Modeling

" Seeing is different from being told." -Kenya

A few years ago, I decided to study the Japanese language. I registered for a noncredit course at a local community college, and eagerly awaited the start of classes. On the first night of instruction, a teacher entered the class and immediately began to speak Japanese. I was thrust into the sounds of the language, but my visual preferences were denied until she went to the board and began to write as she spoke certain words. I remember vividly how I felt when I saw the Japanese characters written on the board. When she satisfied my visual sense, I began to understand. Within minutes of seeing the unfamiliar words, I became comfortable with the learning and the language. That experience was an instance of literal seeing, but there are other ways that we see. When we say, "I see, " we can also mean, "I understand." When we see, we are connected with something visually, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. As human beings, we can touch as a way to see, or use other senses to see, and begin to understand our experience. We see images of life with our eyes, and see the power of God with our spiritual awareness.

We sometimes want others to see things our way. We inform them of what we see, and then encourage them to see things as we do. The changes in perspectives that we encourage from others, don't happen as we expect. Sometimes we are disappointed in their apparent resistance to change.

If we want others to change their view, we must change our view of them. We live in a positive universe. People are changing according to what makes sense for them, what they see as part of their experience. How we see them is based in part on how we see ourselves, and how connected we are to who we really are. Since we are all spiritual beings, our capacity to change is not only possible but likely, given our ever-growing desires for well-being. If we want to have followers, we can model for others who we really are, and speak from the heart; we can behave in ways that are consistent with what others can see in us.

As we change inwardly, we open up our eyes, our minds, our hearts and our spirit so that others can see us clearly. We can then be a presence in the lives of others through our authenticity, our realness of spirit. We can be models for others only when we have done the inside work that makes our deeds as spiritually grounded as our words. What is the model you offer to others?

Absent and Wrong

" Those who are absent are always wrong." - Congo

I can have the best arguments with people who are not in the room. It sounds crazy, but the people who cannot defend their position or perspectives are usually absent, not available to object to my untested opinions. I can make the absent people very, very wrong. I then have an obligation to reach out to those whom I have made wrong in order to heal myself.

Sometimes those people made wrong have passed away, or moved away, or faded from our memory, but the impact on our well-being is strong.

The "absent ones" are not safe at work either. When work or personality styles collide, conflicts and blame games arise. Failing to confront those differences provides opportunities for camps to develop.

Religious, social, economic and political communities exacerbate tensions as they make "outsiders" wrong. The "wrong" ones are impure, unclean, unintelligent, misguided, and unfit. The "right" ones are those who agree with us, who look like us, who think as we do, who have had a similar life experience as ours. Judging and separation commit our life to one of limitations. When we fence others out, we fence ourselves in. When we pronounce others "wrong," we unintentionally make ourselves judges of lives that we have not created.

We have parts of our own life that we can honor. We can use those "honorable" parts as models of how life can be lived, thoughts can be thought, and love can be shown. By being clear as an example of the love we are, we can respect other spiritual beings as an extension of our spiritual family, and give up the illusion of separateness. We are never really alone; others in some way, are always with us. They in truth are never absent. What is the example you are setting?

Words to Overuse

" Quarrels end, but words once spoken never die." - Sierre Leone

Have you ever said something and then immediately regretted your words? Have you wished that you could somehow retract them? Vice President Biden's recent remarks about protecting oneself from contracting swine flu was one of his gaffes, coming from a place of fear.
When newspapers make mistakes, a correction is published in an obscure place that many readers may miss. But, the acknowledgement of the errors at least satisfies legal issues. Often readers continue to believe the erroneous information because they've missed the retraction, or they find the original information more plausible.
A major source of misconstrued words is the unfortunate use of humor. Satirists are particularly vulnerable to misinterpretation, as in the case of Steven Colbert, a political comedian who has managed to garner support from several political perspectives, because of his brilliant use of sarcasm. But, sarcasm carries an undeniably hostile component, and can be both instructive and destructive.
An antidote to regretted words, misstatements, gaffes and sarcastic jabs is "soft engagement." Words I try to overuse are "thank you, I appreciate..., all is well, I love..." Whenever I acknowledge another person or situation with my overused words, I experience the reflective joy of engagement. I am warmed by the contact that I make with another human being when my words come from a place of love and respect. What are the words that you overuse?