Open the eyes of my heart...

"Men," said the little prince, "set out on their way in express trains, but they do not know what they are looking for. Then they rush about, and get excited, and turn round and round..."
And he added:
"It is not worth the trouble..."
The well that we had come to was not like the wells of the Sahara. The wells of the Sahara are mere holes dug in the sand. This one was like a well in a village. But there was no village here, and I thought I must be dreaming...
"It is strange," I said to the little prince. "Everything is ready for use: the oulley, the bucket, the rope..."
He laughed, touched the rope, and set the pulley to working. And the oulley moaned, like and old weathervane which the wind has long since forgotten.
"Do you hear?" said the little prince. "We have wakened the well, and it is singing..."
I did not want him to tire himself with the rope.
"Leave it to me," I said. "It is too heavy for you."
I hoisted the bucket slowly to the edge of the well and set it there - happy, tired as I was, over my achievement. The song of the pulley weas still in my ears, and I could see the sunlight shimmer in the still trembling water.
"I am thrist for this water," said the little prince. "Give me some of it to drink..."
And I understood what he had been looking for.
I raised the bucket to his lips. He drank, his eyes closed. It was as sweet as some special festival treat. This water was indeed a very different thing from ordinary nourishment. It's sweetness was born of the walk under the stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms. It was good for the heart, like a present. When I was a little boy, the lights of the Christmas tree, the music of the Midnight Mass, the tenderness of smiling faces, used to make up, so, the radiance of the gifts I received.
"The men where you live," said the little rpince, "raise five thousand roses in the same garden - and they do not find in it what they are looking for."
"They do not find it," I replied.
"And yet what they are looking for culd be found in one single rose, or in a little water."
"Yes, that is true," I said.
And the little prince added:
"But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart..."

from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I write this in the presence of rain. It taps on the window and reminds me that it is pattering down outside, falling to the ground in tiny droplets, blessings in pellet form. If I'd written this yesterday, it would have been in the presence of the scent of bushfires, that summer smell that ties my life together, reminding me of what it is to be Australian, to grow up somewhere where this smell is normal, even beautiful. The houses of many of my friends were engangered by the fires. But that is life here, isn't it? In order for the bush to be healthy - for seeds to germinate, for soil to be fertilised, for old growth to be cleared to make way for the new - it must burn. It must die. And then after the fires it comes to life! Seedlings come up everywhere. It all looks a little strange for a few years, with dense undergrowth and gum trees growing out oddly, but eventually it's back to normal.
Rain much needed to replenish the dry earth. I pray that the rain reaches the dams and brings them above this critical level. I pray that the rain reaches the country where they need it most, and breathes life into dying towns, dying farms, dying livelihoods. I pray that this long drought may turn.
Thy will be done.
Went walking last night in the rain. Replenished relationships, rebirthed what had been dying, now a little stronger, a little more succulent, roots a little deeper. Dirt on my feet in the shape of thongs, reminding me how we walked. Walked through many a spiderweb, ducked under, darted around, or jumped over others.
Australia Day is coming up in just a couple of days. I've becomes quite patriotic these days. Something about Australia makes my heart ache with love. Maybe it's all the propaganda, or maybe it's a little more than that, but I am so blessed to live in this country. So incredibly blessed. It's so beautiful, and there are so many opportunities and it's built on awesome values. It's nice. Australia Day is "an active celebration of Australian values: mateship, tolerance, a fair go for everyone and hey, not taking life too seriously!" and "It's about looking at our past, considering our present and recommitting to making our future even brighter." Always a good thing to do, I think. Here's something from the Australia Day website. Sure, it's art, and you could call it all lies, but I feel it in my heart. It's something that we strive towards, and there's nothing wrong with that:
The people - The life savers on the beach and the farmers in the bush; the larrikins; our sporting heroes, artists and visionaries; the volunteers who dedicate their lives to others; the spirit of pulling together in hard times and achieving beyond expectation; the eminent Australians from all walks of life, the battlers and the ordinary Australians who are anything but ordinary.
Our land - Fragile yet enduring. Harsh and extreme, lush and bountiful-a continent like no other. Our ancient land offers boundless opportunity, sustains us and makes us who we are.
Our diversity - A nation of difference and unity. People from the city, the country, different nations and backgrounds; we are one people, living together. Through our diverse beliefs and experiences we learn from each other and grow together.
The indigenous cultures - The rich and resilient spirituality; the knowledge, art and history. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are part of Australia's identity and culture.
Our freedom and democracy - A society built on fundamental rights and responsibilities. Freedom of thought and expression. Participation in government and respect for and equality under the law.
A fair go for all - An enduring spirit of mateship and fairness. A compassionate society committed to access to employment, housing, health and education. Ours is a land of opportunity where we can do anything.

Come spin on bridges with meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-e-e just to keep us warm

There is a lesson that it seems is being constantly drilled into me so that I can really learn it, never forget it.
Last night I watched a movie called 2:37. It traces the lives of a few high school students over one school day. And it really made me remember that lesson. That is, that the little judgements we make on people are so very inadequate, and, often, painful. So this is what I want to do now, something I've considered doing for a long time, something I've thought of writing a story about, to try to tell people this...this fact. How inadequate a moment, a single action, and judgement can be in seeing somebody...I remember...I was thinking about this yesterday, I wrote about this yesterday, before even watching the movie...For example, in the movie there is this guy, Steven, "Uneven" Steven, they called him, because he was born with one leg shorter than the other. He was also born with two urethras, one of which he had no control over, so that he would wet himself at school frequently. When he wetting himself, so much crap was thrown at him. Everybody just assumed he was some freak who pisssed his pants, not even considering he had a medical problem, judging him at face value, first thought that came to mind. Then later he was punched for overhearing something he shouldn't have, came out of the toilet, nose all bloodied, and people assumed he had a nosebleed, the retard that he was...All these people in the movie had some private pain, some private reason for doing as they did. It all had a context that made it understandable, but no one stopped to consider what that might be.
There's another movie, Crash. Characters do these things that would generally make you think, just looking at that action, that they were terrible people. But then the film shows more of their lives, more than just that isolated event, and you see that they're not just black and white, flat evil, but have so much more going on there. They have their own pains, sorrows, dreams, lives. There is a mother, sick, near bedridden. Berates her son for being a terrible son, saying he never comes to see her. Her other son, on the other hand, the one that they haven't seen in ages, bought her groceries. But it was the first that did that. There is another guy, a police officer. We first see him pulling over a black couple. He feels up the wife. But then later we see so much more - the father he looks after who has prostate cancer and cannot sleep for the pain. I cross into some dangerous territory here. Perhaps I seem to be excusing his rape because he has 'issues'. Debates have gone on with my friends about issues like this many times. But that's not what I mean. It's just that...well, can't you feel his pain? You don't have to hate the perpetrator out of some idea that it's justice for the victim, because it doesn't help the victim, it just creates more hate in the world. You can't rid the world of hate by hating, can you?
Well, that is a more contentious issue. Back to the simpler original point...There are times I have made judgements on situations that proved to be so wrong, wrong. Like the time I, in my self righteous pride, told a friend to break up with her boyfriend because she didn't like him anyway, was so cruel to him...but then he later would not get back together with her and she was so depressed. And what about all the times I made a judgement and never actually found out I was mistaken?
At work one time, a woman walked past the ticket boxto her firned. The manager asks if she has a ticket. She says yes, then a few seconds later goes to buy one. That manager sneers to me Funny turn of the Englsih language, when yes means no or something along those lines, loud enough for this woman to hear. I move up to the other end of the candybar to serve, and she comes up to me a says how she was just in a huge rush to get here, and drove from far away and that it didn't feel good at all to have someone say something like that. He makes this snide remark without any thought for the reasons she may have been acting that way. And she is hurt. Reminds me of that times when such things have happened to me, how much those inadequate judgements hurt. Or times when people made comments about what sort of person I was, or how i would be when I grew up or something else I knew was not true, was not me, although it seemed was me to an outside observer. It was situations like that that first made me think Is this a feeling I want to cause in others? How can I go on saying such things when I know how inadequate they are, and how they make one feel?
So that's what i want to share with you. Will you consider this? This of the times in your own life when your judgements and the judgements of others have fallen so short of the truth, have done no justice to the bigger picture. Remember the times when this lesson has been put your way, and so bring a little more compassion into the world, a little more love, to help heal the wounds of all.

I've just been reading the AA book - the Big Book. There is a chapter in there which I would like to share with others.
Chapter 4: We Agnostics
It discusses the reasons why there is a power beyond ourselves. They are so simple, logical, self-evident.
Enjoy