To Inspirational Thoughts


To you of the Village...From Petiteflower

From my heart to yours with thanks.

      Love is the magic key of life---not to get what we want, but to become what we ought to be. We all need love---but we need to give love more than we need to sit back and receive it." I build walls, a fortress deep and mighty that none can penetrate. I have no need for friendship. Friendship causes pain. It's laughter and it's loving I disdain. If I never loved I never would have cried. I am a rock. I am an island."

      These words from Paul Simon's song describe something of the human fear of involvement with others, the human fear of the pain that caring and concern for others can bring with it. John speaks about love in contrast with, not hatred, but fear. Perhaps this is not so surprising when we recall that fear is so often our worst enemy. We can be afraid that something of ourselves will be lost or hurt if we are concerned for another. We are afraid because when we let our defenses down, we give another the power to hurt us. We run the risk of being hurt and of being disappointed.

      In those situations where real human sharing does take place in an atmosphere of trust, we often find as human beings that we are very much alike with similar hopes, similar longings, similar fears, and similar needs. Too easily we forget that life is the pain-filled cry of every human being to be noticed, to be heard, to be loved. Too easily we forget that joy is the moment when the cry breaks through and someone, if only briefly, hears it.

      On this earth, joy is being heard but it is also being the one who really and truly hears. One writer has attempted to express something of human fears and longing in the following writing entitled "Don't Be Fooled By Me." It goes as follows:



      Don't be fooled by me.Don't be fooled by the mask I wear. For I wear a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off, and none of them is me.Pretending is an art that' second nature to me, but don't be fooled.please, don't be fooled.

      I give the impression that I'm secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without. That confidence is my name and coolness is my game; that the water's calm and I'm in command. And that I need no one. But don't believe me.Please. My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask; beneath this lies no complacence. Beneath swells the real me in confusion,in fearand aloneness. But I hide this. I don't want anyone to know it.

      I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed. That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind; A nonchalant, sophisticated facade, to help me pretend...To shield me from a glance that knows.

      But such a glance is precisely my salvation. My only salvation. And I know it. That is...if it's followed by acceptance; If it's followed by love.It is the only thing that will assure me of what I can never assure myself of: That I am worth something.

      But I don't tell you this. I don't dare. I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love. I'm afraid you'll think less of me...that you'll laugh at me... And that your laugh would thereby kill me.

      I'm afraid that deep down I'm nothing, that I'm no good, and that you will see this and reject me. So...I play my game...my desperate game, With a facade of assurance without, and a trembling child within.

      And, so begins the parade of masks. And my life becomes a front: I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk; I tell you everything that is nothing, and nothing of what's everything, of what's crying out within me.

      So when I'm going through my routine, don't be fooled by what I'm saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying...what I'd like to be able to say... What for survival I desperately need to say... But what I can't say.

      I dislike hiding....Honestly!I dislike the superficial game I'm playing...the phony game! I'd really like to be genuine...and spontaneous....and..........Me. But......you've got to help me.You've got to hold out your hand, even when that's the very last thing I seem to want.

      Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of breathing death; Only you can call me into aliveness; Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging, Each time you try and understand because you really and truly care.... My heart begins to grow wings.Very small wings......and yes, very feeble wings.... But wings.

      With your sensitivity and your sympathy, and your power of understanding, You can breathe life into me. I want you to know that. I want you to know how important you are to me; How you can be the creator of the person that is me... If you choose to. Please chose to.

      You can melt the wall behind which a child trembles....don't pass me by; please, don't pass me by. It will not be easy for you either. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach me....the blinder I strike back. I fight against the very thing I cry out for.

      But.......I am told that love is stronger than walls. And in this lies my hope. Please approach these walls with gentle hands....for a child is very sensitive. And who am I, you may ask and wonder?

      I am someone you know very, very well.

      For I am every man and every woman you meet.

          ---Author Unknown