Month: July 2021

“It is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the world in which we all live.”

This quote is by the Dalai Lama, who often writes and speaks about treating others with compassion, respect, and dignity.  When we do that, we help to preserve a way of being that has much value.  It’s one of the ways we can tend to the world which we all share.

When I think of tending to something, the image of tending to a garden comes to mind.  In order for the vegetables to grow, a gardener needs to choose a place to have the garden where there will be sunlight, and then to cultivate the soil, plant the seeds, put time and effort into weeding, and provide the plants with sufficient water.  Carefully tending to the garden will result in the gardener enjoying the tasty and nutritious vegetables when they are ready to be harvested.  And also enjoying sharing them with others.

Similarly, when we tend to the world, we both give of ourselves and are the beneficiaries of the care we give to others.  In addition to treating people with compassion, respect, and dignity, we tend to the world by listening to others, helping them, showing affection, and being genuine.  Sometimes tending to the world also requires being assertive, saying something to someone that may be uncomfortable but that needs to be said.

We also tend to the world in which we all live by doing our part to protect the health of the earth, by making choices to live in a more ecologically responsible way.  These choices usually involve some sacrifice as we change ingrained habits.  But once again we are the beneficiaries of our efforts because we help our earth to be a healthier and more beautiful place for ourselves and for future generations.

By embracing the responsibility to which the Dalai Lama refers, we can and do make a meaningful difference.

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

This is a quote by Mother Teresa.  Several of my past posts are based on her words of wisdom, faith, and concern for others.  She often spoke about the connection among all human beings, and she spent most of her life helping others through the Missionaries of Charity which she founded.  Much of the work of Missionaries of Charity involves helping people who live in poverty.

There are many ways that we belong to each other, from relationships between two people to the interconnection among every person in the world, for we all share this earth.  There are connections between parents and their children, wives and husbands, teachers and their students, volunteers and the recipients of the volunteers’ assistance.  All of these and other ways of relating, when approached from the heart, add meaning and specialness to people’s lives.  We relate to others through our actions and the choices we make as well as by what we say.  In our families, at our jobs, in doing volunteer work, in attending support groups, and in many additional ways we make our world a better place by doing our best to use and share the abilities we’ve been given by the Creator as we interact with others.

Each of us is unique and has been created for certain purposes.  To know what those purposes are we need to try to discern the messages from our inner voice.  Those messages come to us through the symbolism in dreams, synchronistic experiences, intuitive promptings, and unexpected happenings that seem to have symbolic meaning.  It’s also important to recognize when we’ve made mistakes, to forgive ourselves, and to try again.  By growing in consciousness in these ways, we are better able to discover our purpose, to remember that we all do belong to each other, and to experience the peace that comes from being the person we were created to be and doing those things we were created to do.