Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, February 5, 2009

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they
allow themselves to become. And they pay for it simply:
by the lives they lead.

- James Baldwin, author


Now: this is something to think about! And you know what I really like about Baldwin’s comment??? It puts the responsibility for our lives squarely on us!! I’m a big fan of being responsible – and the American penchant for suing people is a perfect example of refusing to be responsible.

Oh, I know. There are lots of “excuses” that we all raise for denying responsibility for how our lives go. And of course, there are things that happen around us over which we seem to have no control. But this is false. We do have control ….. not generally over what happens, but over how we choose to respond, over how we choose to let it affect us or determine our response. An example: I recently chose to take the advice of my cardiologist and have a hole in my heart repaired. I always laugh when the doc says, as you are being rolled to the procedure, “Now, you understand (and the “voice” of the insurance company sounds loudly in the silence), you could die from this procedure, or have a massive incapacitating stroke?” I just laugh. Because I have made the choice; and I accept the possible consequences. You have to be pretty either stupid or in denial not to know that sticking a tube up through the femoral veil and into your heart could go really wrong! (By the way: it helps to have accepted that one is mortal and that Life is precarious!)

Baldwin is absolutely correct: we pay for what we do, for the choices we make in Life. We pay for what we (and yes, we do this) allow ourselves to become. Those choices are absolutely reflected in the lives we lead. Control freaks, manipulators, mean people, liars, deniers, schemers, power-mongers, cheats, ego-maniacs, etc., always pay for what they choose, shown in the lives they lead. They may seem, some of them, to lie in the lap of luxury, but they live in psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical prisons – always looking over their backs.

Most of us secretly “admire” those who seem to get away with it. We slaver over the material benefits. But if you think about it, most of such people do not have what essentially makes Life worth living: Peace, and a sense of self-respect, or freedom to walk the Earth without fear.

In my Life, I have chosen, as have many (albeit along with the failures in achieving it) the Christ-like life – and this is a Way proposed by many paths, religious and non-religious. The way of trying to “love others as I am loved”. Whatever may happen, this Way allows one to walk with one’s head up high, and in self-respect, and in Peaceful Joy.

I’d rather have this than everything the “World” can offer.

Brian+