It is interesting working with people with different political views. I am most proudly and unashamed out there as the view and perspective from the left of the political and social scale. My views are really not really that radical or extreme but my tolerance for diversity of all types is quite high and thoughts on personal and societal responsibility give me that positioning. A few weeks ago I did an on-line survey of views and tolerance and I was clearly on the far left of the range with Barack and Hillary to the right. The Dali Lama was in my neighborhood, which IMO is cool and good company. Much of this is rooted in my own deep sense of spirituality.
I work with people who have opinions similar to mine but also some with perspectives that are clearly far right of center and who occasionally feel that their opinions are the only ones that can be correct. I have to hold my tongue allot because in a discussion where they get rolling and want to spout off further and further to the right, I absolutely can't resist moving even further and further to the left. It drives them crazy! Mean, yeah I know. But you gotta have some fun with people who take themselves way too seriously.
So you can imagine the day after an election of the first African American President, whom I consider a complete centrist and some consider a socialist. Behaviors are acted out in ways that have nothing to do with the real issues of work, some are just totally quiet or some just go on and on. I had a conversation this afternoon with a co-worker who is quite bright and seems to try and research everything under the sun yet he was so poorly informed on Obama's positions and opinions. I could tell that he probably had listened intently to one or two similar sources of information and perspective not the dozen or so that are available. So it becomes a teaching moment. The others I just stay away from and let them simmer in their anger.
It is fascinating to me how our varied upbringings and life experiences and basic brain chemistry make us who we are and how I can so very clearly see something in one way or be totally fine with something while another person sees it 180 degrees differently or is offended by something that I can't even understand.
Its one of those many things that makes us human and interesting and frustrating to one another, all at the same time.
Showing posts with label differences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label differences. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
the vacation exception
Thursday was a highlight to the vacation week, a reality check, a grounding experience.
Because I work and hour out of the Berkshires I am not as involved here as I wish I could be. While I connect with groups on nights and weekends there is this whole part that is missed.
Thursday I had the pleasure of accompanying my teens when the did their monthly work at a community dinner. They've been doing this for years but it is late afternoon when I am usually still at work. Rather than drop them off I joined them in-case they were short volunteers due to vacation, which they were.
At 3pm volunteers gather in the kitchen and its all hands on deck setting tables, making salad, preparing a main course, making the lemonade, cutting bread, helping make dessert, firing up the dishwasher and ovens. The menu varying by what might have been donated or purchased from its donations. Tonight it was stuffed shells and sauce, sauteed peppers, salad, brownies and lemonade. A team of volunteers, part of a bigger group of teams that rotate through 2 nights a week throughout the month.
About 430 people start drifting in sitting down, visiting. Some know each other other do not, some I know are homeless, some with issues, some just at a down swing of life.
At 5:15 I joined the volunteers as we served the 100 guests at their tables. A reason this is a community dinner and not a soup kitchen, people are served with greetings and kindness just as you would expect at a restaurant. People came up for seconds and often complimented the cooks and volunteers.
So what struck me about this this? The humanity of it all.
One team of volunteers worked set up and another served and did clean-up. (we stayed to do both) Three hours of work with friendly people who clearly had no pretense that they were doing charity work, they were serving people who could use a good meal. That was it.
What also struck me were the guests, the span of ages and appearances. There was a politeness and gratitude that was natural and genuine from both volunteers and guests.
Then 3 hours later the guests had left, the dishes were washed and away, the tables wiped down and floor washed and the recycling put in the bin. Just as quickly as they had arrived the volunteers had all drifted away. Some to return the next night, some the next week and some the next month.
As we left for home and for our own dinner I felt good that this was just a normal occurrence for my kids and something they actually looked forward to and recruited friends to fill in, good that I knew all the volunteers and was part of the church that sponsored the dinners, good that this was available for those who needed it for what ever reason even if the only reason was that they didn't want to eat alone.
This is one of those quiet parts of the Berkshires. Its not for the tourists, it doesn't involve the arts but is part of the fabric of life.
So I guess in the context of things my last post was whining. Compared with many that I saw here and having great kids who want to do things like this and want to have me along with them I can put up with the distress of the ants.
Because I work and hour out of the Berkshires I am not as involved here as I wish I could be. While I connect with groups on nights and weekends there is this whole part that is missed.
Thursday I had the pleasure of accompanying my teens when the did their monthly work at a community dinner. They've been doing this for years but it is late afternoon when I am usually still at work. Rather than drop them off I joined them in-case they were short volunteers due to vacation, which they were.
At 3pm volunteers gather in the kitchen and its all hands on deck setting tables, making salad, preparing a main course, making the lemonade, cutting bread, helping make dessert, firing up the dishwasher and ovens. The menu varying by what might have been donated or purchased from its donations. Tonight it was stuffed shells and sauce, sauteed peppers, salad, brownies and lemonade. A team of volunteers, part of a bigger group of teams that rotate through 2 nights a week throughout the month.
About 430 people start drifting in sitting down, visiting. Some know each other other do not, some I know are homeless, some with issues, some just at a down swing of life.
At 5:15 I joined the volunteers as we served the 100 guests at their tables. A reason this is a community dinner and not a soup kitchen, people are served with greetings and kindness just as you would expect at a restaurant. People came up for seconds and often complimented the cooks and volunteers.
So what struck me about this this? The humanity of it all.
One team of volunteers worked set up and another served and did clean-up. (we stayed to do both) Three hours of work with friendly people who clearly had no pretense that they were doing charity work, they were serving people who could use a good meal. That was it.
What also struck me were the guests, the span of ages and appearances. There was a politeness and gratitude that was natural and genuine from both volunteers and guests.
Then 3 hours later the guests had left, the dishes were washed and away, the tables wiped down and floor washed and the recycling put in the bin. Just as quickly as they had arrived the volunteers had all drifted away. Some to return the next night, some the next week and some the next month.
As we left for home and for our own dinner I felt good that this was just a normal occurrence for my kids and something they actually looked forward to and recruited friends to fill in, good that I knew all the volunteers and was part of the church that sponsored the dinners, good that this was available for those who needed it for what ever reason even if the only reason was that they didn't want to eat alone.
This is one of those quiet parts of the Berkshires. Its not for the tourists, it doesn't involve the arts but is part of the fabric of life.
So I guess in the context of things my last post was whining. Compared with many that I saw here and having great kids who want to do things like this and want to have me along with them I can put up with the distress of the ants.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Yes I am a rock …..but I am more
Going through some old writing I found this that I did almost 6 years to the day. Whew........As I read through it what struck me most was that most recently the words don't come as freely. They are stuck behind the wall of stress that I have built up and have recently begun chiseling away. My goal is that that wall will be gone and the words will flow again. Meanwhile I'll remind myself periodically of how it was.
July 25, 2008
As you walk along the beach you know me as a rock, a stone….one of a pile tossed by the waves or stranded on the beach. You pick me up and I am smooth and wet. Yes I am a rock …..but I am more.
I am of the body of the earth; I am of the water that is life.
When you hold me you hold time, for how you see me now is not how I have always been. I am part of the greater body broken off by the waves, moved around in the currents of life.
I have been carried by the waters that feed life and have held death and I have become one of many in the sand and the sea. My texture shows my ancestry; my veins and colors my beginning and my source; of how I was part of the body.
To know me you must understand my journey… the waves and storms that have carried me here and how I have become one with this community.
When you hold me truly look at me and feel me. I am one of many; all of different sizes, shapes and colors yet we have all been through much of the same. We are all part of the body and we have been carried by the waves; my rough edges smoothed, my sharp edges calmed by time.
When you hold me you hold time……I am the beginning and the end.
The waters that have smoothed me hold joy……. sadness…… despair….. hope…life….death. As you hold me you hold all that have touched these waters and you are connected to them all.
I am of the whale; I am of the gull; I am of the seal that feeds near the shore and of the fish that swim in the waves; I am of the child splashing in the waves; I am of the sailor lost at sea; I am of the creatures of the deep; I am the algae that feeds life; I am of them all and more.
As you hold me think of all that has touched these waters and have touched me; for you are part of us all. You too are part of the whole and like you I will someday become the sand and return fully back to the earth from where we have all come.
Jeff-in-the Berkshires (c)
July 25, 2008
As you walk along the beach you know me as a rock, a stone….one of a pile tossed by the waves or stranded on the beach. You pick me up and I am smooth and wet. Yes I am a rock …..but I am more.
I am of the body of the earth; I am of the water that is life.
When you hold me you hold time, for how you see me now is not how I have always been. I am part of the greater body broken off by the waves, moved around in the currents of life.
I have been carried by the waters that feed life and have held death and I have become one of many in the sand and the sea. My texture shows my ancestry; my veins and colors my beginning and my source; of how I was part of the body.
To know me you must understand my journey… the waves and storms that have carried me here and how I have become one with this community.
When you hold me truly look at me and feel me. I am one of many; all of different sizes, shapes and colors yet we have all been through much of the same. We are all part of the body and we have been carried by the waves; my rough edges smoothed, my sharp edges calmed by time.
When you hold me you hold time……I am the beginning and the end.
The waters that have smoothed me hold joy……. sadness…… despair….. hope…life….death. As you hold me you hold all that have touched these waters and you are connected to them all.
I am of the whale; I am of the gull; I am of the seal that feeds near the shore and of the fish that swim in the waves; I am of the child splashing in the waves; I am of the sailor lost at sea; I am of the creatures of the deep; I am the algae that feeds life; I am of them all and more.
As you hold me think of all that has touched these waters and have touched me; for you are part of us all. You too are part of the whole and like you I will someday become the sand and return fully back to the earth from where we have all come.
Jeff-in-the Berkshires (c)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)