Goodness

My heart aches for all of humanity, and yet I believe that there is more goodness in this world than not. It is how I have lived my life, and the way in which I have taught my children to live.

Before our 16 & 18 year old arrived home from school yesterday, like many, Brent and I had heard and read an abundance of information and misinformation surrounding the tragedy in Boston. Even though they are older, we made a decision to only discuss it with the kids, and not let them see any more graphic details than what they may have already. In this wonderfully rich and openly interactive world that we live in, it is challenging to shut off traditional and social media and the news that comes to our handheld devices readily, causing us to be desensitized. I like that communication technologies are advancing in the way that they are, but need to remember that these devices have off buttons.

This simple and yet lovely message from Mr. Rogers keeps popping up and I want to share it here,  

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
 

Whether one prays, meditates, hopes or simply thinks warm thoughts, for the victims of violence the victims of hate, it is those actions that are needed today and tomorrow.

Helpers create more helpers and goodness creates more goodness…  

~ Ellyn

Prayer...

Numbers are constant, until they are not. Our inability to influence outcome is the great equalizer. Computers generate random numbers in an attempt to glean meaning out of probability and list numerical sequences lacking any pattern, but during a cataclysmic global event, tsunami, earthquake, the attacks of 9/11, these random numbers suddenly stop being random. As our collective consciousness synchronizes, so do the numbers. Science can’t explain the phenomenon but religion does. It’s called prayer. A collective request sent up in unison, a shared hope. Numbers are constant until they are not.

~ Jake Bohm

I am a wordy not a numbers person, but with respect to numbers, I am awed by their orderly harmony and wonder about the so-called randomness to which some numbers noticeably, reoccur in my life, 4, 7, 13, 108…

Prayer, meditation, appeals, requests, desires, hopes, wishes. Call it what you will, but before my feet touch the floor in the morning, I step into that place, grateful that I am awake to a new day. When my children and Brent drive out of the yard each morning, to school and work, I ask that they be surrounded in love and protection, that they are assisted in making decisions for their highest and greatest good and that everyone with whom they meet be blessed. When I hear news of a local individual that has a challenge before them or a group of people on the other side of the world, struggling for peace or in need of food I know that I am part of a powerful collective with a shared desire. Throughout and at the end of the day, I offer out my thanks because I choose faith, over fear, which doesn’t mean that fear doesn’t show itself, but it is subsided through prayer. 

During cataclysmic global events our collective consciousness synchronizes so do the numeric sequences created by random number generators. Science can’t explain the phenomenon but religion does. It’s called prayer. A collective request sent up in unison, a shared hope, fear relieved, a life spared. Numbers are constant until they are not. In times of tragedy, times of collective joy, in these brief moments it is only the shared emotional experience that makes the world seem less random. Maybe it’s a coincidence or maybe it’s an answer to our prayers.

~ Ellyn

Michael Angelo