An Anita Meditation

I believe that Val Taylor has found gifts in the following question asked by Anita: "When someone offers you a gift and you do not accept it, Whose gift is it?"

I think that it is worth hearing the question more than once. I believe that Val would suggest that 50 times is not too many.

I might be pleased to have you meditate on it for years. Val is probably sweet enough to tell you that it may be valuable to consider it when someone 'does something to you' or says something which seems unkind.

'WHEN SOMEONE OFFERS YOU A GIFT AND YOU DO NOT ACCEPT IT, WHOSE GIFT IS IT?'

This Is It

It's not this or that.
It's not order or chaos.
It's not organized or disorganized.
It's being here and having a memory.
It's listening to one another
It's everything.
It's all.

A 'We' Story

It begins at he far southern tip of South America in the early days of Spanish Exploration. Certain sailors and explorers for Spain have such difficulties with their ship that they feel the need to stay in that place for a time. They see the place as cold, bare, and windy, but there is just enough wood and water for their needs.

In this land they find people. They find men, women, and children living together there. The explorers see a very poor people, an impoverished people. The seem to have no towns, crops, or industries. It appears that they may be godless. Rather than houses the have low windbreaks and they are nearly naked. The men of the ship wonder how these people can live in this hard land. Yet the people of the land seem well formed and healthy.

Soon the people from the ship find that they can barter with these lowly people for food-stuff. They also begin to see the land people as lazy. They spend much of their day sitting around and talking or listening to each other. The people of the ship say to each other that there is no wonder that the land people have so little. They say that the people of the land sit around talking, Rather than working to better themselves. In their hearts some of the people of the ship feel envy of the others' ability to sit and talk.

The ship people believe that if they have to stay in this land they will surely die before their time. Most of the ship people have always worked and they were working hard now to end their suffering in this land. How did the land people live here and spend their time talking while they, the ship people, worked hard all day and feared they would die here ir they did not.

In time, the sailors made their ship ready and sailed away. Somehow, two of their number were left in the land. Of these two one learned to speak with the people. He joined in their talk. The other despised them and their talk. The later died.

In more time, another ship came. Some of the sailors on that ship knew of the two who had been left. There were a few who knew even the towns and families of the two who had been left. They were sad to hear of the death of and pleased and surprised at the life of the other. The one with life was pleased to be with those of the ship and also seem much at home among those of the land.

In the company of his countrymen and comrades, the one alive left the land. They noted tears in his eyes as they left. The shipmates of the live one asked him how he had managed to live among those despicable poor and lazy people. They asked him if it were true that the people of the land were poor because they were so lazy that they sat around and talked instead of working to better themselves. They wanted to know if he were able to trick them or become their king.

The live one seemed unable to answer. But finally he did say that he had come to love and respect the people of that land and that there was a wonderful power in their listening and talk. They had a powerful way of talking that had a gentility in it he tried to explain. His shipmates looked sad and shook their heads a bit. They said that he had had a terrible ordeal, but would get over it in time.

The live one later tried to tell those aboard who knew him best that the people of the land did not feel themselves to be poor or despicable, rather they were quietly proud of themselves and abilities. He told them that their talk enabled them to cooperate in powerful ways. His friends looked at him with large eyes and said, "Those, poor, ignorant, lazy, godless, savages!" "No,' said the live one, "they are powerful, kind people who speak of godly things!" His friends thought it best to speak no more, or to speak of other things.

When the live one left the sea to stay mostly by his home-fires, he sometimes spoke a bit of people in a far land who spoke to excellent effect. He tried to explain the power in their way of conversing, but was seldom understood.

He explained that their talk enabled them to easily share the location of food gathering sites and do so completely, frankly, without jealousy. They told each other not only the location of these places, but also of their size and the state of the life within them. So, they all knew when to gather and the sustainable amount to gather. Their talk enabled them to trust each other and to nurture the life around them to their mutual benefit. Their listening led them to an understanding of each other's needs. He would tell his listeners that those people were able to live in their land in happy health because of their talk. Some few listeners began to ask questions and gradually to learn some of what they called 'ways-of-nurturing-power-talk.'

It is a lot like the "we" forming dialogue I speak of.

Change and Balance Enhanced by Listening

~ It has been my experience that life is more lawful than awful.
~ Many neuroses are rooted in childhood.
~ Changes in personality are sometimes forced by trauma.
~ Changes in personality may occur from insights arrived at by repetition, remembering, and reinterpretation.
~ We can choose what seems appropriate effort to avoid trauma now. As children we were less able to do so.
~ We can choose our repetition, remembering, and re-interpretation better as a loving adult.
~ A child needs respect, attention, and understanding. An adult can benefit from the same.
~ A child needs to begin to see himself as others see him. You and I may benefit from similar seeing. A child does not choose by whom she shall be seen. You and I may.
~ Healing and balance may be quicker and surer as feelings are promptly expressed.
Appropriate expression of feelings may be learned. A child may learn not to express or even not to consciously experience feelings of anxiety, rage, anger, despair, dismay, pain, grief, etc. Adults may better choose to learn to feel and express feelings in more appropriately healthy ways.
~ A child may not only learn to repress certain feelings, but also to deny or disappear from consciousness the very memory of the trauma. We adults may find it very difficult to healingly emote, feel, or react to a trauma in a mature way if, for our conscious self, that trauma never occurred.
~ A man may know that he was exploded off the road in a foreign land, but he will benefit by repeating his story. He needs a respectful, attentive, understanding listeners who are able to hear the expression of his feelings or even raw emotions too.
~ Life is not necessarily fair or easy, but we can find it lawful.

Talking to Myself

There are a lot of things my father didn't tell me.Things he did tell me were often ambigous or wrong. Still, I am glad that he did tell me. Because it was he who told me those things, I tended to think about them. Such thinking has proved helpful to me.

When I was quite young, perhaps in responce to a question of mine about a man talking to himself on the street, he said, " Its okay to talk to yourself; its even okay to answer yourself; but if you find yourself saying 'huh?' or 'What did you say?' look out"

We do sometmes say something out-loud to ourselves. A bit more often we might whisper to ourselves or just move our lips as in silent reading. Most often we just think our words. We seldom say to ourselves, "What did you say?" Perhaps we should.

Another thing my father told me is that, "A thing worth doing is worth doing well." I think about that. I continue to learn that listening to myself well is important. Listening to myself a bit better is teaching me how important it is to talk to myself well.

My honest attempts to say to myself things that are true, is paying off in healthy reaism and happiness. I cannot tell myself the perfect truth, but honestly trying to tell myself the truth is paying. Speaking to myself with increasing honesty is helping me to more effectively cooperate with realities of man, God, cosmos. The truth is freeing me and adding to my power to use that freedom well.