Ghandi
I’ve been on an organizing kick tonight, at least when it comes to this website. Please don’t look in my cupboards! And especially not on the bookshelf next to my desk that serves as an impromptu filing system. In it’s dreams! And the pile of papers above the label “To File”? Yeah…
Sooo…about that organizing kick. There are some big changes coming up on this website. I’m quite excited about them, actually. There’s no telling when they’ll be ready to share, but in the spirit of those changes, and hoping for more organization I was digging through my archives, looking for un-posted posts.
You know those posts you start writing, and then run out of words, or stop yourself because the post is just sounding too lame but you can’t bear to not save it because you’ve spent so much time on it already so to pacify yourself you save it but you know you’ll never use it but you just don’t care? Or you can’t come up with a catchy close, and your post – a lesson on brilliance up to that point – just dangles helplessly like a sentence without punctuation and you think to yourself, “I’ll think of the appropriately witty ending tomorrow.” But tomorrow you are too busy and before you know it you’ve forgotten the whole thing.
Or those posts where you go on about something for so long you just know that all four of your poor faithful readers will have gotten fed up and bored by the end of your rant, so why bother them with it anyhow.
I was going through those posts, and I saw this post I started on the movie Ghandi, and thought I’d go ahead and post it. I started it almost 3 years ago, back in September of 2005. I had kind of forgotten that day, but reading this brought it all back, and was a great reminder of some powerful lessons.
Last night Brian and I watched the movie Ghandi. Watching this amazing portrayal of the life of an incredibly peaceful (while at the same time being very forceful and uncompromising) man made me feel a bit inclined to become a pacifist myself.
His whole life spoke of unselfish respect and love for his fellow man. The amazing thing (to me) was that he not only practiced these values himself but by methods which were passive (in the best sense of the word) and loving, yet very shrewd, he inclined others to do so as well.
In thinking about this movie and the way Ghandi valued other people, I was reminded of something that was said to me this past weekend. Brian and I went up to the mountains, to an amazingly beautiful outdoor chapel of Saint Anna on Saturday with a group from our church. Everyone brought a picnic lunch.
Father Christodoulos, a monk from the monastery that is responsible for the chapel, was sitting and eating with us, and he said something that just stuck in my mind. He said that when we greet each other – with a handshake, or a hug, or a holy kiss, or even a wave – we are, in a sense, greeting the image of God in each of us.
Isn’t that an awesome thought? And it makes so much sense. But the profoundness of it just floors me. Each of us, created in God’s image. Mirrors, tarnished and stained and warped, it is true, but mirrors nonetheless to the brilliant, holy Divinity of God. Essentially, it is what Christ was saying when He said “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:31-46 (The Sheep and the Goats)
I hope I am reminded of that more often. I think I would treat others with much more dignity and respect. And love and kindness.
Great blog.
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