this talk is like hitting a bullseye in my heart. for as long as i have kept journals, there has been one sentence that can probably be found written more than once in each one. t is a question to God. “why do I feel this way?” when i was about 13 i saw a movie called ‘Choices of the Heart’. it told the true story of Jean Donovan, a lay-missionary who was murdered at 27 along with three nuns while working in El Salvador in the 1980’s. i place this as what first gave me a passion for justice. i am still outraged by injustices in this world, but i am more than ever challenged by my own inaction.
i went on to address some of these issues through some volunteer work with Amnesty International, representing the Australian branch at a conference in Amsterdam. in spite of this i never knew how to reconcile my faith with these beliefs, but i have always believed that the Lord gave me these convictions for a reason.
for about two months now i have been thinking deeply in my heart about my faith, and what it means to me. i know that there is something more for me. i also know that it goes beyond my church involvement. i feel like the Lord has a journey for me this year, to reach that inner part of myself where my faith connects to His heartbeat.
i’d really, really encourage anyone to listen to this talk. it spoke so much to me, about compassion, about love and about courage. so many things rang true to my heart. finally someone has articulated what i have always believed spiritually. although it is spoken from an American context, it is an important message for us all – especially mothers.
sometimes when i think there is some material thing that my children can’t do without, i remind myself of the children I have seen working in India – long hours in extreme conditions. those who do not have any option for their schooling. those children who are pawns in war – used as soldiers, as prostitutes – those who are the innocent victims of violence in an adult world. children I have seen in countries closest to Australia – Papua New Guinea and East Timor, who do not have anything near what my children have. who do not have the access to the most basic of health care or education that is offered freely to my children. yes, I am blessed. but what do I do with my blessings?
in her talk, Marianne Williamson says: “we receive God’s blessing to the extent to which we extend God’s blessing.” do i extend God’s blessing? not really. and this challenges me.
i have typed a chunk of what she says below. I couldn’t help myself....
“Terrorism is an emotion turned into an externalised political force. it is hatred turned into a political force. And the only strength powerful enough to defeat that hatred and that political force is love turned into a political and social force…
Those who believe that hatred is strong and love is weak cannot see how to accomplish this. I cannot imagine a kinda, sorta, sometimes, when it’s convenient terrorist. Terrorists are people who have embraced a world view that you and I admittedly see as filled with hate. But they are convicted behind it and they have dedicated that their very lives might be instruments for the perpetration of that world view. Every time there is a terrorist act domestically or internationally it seems to the American President always describes the act as cowardly. And I always scratch my head and I think wicked, yes; evil, yes; violent, yes; but cowardly? I am not so sure.
The truth of the matter is hatred has a perverse kind of courage. Contrast that with the fact I know many, many, many people, and I know I am sometimes one of them: are kind of, sort of, casually, when it is convenient committed to love. So the problem is not that there is more hatred in the world than love – far from it. The problem on the planet today is that those relatively few people on this earth whose hearts are filled with hatred are ironically and tragically often more convicted behind their hatred that we are convicted behind our love. So we cannot say that love cannot overcome all of the problems of the world when in fact we have not tried.
Now the love that will save the world is not just love for people we like. The love that will save the world is not just love for people who think and act like us. And as women, in order for us to help interrupt the suicidal rampage that man is currently engaged in, you and I, I believe, must come understand that the love for children, that is absolutely fundamental to the evolutionary impulse, cannot and must not, simply be love for OUR children. The love that will save this world, transform this world… is a love which loves children on the other side of the world every bit as much as it loves our own.”
“If you make as the underpinning of your civilisation economic principles rather than humanitarian principles you are a money changer. If you make the underpinnings of your right-relatedness to the world that you will spend billions and billions of dollars on military hardware of ways to kill people rather than tending to ways of conflict resolution and ways that you can help people, then you will suffer. Not because God doesn’t love you, but because He shall not be mocked.”
i know this won't make much sense to anyone else, that is why i titled this post a message for me. because i know in my heart this is the beginning of reconciliation for me...
