Open
Windows
“But
I'm annoying you to no purpose with my arguments. A person whose
house is only open on the west can't see the sun rise at dawn; it's
only seen when the sun sets at dusk. If one tries to compare the
color and appearance of the two, one will go on arguing forever...The
fault lies not with the vision but with the closed windows. If you
look out only one opening till the day you die, you'll never see
anything new.”
Sharat
Chandra Chattopadhyay
Chattopadhyay
was a Bengali novelist in the early part of the 20th
century, but his views seem especially cogent today. We live in a
house divided—not just in America, but in the world. We have
settled in our ways to the point that we do not allow another opinion
to sway our position. In fact, we're entrenched to such a degree that
we're willing to fight and kill to maintain the fantasy that our way
is the only right way, our view is the only legitimate one. And, we're bringing the world to its knees with this rigid philosophy.
It
is not our lack of compassion that is problematic, it is our
intransigence. It is our unwillingness to open our house to a
different view, to consider for one moment that we may be part of the
problem, and not the singular solution—that other ideas, other ways
of being, other means of problem solving are just as legitimate as
our own. We have the option of learning from one another, of sharing
our knowledge and receiving in-kind, but first we have to open our
windows. We have to open our hearts and minds. We must realize that
there is One soul shared by all, One world we all inhabit, One people
whose lives matter—not us and them, not right and wrong, but One.
Today,
let's open our windows on east and west, north and south, above and
below, and let the possibility of peace blow through. Let this be our
mantra: Peace begins with me.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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