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>     There are times when I think Life is either less than subtle or having a good chuckle at the way in which it “conspires” to teach us vital lessons. Recently, I have come up against one of those times and the lesson seems to be about learning the distinction between compromise and harmony.
    I have come to realize how very different these two concepts are and how often we mistakenly seek compromise when it’s harmony that would provide the highest good for all concerned. The reason I marvel at Life’s occasionally “heavy hand” is because within the past few days I have been given the opportunity to really understand the nuances between these two.
    Going through divorce, I am naturally inclined to try and figure out where my husband and I went off track in trying to successfully build a lasting relationship between two people who undoubtedly love one another. As I was working on this very understanding, our daughter is appearing in the high school play, King and I. For those of you unfamiliar with the play, the overriding message is about two people from two different cultures who clash head on in an effort to reach their respective goals. Both are strong-willed and both disinclined to compromise. In the end, their successes arise out of the places where they are able to meet…the places where each is able to
both get what they want as well as honor what the other wants as well.
    It’s all about allowing and respecting differences. Not tolerating them, but allowing and honoring them.
    The cast at the high school is remarkably talented. This, however, is not their most outstanding attribute. They are a diverse group of children from various ethnic and racial backgrounds as equally diverse in their economic standings. However, they have an astonishing spirit of “oneness” that is the basis for their successful cooperation and harmony. They accept and honor their diversity, rather than seeing it as an obstacle. In fact, they are adept at both “give” and “take” in their personal relationships with one another as well as within the confines of the production of the theater department.
    As the curtain call was taking place, and the diversity of the cast particularly evident, my friend who had accompanied me to the play leaned over to me and said, “Isn’t it amazing how they are so different yet create something so harmonious.”
    So, there it is. It’s my lesson for my marriage but also a lesson for Life, in general.     When we compromise, it usually involves a “giving up” or a “giving in” of something we value. And compromise usually done with anything from mild discomfort to outright resentment…from which we rarely recover. A stable and loving future is unlikely built upon such a weak foundation. However, when we seek out where we and another can meet…where we harmonize…where what we each seek is both recognized and honored by the other, then the foundation is built upon honor and acceptance.
    Such foundations are strong and able to withstand the blustery winds of relationship that inevitably come around.
    Compromise breeds discord. Honoring and acceptance breed harmony.
    I suspect that Life will now move on and get it’s chuckles elsewhere… conspiring to teach me something else.
    I’ve got this one.

>P.S.   Remember to click here to download my FREE e-book “TOO MANY SECRETS”

>    There was a cowardly terrorist attack today in Jerusalem against high school age students.  Many died, many more injured.  It never ceases to amaze me that the most abhorrent and inhumane acts are carried out in the name of God.  As a Jew, my religion teaches me that God’s name is sacrosanct, even unpronounceable, for it harbors within It the incomprehensible power of Creation.  Creation is the act of bring forth Life.  So how is it possible that in It’s name what is rendered is the deliberate taking of Life?
    I am fond of saying that for every butterfly to be born, a caterpillar must die. This is the analogy I often voice when pessimists raise the specter of so much violence in the world. I try and remember that ultimately we are evolving toward a more conscious, more loving Being, we humans, and that a necessary component of evolution is the dying off of certain forms. And it helps to throw in a little physics and add that matter is neither created nor destroyed…but rather redistributed.  It helps when the discussion is theoretical. It’s of little consequence, and less solace, when children are massacred.
    I write every day with a single mindedness of purpose. That purpose is to find the highest meaning for all concerned. I pride myself on having the gift of being able to do just that, no matter what the occurrence. This entry challenges me to my core and I wonder, even as I write, if I can succeed this time.
    My agony is not because these were Jewish children, but because they were children. Whether these 9 innocents, or the children of Darfur, India, China, Gaza or Philadelphia…we must awaken to the Truth that to abandon the children is to bankrupt the future. We have become so hardened to violence is it’s many forms that these become just news stories without eliciting form us the agony and indignation that should rise up from our innermost Being and scream “No more…not on my watch.”
    To do nothing is to partake of human sacrifice. Let’s not delude ourselves that because there is no physical altar it is anything other than sacrifice. But for what are we sacrificing our children? What answer could possibly validate the question? Who are we to allow so much anger and hatred to fester that the lives of children have become expendable commodities to be traded in a war waged in the Name of God?  For we are allowing the hatred to  continue to fester and grow for so long as we do not demand of ourselves that we begin immediately to remove hated from our own lives.
    There is no “us” or “them.” There is no “other.”  There is only the full expression, as seen in an infinite number of possibilities, of the Pure Urge to Be All That It Is.  If evil exists it is separation. It is the illusion that what I do to you I do not also do to myself.  It is allowing hated to rise above compassion and stand as a guiding principle in the Name of God when God knows nothing of hatred…for it is humankind’s co-creation… and our least admirable one at that.
    There is only one way to redeem the lives of those high school age students in Jerusalem. Only on way to save the children everywhere whose lives are daily being devalued, abandoned, tortured, and enslaved. You and I have to say “enough.”  We have to circumcise our hardened hearts. W have to raise our voices to such a pitch that there will not be a corner of this Earth where one can escape our cry.
    And we must Be, in God’s Name, what God Is.
    Love.

P.S.   Remember to click here to download my FREE e-book “TOO MANY SECRETS”