The value of a life
24 06 2007If you want to measure the value of a person’s life, look at the affect of their life on their world, on the people in their life. Look into their close relationships. Look at how they make other’s feel about themselves.
There is no need to wait until we die to stand before the so-called Seat of Judgment. It is all happening right now, in plain view.
Amen. Spiritual work is nothing more than doing the work of love right here.
BTW, I missed you! Thanks for posting again.
In one of my blogs I wrote about how we could multiply our value in life. My thoughts included … 1. Be a people-builder, not an ego-builder, 2. Embrace a bigger vision than self-pursuits, 3. Seek opportunities to contribute, 4. Enlarge your concept of family, 5. Discover the power of giving
We need to go beyond adding value to multiplying value. You can read the entire article here.
Mmmm…. I’d add, though, that whilst one can look, one shouldn’t necessarily expect to be able to ’see’. Someone’s impact on the world might be obvious, or it might not.
There is a lovely story by the great American Anthropologist Edward T. Hall about one of his students who made a film of some children playing in a playground. Hall encouraged his students to watch such films over and over again, literally thousands of times, in slow motion and at full speed, until they were able to see things that weren’t visible in the first few hundred viewings.
This student wanted to fit a soundtrack to the film, and approached a friend who was a musician. The musician came up with a piece of popular music that he felt was about right, and both were amazed to discover that the piece fitted the movements of the children frame for frame. But they were even more amazed to discover that one child, a girl, was not only completely ’synched’ with the music, but when they viewed the film with the soundtrack, they realised that she seemed to be orchestrating the movements of all the other children on the playground (even though most appeared to be completely unaware of this).
Hall was at pains to point out that the child was not consciously performing to the music (there was no music on the playground, and the girl could not be expected to be familiar with the piece). Instead, both the rhythms of the children and the rhythms of the music came from some deep consonance in the zeitgeist, some hidden wave of influence in the body of humanity.
This story, for me, illustrates how ‘the invisible world’ is constantly interacting with the familiar world of ‘physical reality’. It also illustrates that whilst we are focused on cause and effect in quite narrow, localised contexts, there can be greater meta-patterns at work in our lives of which we are unaware.
Some people work - consciously or unconsciously - at the interface of these meta-patterns and the familiar world of localized events. Some of them may even exercise the most extraordinary influence over that world, or the people in it, without this ever being noticed or recognised. They indeed have great value - inestimable, perhaps. But at a cursory ‘look’, they might seem to us to be inconsequential.
Mark, I hereby present you with the Open Mind Blogger Award. You can read more about it at my site or Darrell’s, and then go http://politicsandreligion.wordpress.com/open-mind-award/ to claim your award.
Your wonderful commitment to make blogging have a true spiritual impact is deeply appreciated.
“There is no need to wait until we die to stand before the so-called Seat of Judgment. It is all happening right now, in plain view.”
Thats true, we face the consequences of all our actions here in this life time. The sooner we become aware of this fact, the better is our journey thru life.
Enjoyed reading your posts…..
Cheers!
The call to projection ~ response-ability to know the(y)self by behavioral sciences ~ project that people CAN get the GIFT (of observation) & see what happens ~ frustration comes if you expect to be happy so settle to spread contentment ~ then no need to judge . .
That is the story of our lives…we wait and wait and wait some more. Wait…did I miss something, oh yeah, Life.
Somewhere inside we are all good, good intentions, hopes dreams…but for some reason we wait. We see the problem and wait for a solution. Logical? This is why we have so many problems, we wait for someone else to fix it.
Can we know what the consequences of our actions are, though? They ripple out into the world in all kinds of unpredictable ways. It may even take years for their effects to show.
We can know what our intention is in doing something - although it requires a great deal of honesty with ourselves. And we can know whether we acted on an ‘impulse’, or whether we let it drift into procrastination. Is there any more we can do?
True indeed, Brother
Our lives echo back what we give out. Here is a story on the Darvish blog about just that:
http://darvish.wordpress.com/2007/07/12/reflections/
Thank you, Irving - that was a lovely little story. Whatever we want in life comes back to us… Yes. But doesn’t it also often show us that what we thought we wanted isn’t actually what we do want?
What if what one ’sends out’ is: “Not my will, but Thy Will be done”?
Are you EVER going to blog again? Inquiring minds want to know.
this makes so much sense
Mark, I hope you are well!
Miss you! hope everything is fine.