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A Special Message

Posted on September 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

A girl walks by the window of the café I am sitting in. She has a limp, a large head, glasses, and her mouth is set in a sort of grimace. I look away as I don’t want her to think I’m staring just because she doesn’t look like the average human being.

Then, it strikes me – how many other people refuse to look this little girl’s way for the very same reason? If she doesn’t already feel different from the rest of the world, surely a lifetime of averted gazes will add to her sense of separateness and disconnection. Doesn’t she too deserve to be showered with looks of love, admiration and interest? Should she too not experience a world of inclusion and togetherness? I watch her sit in to a car. And I watch her father sit in beside her. Tears come to my eyes at the pure, unconditional love that I have been looking away from all these years.

In my lifetime, so far, I have not had much contact with people with special needs and so I feared that I wouldn’t know how to relate to these people or how to treat them. I worried that I wouldn’t do the “right” thing. I now realise that I was too much in my head and so very far removed from my heart. I also know that it is fear and ignorance that is at the root of discrimination, bullying, violence and even war.

Just this morning, on Hay House Radio, a woman phoned in to speak about her newly born child, who has special needs. She worried that she wouldn’t be able for the challenges that this new life would bring. Interestingly, the presenter pointed out that this situation would teach her compassion. Not for her daughter so much as for the people she might encounter, who would ridicule and ostracise her child.

Life is life in all its forms and shapes and containers. A soul is a soul no matter the physical appearance of the instrument. And beauty is the light that burns bright within and around each and every being in the Universe. The lesson is to learn from every person we come into contact with and, even more importantly, from how we react to these people. Today, this is the lesson that I have learned. And so I thank that beautiful girl on the street with all of my heart.

True beauty is witnessed with love

Photo credit: Jessica Watson

From black and white to technicolour

Posted on December 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Good fucken fuqballs, I’m writing at 5am again! I blame Jeannette Walls’ gripping account of her exciting, albeit difficult, childhood in The Glass Castle. Only moments earlier, I had to hold the book away for a good five minutes as I sobbed.

Walls’ honest depiction of life as the resilient daughter of an irresponsible but irresistible drunkard, and a refreshingly free-spirited but inexcusably selfish artist, is as heart-warming as it is heart-breaking.

This captivating memoir teaches us that we mustn’t view things, or people, in black and white. Jeannette paints her unique story, mixing muted shades of sepia and charcoal with delightful streaks of vibrant colour.

Everybody is doing the best they can with what they’ve got. We are all simply trying to survive. Even the most despicable of villains have another (better, softer, more vulnerable) side. Lord Voldemort lived a loveless childhood and suffered a pathological fear of death. The Joker was grieving the loss of his wife and unborn child. In 102 Dalmations, Cruella de Vil dedicates her life to saving animals. And Simon Cowell still goes to bed with his blankie. (Poetic license here, folks. Work with me.)

So, the next time you want to curse (or plot the untimely demise of) your unreasonable boss or critical co-worker, take a deep breath. Recognise that they wouldn’t be behaving this way if they were content with their lot.

On his days off, that bad-tempered librarian volunteers to help children with special needs. The self-centred ladies’ man cries himself to sleep each night. The rude motorist who cut in front of you this morning was preoccupied with meeting his new-born son for the first time. The irritable shop keeper doesn’t hate you. She hates her job. Or her husband. Or herself. The town drunk you cross the road to avoid tried to clean himself up several times before he lost his wife, his kids, and his battle with this unrelenting illness.

Insert gratuitous Leo pic here.

I’m not advocating that you accept bad behaviour. I just want to promote compassion and understanding. Everyone has their story, their baggage, their reasons. Everybody longs for happiness. For love. Everyone breathes the same breath of life and dreams of a better future.

Somewhere between the stormy blacks and calm whites of judgement and acceptance appears an uncontrollable rainbow of regret and determination, sorrow and hope, anger and forgiveness. Because that is what it is to be human.