Saturday, May 05, 2007
Blind Cricket
On BBC there is a commercial for the sport of Cricket with a bit of a twist. The playeres are blind. A man is describing how sport can teach us many things and equally being excluded from things for any length of time can be seriously damaging to the mind.
pause for reflection.
Are there any areas in our lives where we have been excluded? Are we excluding others? I think of my daily life here in Japan and the answer is a resounding yes. I am a functional illiterate. I am the last to get the joke. Sometimes I can enter in on some level but not fully as me. There are subtle ways we do this to others in our daily lives. For example talking about some story, activity, or person obsessively. People are usually excited for us when we fall in love, or have a child but there excitement is guaged based on their involvment in the rest of our lives. If they feel disconnected from us they have very little interest. I am of course stating the obvious again. Maybe at one time they had interest but since we met.....so and so... or moved to the big city..... or became a Christian and moved into the church fulltime, they have lost interest with good reason. It doesn't matter what is going in our lives but how we speak of them, how often, etc, we can be conscious about including others and about the areas we feel like we are being excluded. There are ways to talk that communicate more than "i just want to hear my story outloud".
On the other side, when we feel excluded, we can be tempted in our lonliness and isolation to where self-pity like a wet fur coat. Then we will be excluded even more because we are just weird.
ps: this is what i believe happened to the Korean exchange student in the recent University shooting. I don't believe he was crazy. What i think is crazy is how we act like nothing is wrong and go about our "normal" lives.
pause for reflection.
Are there any areas in our lives where we have been excluded? Are we excluding others? I think of my daily life here in Japan and the answer is a resounding yes. I am a functional illiterate. I am the last to get the joke. Sometimes I can enter in on some level but not fully as me. There are subtle ways we do this to others in our daily lives. For example talking about some story, activity, or person obsessively. People are usually excited for us when we fall in love, or have a child but there excitement is guaged based on their involvment in the rest of our lives. If they feel disconnected from us they have very little interest. I am of course stating the obvious again. Maybe at one time they had interest but since we met.....so and so... or moved to the big city..... or became a Christian and moved into the church fulltime, they have lost interest with good reason. It doesn't matter what is going in our lives but how we speak of them, how often, etc, we can be conscious about including others and about the areas we feel like we are being excluded. There are ways to talk that communicate more than "i just want to hear my story outloud".
On the other side, when we feel excluded, we can be tempted in our lonliness and isolation to where self-pity like a wet fur coat. Then we will be excluded even more because we are just weird.
ps: this is what i believe happened to the Korean exchange student in the recent University shooting. I don't believe he was crazy. What i think is crazy is how we act like nothing is wrong and go about our "normal" lives.