I am feeling troubled this morning. I have been privy to a deep unkindness and it is nagging me, causing me to stew and fret about what I should do, what I should say, how I should be present to it all. Once again, I am reminded of how powerfully we are connected as human beings, sometimes even when we don’t know it. One person says or does something in a mean spirit and its ripples flow out into so many other lives. I am reminded of the Native American concept of the Sacred Web of Life……one pluck and the entire web vibrates, sometimes for great good and other times for irreversible damage.

Each day we make choices about what we will do, what we will say, how we will behave in any given situation. We go from a meeting to a phone call, sometimes unconsciously brushing past another person with little regard or awareness for what may be going on in their lives. We flippantly make a comment……or try to make a joke…..only to cause hurt and pain to another. In anger, we say things we may later regret.

As the created beings who have the gift of language, we are a powerful lot. If only we might use the power of our words for goodness, for kindness, for instilling hope and generosity and ………genuine love, genuine peace. What difference might that make in the world?

The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh writes in Creating True Peace:Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community and the World: "We (can) become aware that our mind is like a garden that contains all kinds of seeds: seeds of understanding, seeds of forgiveness, seeds of mindfulness, and also seeds of ignorance, fear and hatred. We realize that, at any given moment, we can behave with either violence or compassion, depending on the strength of these seeds within us.When the seeds of anger, violence and fear are watered in us several times a day, they will grow stronger……When we know how to cultivate the seeds of love, compassion and understanding in us every day, those seeds become stronger, and the seeds of violence and hatred will become weaker and weaker. We know that if we water the seeds of anger, violence and fear in us, we will lose our peace and our stability. We will suffer and we will make those around us suffer. But if we cultivate the seeds of compassion, we nourish peace within us and around us. With this understanding, we are already on the the path of creating peace."

Note to Troubled Self……make sure you are watering the right seeds.