The Atlanta Customs felt like a bad dream. Compared to Heathrow, it looked like a bunch of adolescents trying out for a job. Disorganized, and disconnected. A young white man had a tee shirt that caught my eye and at first I couldn’t quite make out what the picture on his shirt was. Then I focused and realized it was a large bullet. It read, ‘Fire a round on Isis” or something like that. He was probably 23 years old, very white and very puffed up in that white man ignorant, aggressive sort of way.
Having just come from England the contrast was big.
I tried to drive home from the airport but realized that would not be a good idea so got a hotel room. The woman who checked me in, after I told her that in London time it was 5:30 a.m. (rather than just after midnight), proceeded to describe the fitness center that was available rather than just giving me my room key and helping me settle in. I snapped at her. “I just need my room key please.” She was just following the rules, she said. It’s the American way.
I woke up early because my internal clock is still on London time and there was a voice in my head, which is the voice you are reading here. The voice tries to make sense of this country I was born into. There’s ignorance here. Yet maybe the ignorance is a disconnection from Essence. Maybe it’s a heart-ignorance.
My cab driver from my flat to Heathrow was a Muslim of Turkish origin living in England. He had a beautiful vase in the cab that he made and sells to customers. He loves to make things and we talked about starting an online business for his items. We talked about Isis, Syria, organic food (his wife is buying local organic for him and his daughter). We talked about money, the U.S. elections and living according to one’s joy. We connected. I felt love for him.
My friend whose flat I stayed at in London says education is the answer. She received a totally free college education in France. I think about my cab driver. He had education but has never read a book, he told me. (I showed him my book!) He said he liked design and technology in school. My friend said that in France you have to read the classics, learn Latin and Greek to even get into the university. But it’s free. She says that in America—and England too—because higher education is so expensive many people are prohibited and this creates the ignorance that creates the hatred and bigotry.
I’m not sure.
I taught a transformational program while I was in London. By transformational I mean we focused on distinguishing the conditioned mind from Essence. Thus, creating a pathway to move from fear to Love, which is our true nature and the reason we are here.
None of the people in my workshop would ever wear a tee shirt with a bullet on it advocating shooting other people no matter who the other people were.
I’m in my sixth decade and perhaps this is why I’m so uncomfortable with how confused I feel. How can this world be so big and so diverse and so filled with love and also hatred? How can there ever be peace and prosperity for everyone? Does the work we do really make any difference? The cab driver said he couldn’t understand hatred. We talked about that. I told him my friend is at a refugee camp in Greece helping the Syrians. “How can we allow that war,” we both asked. His answer was the gun industry. Probably so, I thought. It’s a huge industry. They make lots of money from war. There are powers at work that we have no idea about.
The sunset at the Atlanta airport, as I waited a very long time for my flight home to Iowa, was the most beautiful sunset I’d seen in a long time. Beauty is power. Beauty is a power more powerful than guns. I do believe this to be true. It’s true for me. It was true for Keats and many people. It’s true for my cab driver friend who makes vases and sells them to women he drives from Heathrow. It’s true for Matisse. “You’re so naïve”, the dominant culture exclaims. “Dare to be naïve,” said Buckminster Fuller.
I remain confused. My vision is a world where everyone is loved and loving. The world right now seems far away from this vision. But I am committed to the vision nonetheless, which requires that I see all the contrast and do what I am here to do.
When one of my clients taps into her Essence, to the Light of her spiritual genius and gives expression to that, gives voice to that, when she realizes the joy and power of her own voice, and finds the courage to stand behind that voice, then I am confident the world can be a world where everyone is loved and loving.
