standing at a window on the other side of the building, it would be bright with sun. On the left would be the Capitol and the west lawn. In the center, the National Botanical Garden’s graceful contours would gleam on the far side of the reflecting pool. To the right, the National Mall, flanked by museums, would stretch in the distance to the Washington Monument.
What is important to remember is that both sides are always present. When we are facing harshness, demands, suffering, and challenges, we need to remember that beauty and light are still present. When we are filled with abundance, beauty, and light, then we must remember that there are others who are challenged and suffering and make efforts to extend to them our own abundance and light.
Minding My Own Business–Sort Of (and Seva)
When I was walking to work this morning, I saw this man stretched out on the grass in Stanton Park. It was drizzling, but pleasant. I did not feel any need for an umbrella. The man was definitely breathing, and he had put some cardboard on the ground before lying down. Had it been sunny and had he been lying on a bench or a spread out blanket instead of on wet grass, I would not have wondered at all whether he might need help.
Would he want “help” that would include waking him up? Would it serve to call emergency services when his lying out in the rain did not seem like an immediate matter of life or death, though did raise questions about whether the man was ok? If all calling did was trigger police waking him and telling him to move actually have made things better for him? Because I could not answer these questions and because he had made himself the pallet of cardboard–leading me to think he had chosen the spot rather than fell, I decided to leave him be. I cannot know whether that was the right thing to have done.
This debate in my head did raise questions about the conundrums of offering charity and service and whether and when we can ever serve selflessly, unclouded by our own preconceived notions of what is right and good.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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As I Read This Poem
This morning, as I read this poem by Janet Hoffman, which is collected in Plain Living–A Quaker Path to Simplicity by Catherine Whitmire, I thought of friends and family and students and colleagues who are living with loss and illness and other struggles.
I wish sometimes that I could heal or make happy everyone I know. Knowing that is not possible or even right, I wish for myself and those in need to know strength and courage and joy even when faced with causes for deep suffering.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
