THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love, happiness & understanding

June 25, 2020

Jon Roush sent this poem:

If I can stop one Heart from breaking

I shall not live in vain

If I can ease one Life the Aching

Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin

Unto his Nest again

I shall not live in Vain.

—Emily Dickinson

*

A short time after I got the poem from Jon, I got a letter from Josh Underhill (5/30/20). He seems to be thinking along the same lines as Emily. After some preliminaries, here’s what he had to say:

I am not sure if I agree with your words “I don’t feel like I have much influence on the world, but I create my world…” I do however agree each of us lives and creates our world from moment to moment and we choose whether or not to live in hell or paradise. Because I believe that, and you seem to also, our own moment to moments, and our own choice in living in hell or paradise I believe influences the world. Everything we do from moment to moment, our hell or paradise, all has a ripple effect in the world. Even a smile to someone passing on the sidewalk may transform their day, causing them to not flip-off the car that cuts them off that would have ended up in a road rage and loss of life. You can not say you haven’t changed our lives in Group Dialogue, changed our world, and in that changed the way we address the world, in turn changing the world of those around us, our friends and families. The ripple effect. I have something on this subject that I’ll see if I can find to include with this letter, which maybe you can put in an upcoming newsletter. We all on this world are connected, interdependent of one another and without others around us changing the world, our world withers and dies. So see, everything you do influences the world.

The thing that scares me about this belief is those things done in wrong or hurt, what many of us are guilty of, and has sent some to prison for. Those things we each have done, what ripple effect did it have on the world? That is something I will not get into right now, and in some ways don’t want to think about. Guess that’s the choice of living in hell or paradise.

Josh appended this quote to his letter:

The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place and time my touch will be felt.

—Frederick Buechner

*

After reading Josh’s letter, I wondered what exactly I had written to him (4/20/20). Here are a few excerpts:

It’s a beautiful Spring day today. We have bright yellow goldfinches and bright red house finches flying around our back yard. I enjoyed your quote from Mr. Shin about being present to what you are doing in the moment. Moments are important. We are so busy thinking about the past and imagining the future that we need to be reminded to pay attention to where we are and to what’s happening within us and around us….

For me, meditation and mindfulness have been very helpful for my well-being. My mind is not as noisy as it once was. I can easily find my way to what I call “The Golden World….”

Have you finished reading Ishmael yet? The stories we tell ourselves shape the world in which we live. This is true individually and collectively. When we change our stories, we change our world—and to some extent we even change the world. I don’t feel like I have much influence on “the world,” but I create “my world” from moment to moment, and whether I live in a paradise or in a hell is more-or-less up to me. Outside factors impinge on my happiness, but how I process my experience and knowledge makes a big difference in whether I am enjoying my life or am miserable.

Ishmael is about the stories we have been telling ourselves collectively that have brought us to a situation where we are destroying the ecological health of our beautiful planet. In order to live in ways that are not so destructive, we will need new stories.

William Blake said: “every thing that lives is Holy.” That’s a good start.

May all people be happy.

May we be peaceful and at ease.

May we be well in body and mind.

May we live in love.

*

When I wrote to Josh to ask his permission to publish excerpts from our exchange of letters in this newsletter, he said “yes,” and asked me to also include some things I wrote (6/9/20) in reply to his letter. I’m including a couple sentences in square brackets, although Josh, who is modest, didn’t ask me to :

Everything has a ripple effect—good things and bad things. The Big World—what I was calling “the world”—has a LOT of forces in play. I think there are way more good deeds than bad deeds being done right now everywhere in the world. Basically, people are good and want to be helpful to each other. The good deeds are often subtle, like the example you gave, of smiling at someone as you pass on the sidewalk. But the wrong and hurtful things that you mention in your letter sometimes create more of a wave than a ripple….

A man in our dialogue group who was serving a life sentence once said that he could never undo the deed or make amends to the loved ones of the person he killed. He said he hoped that by living a good life, he would be able to help so many people that in the balance, at the end of his life, the good would outweigh the bad….

I think it is wise of you not to dwell on the negative ripples that went out from what you’ve done in the past…. Shame and guilt don’t help you or anyone else….

[You have nurtured and strengthened what is best in you—your kindness and generosity, your thoughtfulness toward others. You are living the life of a good man, and that not only benefits others with a ripple effect, it benefits you every hour of every day of your life….]

Be kind to yourself. Don’t engage in negative self-talk. Don’t put yourself down or belittle yourself. Don’t engage with shame or guilt. Don’t dwell in the past. Love everyone!—including Josh Underhill. That beautiful innocent person you were when you were three years old is still who you are in essence. You are worthy to love and be loved.

Yes, there are ripple effects that result from our negative thoughts and actions. But your job and my job is to: 

Accentuate the positive, 

Eliminate the negative, 

Latch on to the affirmative,

And don’t mess with Mr. In-Between!

*

(Note: Josh and I and other actors sang this Johnny Mercer song together after one of the plays we did at Two Rivers prison.)

Let’s close with more Emily:

A letter is a joy of Earth —

It is denied the Gods —

&

The Infinite a sudden Guest

Has been assumed to be —

But how can that stupendous come

Which never went away?

—This issue was co-edited by Josh Underhill & Johnny Stallings