Looking Deeper

"Deep Seeing Eyes"

“The Yoruba tradition uses the term 'ashe' to mean the essential divine nature in everything. It is the idea that within all things lives sacredness if looked for with 'deep seeing eyes'.(Huston Smith, World Religions) Even negative people or events are not void of ashe; it just takes deeper eyes to see it.”

                           Laura Berman Fortgang (The Little Book on Meaning)

While I was brushing my teeth last night, I thought about the young men who beat my son with a tire iron. There were three of them, all in black with black knit caps on their heads. I realized that I don't feel anger toward them, which seems strange. I remember thinking about them while we were sitting in the emergency room, wondering what would make them do such a thing, and whether their mothers worried about them, too. More and more, it seems like a gang beat-down rather than a serious robbery attempt.

What concerns me most is that this may just be the tip of the iceberg. As the gulf between the people at the top and the people at the bottom widens, that lethal rage is going to become more and more obvious. In my world, I never had to worry about my sons getting into gangs or selling drugs or robbing people. They didn't have everything they wanted, but they had enough. They went to great schools and were college educated. They had an optimistic future from the day they were born. That is true for only two percent of the population in this country, and with the cost of education escalating, that percentage will drop.

I am no Utopian dreamer, but I do believe that it is in the best interest of all of us to see to needs of the least of us, or suffer the consequences. Angry people will find ways to even the playing field. They see the absurdly lavish lifestyles of some of our “blessed” people, and they want to lash out. They want to cause harm; to burst the bubble of oblivion that people at the top seem to them to have. I am reminded of the young prince, Siddhartha, who was shielded from seeing how the people of his father's kingdom suffered, starved and died. When he was a grown man, he took it upon himself to go outside the walls of his realm, where he saw for himself how the people lived in poverty. He was so profoundly moved by their plight that he devoted his life to relieving suffering, and to helping people become mindful of the holiness of all life. He became the Buddha.

We as a people need to develop 'deep seeing eyes'; eyes that can perceive the sacredness in all people. It's hard to do sometimes, but as we open our hearts, perhaps our sight will open, too.

                                                    In the spirit,

                                                        Jane