Unity
LearningLove.com
Copyright (c) 2000 by Benjamin Devey. All rights
reserved.
My
wife and I did something different this year for the turning of the millennium.
We stayed at home and went with Peter Jennings to see celebrations around
the globe. We were fascinated with the diversity of cultures all rolling
in the New Year as a worldwide, shared experience.
Did you see some of the Festivities? Which one
was your favorite? Do you think anyone will see the Eiffel Tower again
without remembering the spectacular firework display?
What struck me during the televised coverage was
the unity of purpose, while the whole world celebrated the old and the
new. An integrated, global culture watched to see if Y2K fears were valid
or if terrorist attacks posed a threat. For a night and a day onlookers
of every ethnic, religious and cultural background stood together to ring
in the new millennium.
Unity takes maturity. It also requires that we
overcome our selfish nature. Unity is necessary to our personal development,
to successful relationships and to living in harmony with the world.
Hatred, prejudice and blame are barriers to unity.
I read a report that one third of all the countries are now at war with
each other. It's easy to point an accusing finger at those who carry on
bitterness and hurt, but are we honest enough to recognize those seeds
in our own hearts?
Love and fear work toward opposite ends. To any
extent that anger, animosity and insecurity rule our actions, we plant
the seeds of destruction in our relationships. Dave Barry said, "A person
who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person." At the
very core of our beings, we are either loving, or we are not.
A good self-test is to look at the last time you
were angry. How did you handle the situation? How do you deal with your
loved ones when you're impatient or upset? In that moment, do your actions
come from love? We can choose either course: we can blame, belittle and
find fault. Or we can be patient, kind and understanding.
The world's problems and solutions are made up
of little things in every person's heart. Wars are fought because of individual's
intolerance for each other. World peace and unity are possible only if
they can be found in our own hearts. Each of us makes the difference by
the way we treat those around us.
Books
Want to peek at someone else's mail? You can do it
without getting in trouble. Letters
of the Century: America, 1900-1999 takes a look back at the century
from more than 400 letters from witnesses to history: Mark Twain, Scott
Fitzgerald and Einstein, and contemporaries such as Ann Landers, Magic
Johnson and more. Read online reviews at Amazon.com.
Harper has compiled a list of the
100
Best Spiritual Books of the Century. See if any of your favorites
(first published in this century) are on the list You can view Harper's
list of the 100 Best Spiritual Books of the Century at
Amazon.com.