Running toward peace rather than after fortune

He who runs after good fortune runs away from peace. (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

Money is very important. However, if you chase after money, it can become too important. It could become the most important thing in your life.

One of our relatives (I will call her Winsome) is an example of how someone can lose peace by running after good fortune. She once told me, “If I had a choice to be rich or to be happy, I would choose to be rich.”

Winsome was pretty and always looked about twenty years younger than her actual age. She enjoyed surrounding her self with beautiful things. She wore designer clothes, jewellery, shoes, and even T-shirts. I suspect she even wore designer underwear. Many of these items she bought on her annual trips abroad.

She loved to travel, and I think she visited every continent at least once. And she felt she needed lots of money to live the way she wanted to live. In addition, she wanted lots of leisure to do these things. She therefore had a plan to retire at fifty.

Winsome was bright and multi-talented. She studied languages, and was fluent in French and competent in Spanish. She qualified herself in library sciences before doing brilliantly in her law exams. She created desserts that would be the envy of a great chef. But she was not happy.

She earned well as an attorney, and was able to build her own house in an exclusive neighborhood. Rent from this house earned her a good income each month. She drove nothing but Mercedes Benz cars. But she was not happy.

Her parents were well off, and she wanted what they had. All of it. She had two brothers and a sister, but still she wanted the whole fortune. As an adult, she lived at home with her parents. She kept their company when they were well, and cared for them when they were ill. She therefore deserved to inherit her parents’ luxury home, and whatever else they chose to give her in return for her choosing to remain single and fully available to them. But some of the wealth was not enough for Winsome. She wanted all.

Winsome convinced her father that she was the only one who was faithful to him. The others had had differences with their father, who saw himself as a patriarch whose word was law. Winsome chose to remain under his thumb even as an adult, where her siblings had defied him at different stages in their lives. They had chosen careers of which their father disapproved; they had married persons of whom their father disapproved. They had not necessarily followed his advice on how to raise their children. They had had open quarrels with him when he tried to treat them as children even though they were middle-aged at the time. Winsome held her tongue, gave up her independence, and focused on the fortune.

Winsome’s father died and left all his wealth to his wife, on condition that on her death, she would pass on the fortune to Winsome only. Two of the siblings accepted the father’s wishes, even if they could not agree with his decision to favor one child over the others. The other sibling (I will call him George) saw how Winsome had played her game, and decided to outplay her.

After her father’s death, Winsome and her mother became like twins. They went everywhere together, wore each other’s clothes, and pooled their funds in joint accounts. Winsome could almost relax in her hunt for the complete fortune.

Then a roadblock developed. Winsome fell in love and her mother disliked the person so much that she would not allow him beyond her gate. This provided George with a chance to come between Winsome and their mother, and to put in his bid for the complete fortune.

George listened well to the mother’s complaints about Winsome, and he was happy to take Winsome's place as the mother’s constant companion. He helped his mother to remove Winsome’s name from most of her properties and from several of her bank accounts.

Nothing and no one, not even the man she loved, could comfort Winsome when she saw the wealth disappearing. She said she would prefer to die rather than live without all that her father intended her to have. She could not see life without the trips across the world and the expensive belongings.

She became an example of they way someone can die of a broken heart. She still looked young and beautiful when she died of a disease that caused her organs to stop working. Let us hope she has found peace in the next world where material possessions do not matter.

Just look at the trees in spring, Zayda, and you will know we live in a universe of abundance. We can follow nature by giving of ourselves, and opening up ourselves to receive. We can try to be at peace with ourselves so we attract the best to us.

We can decide if we want to risk our happiness by chasing after wealth. We know we are on the wrong track if we find ourselves competing, trying to deprive others so we have everything, or wanting to hoard for fear the wealth will run away.

I do believe we can have it all, if that all means most of all being happy. What do you think?


Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Power of love to overcome evil

Without retaliation, evils would one day become extinct from the world.
(Nigeria)

Dear Zayda,

Jamaica has more churches per square metre than any other country in the world. Jamaica also at the moment has the highest murder rate in the world. The link between number of churches and the murder rate may well be Jamaican’s love of the Law of Moses. “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” says that law.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye will soon make the whole world blind.” That belief in retaliation certainly keeps bad things happening in families, in communities, in nations, and in the world.

Gandhi wanted to free India, but he chose peace over violence. Britain then ruled India and occupied much of Africa and the Caribbean as well. But India was at the centre of Britain’s empire. India provided Britain with riches, power, and control over land and people. Britain also had a strong army, and the best navy in the world. Gandhi had little more than a desire to see the backs of the British, and to see Indians rule their own country. Yet Gandhi’s refusal to hit back led to the end of the British Empire not just in India, but in Africa and the Caribbean as well.

If we feel we have to do to someone what the evil have done to us, or worse, we give away our power. That other person is now ruling our life, and may later rule our children’s lives as well.

Today in Jamaica there are communities at war with each other. Often the reasons are not clear, just that someone from this side once injured or disrespected or disagreed with someone from the other side. The wars break up families and friends, and isolate people who have to avoid the war zones. Battles take place in which people lose their homes and sometimes their lives.

When the fighting wears down people enough, peace might come for a while. People wonder why they chose to fight when life is so much easier when they care for each other, and when they can walk freely on streets that used to be no man’s land. If the will to give up “an eye for an eye” is strong enough, the peace will last. Too often, however, the mistrust does not go away. A small incident – such as an argument in a bar - can start up the war again.

The desire for retaliation seems never far away, especially when it seems to have support from the Bible. Jesus said his teachings of love were to replace the Law of Moses. He told his followers to love their enemies and to do good to those who hurt them, but Jamaicans seem to prefer to follow the hate teachings of Moses.

Nelson Mandela had every reason to hate those who kept him in prison for 27 years. Like Gandhi, Mandela wanted to do what seemed impossible at the outset. He wanted to free a country where one group enjoyed life at the expense of another group. The white South Africans had all the power, and did all they could to ensure the Blacks had no power at all. They were shot down when they tried to march peacefully to resist unjust treatment., but later took up arms to defend themselves. Blacks tried to use Gandhi’s methods

Nonetheless, when Mandela walked out of prison as a free man, and white rule ended, Mandela insisted there should be no retaliation. He did not wish evil to continue under Black rule. He set an example by making peace with his own jailers, and with those who had mistreated Black people so badly and over so many years.

My grandniece, we will be tempted to hit back when others hit us, so as to give them a taste of their own medicine. Even as we do that, we need to realize we are giving away our power to those persons. The best we can do then is to re-take our power as soon as we can. We can step back for a while to think about what we want most of all.

Is our goal to hurt someone today and risk retaliation tomorrow? Is the loving thing to move away from that person (if we can)? Could we try to love ourselves so much the person’s words and actions cannot hurt us? Could we bring ourselves to understand that the other person is acting out of his own pain, and that his behavior has nothing to do with us personally? Could we re-focus on our goals rather than stay focused on the person’s conduct?

Taking the peaceful road is not easy, Zayda. It takes more courage than fighting back, and it certainly leaves us with less evil for even the new-born to deal with.

We can choose. So, like Gandhi and Mandela, let us choose to love and forgive.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Finding peace with what runs inside us

You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not that which runs inside you. (Rwanda)

Dear Zayda,

Michael Jackson is one of many examples of people who have the means to outdistance what is running after them, but still become trapped by what is running inside them.

Michael had a lot of what many of us imagine will make us content. His songs – like “Ben”, “Man in the Mirror”, and “Billie Jean” – will remain popular for generations to come. Michael was so famous that his concerts were certain to be sold out. When he died, he was rehearsing for a tour in which all fifty concerts were sold out. At the height of his career, he had so much money that he could probably buy the most expensive item in the most expensive shop, and not notice the difference. His main home was a mansion on a ranch, where he wanted that money could buy.

This man had the talent, money, and fame to outdistance whatever ran after him. However, he could not escape what ran inside him.

Peace comes when we no longer feel as if we have to run away from what is inside. Perhaps, like Michael, we had an unhappy childhood. Perhaps, like him, we did not feel loved, cared for, or protected. Michael could be excused for thinking he had no childhood at all, because he was filling concert halls when most little boys are batting balls in the back yard.

If memories of a lost or stolen childhood keep running inside our minds, we may become ill, unless we get professional help. These memories can cause us to angry at ourselves or at others. We may then act in ways that harm ourselves, harm others, chase others away, or try to bind others to us by force or threat. Some may try to re-live their childhood through children.

Michael tried to revisit his childhood by creating a giant play space with its own zoo and amusement park. As an adult, he invited children to play with him. He had the overnight stays and the pajama parties he never could have had as a child. The child in Michael must have been amazed that the adult world thought he was harming any of these children. Perhaps he was indeed acting like the child who fulfills its own needs with no thought for what may follow.

Like Michael, we may dislike our looks because of what others say about us. Most of have to live with our looks, but Michael wealth gave him choices. So he could afford the plastic surgery that changed him from being black, curly-headed, broad-nosed, and full-lipped to looking almost like a white female.

In trying to outdistance what was running inside him, Michael might have become like the child who has no adult to guide him. He had the money to buy whatever he thought he needed. No one seemed to be able to say, “Michael, stop! That is not good for you.” Therefore, when Michael needed more and more medication to ease pain and help him fall asleep, he found those whom he could pay to bring him what he wanted.

Michael was only fifty years old, and days away from his concert tour, when the medication took his life. With the fame and money that seemed to run after Michael, he was unable to come to terms with what ran inside of him.

The best way to deal with what runs inside us is to love ourselves as we are. The best favor your mom and dad can do for you is to help you to be confident in who you are, how you look, and what you do. What you can do for yourself is to realize that the person who is unknown, penniless, and homeless might be more at ease with himself than Michael Jackson managed to be.

Coming to terms with what runs inside can be a gateway to finding peace.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)