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