I recently realized how relieving it is to consider everyone as a friend by default, and then see what happens.
I think, over time, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, moving from a country to another, trying to fit, making new friends each time, live on my own, I've taken the habit to consider first that any one can dislike me and reject me. It's a sad, hard and lonely feeling.
I keep in mind what my mother told me once, about an experience and an epiphany her friend had, while taking care of deceased people in India, washing their naked bodies that suffered illness, hunger, or just age and time of life. He told her, this task was only bearable if he could consider every one of them as his own child.
I think, over time, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, moving from a country to another, trying to fit, making new friends each time, live on my own, I've taken the habit to consider first that any one can dislike me and reject me. It's a sad, hard and lonely feeling.
I keep in mind what my mother told me once, about an experience and an epiphany her friend had, while taking care of deceased people in India, washing their naked bodies that suffered illness, hunger, or just age and time of life. He told her, this task was only bearable if he could consider every one of them as his own child.
I've been thinking about that a lot lately, just to calm myself when I have a conflict with someone, for X reason. That thought relieved me immediately the other day. I surprised myself how light I felt, and almost happy. It made me smile when I only had dark clouds in my mind, just from the thought that if I can separate the feeling of anger from the person I was directing it to, there isn't any reason to feel angry anymore, just a problem to be solved.
It's a precious thought that I think my mother would have called a "mystical" experience. I will try to put it into practice whenever I can, when I'm angry, or when I'm afraid to be rejected.
The wide and wild social world can be very scary, and it feels sometimes that there isn't enough room for everyone, and we feel constantly put into jeopardy when we don't have a home to rely on. But if we could love everyone as if they were our own child, then space doesn't matter anymore. Everything becomes love. And love has no sense of quantity.
I'm Jewish, but I must say, Jesus had a good point !
When this thought becomes a slogan, then it's difficult to make sense of what it truly means. And I guess that an experience like my mother's friend's, or an experience of deep loneliness or anger, give more sense to the idea of love, than a general philosophy or moral codes that stay very abstract.
The wide and wild social world can be very scary, and it feels sometimes that there isn't enough room for everyone, and we feel constantly put into jeopardy when we don't have a home to rely on. But if we could love everyone as if they were our own child, then space doesn't matter anymore. Everything becomes love. And love has no sense of quantity.
I'm Jewish, but I must say, Jesus had a good point !
When this thought becomes a slogan, then it's difficult to make sense of what it truly means. And I guess that an experience like my mother's friend's, or an experience of deep loneliness or anger, give more sense to the idea of love, than a general philosophy or moral codes that stay very abstract.
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| Photo, Nourit Masson-Sékiné, nouritms.fr |
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