Only gratitude

On my way to San Francisco yesterday, my seatmate was a very open-minded and spiritual Jewish person and so it was natural for us to engage in the most interesting of conversations :-) - issues of spirituality and personal growth... always my favorite subjects to discuss, debate, and share insights about.

At one point this person suddenly turned to me and said: "If you had advice to give to the Jewish and the Palestinians in the Middle-East, what would you say to them?"

Before this we had been discussing anger issues, and how anger breeds more anger, and extreme anger exposes the person experiencing it to still more extreme anger and its many unsavory and downright dangerous expressions - and we both agreed that there was tons of anger in the minds and hearts of the people in the Middle-East, two communities that both felt tht their very survival was threatened by the other. And this is what I told my co-passenger:

"The issues there have been complicated immensely with generations of negativity. Therefore, I would ask them simply for a time-out of forty days (the number just apperaed in my mind, as a lot of informtion does...also, a period of 40 days has much significance in most faith-based communities) -- I would tell everyone to STOP looking at each other... just turn to themselves and or forty days simply write their Gratitude Journals. If people in the Middle-East would listen to me, this is what I'd tell them."

And no, I can't predict the result of this exercise in exact terms, but I have NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER that saner voices will rise to the surface on both sides, and insist on being heard - and these will be voices of reason, of humaneness, and most importantly, voices that come from a lack of fear (remember, anger is a result of fear - always, always!) and would be a start to something new and wonderful!

In gratitude, always,

Kiki ;-)
www.theradiantself.com

P.S. My request to those who 'borrow' from this blog is to please give adequate credit to the source of the borrowed information - whether me, or books and people I quote from. Thank you.