Don’t Try Me To Try The Moon - Part 3 of 3
© Wayne Lankford
How many lives did I have to live to learn the lesson of a lifetime? How many had I lived already? Those are common questions asked in some cultures of the world. Here in the USA we seem to be pretty unquestioning about our religion. Most of us, especially here in the southeast, just don't get a chance to be exposed to anything other than the religion of our parents. Unintentionally I'm sure, but none the less true, were not taught anything about other cultures belief systems, therefore because we don't know anything about them, we tend fear them. We believe if you don't believe like we believe you are going to the devil. Yea, all this stuff I think about out on the bike path. I know I'm not the only one. I don't mean to say or suggest that out in the forest mountain biking is a better place than anywhere else to meditate or think about such things. I'm just reporting that to me, I've found it quite accommodating that way. Out there I think I can better observe not only what surrounds me but what I too surround. I mean I can expand myself anywhere now at just about anytime, but out on the bike path it's easier for me. My spiritual self had been developing all my life, always there under the surface of my life's activities. That's something that I today readily accept as an absolute truth today for myself. The thing is that absolutes are a dangerous thing. Accepting other people's absolutes can get you into a bunch of trouble. You need to be real careful about what you believe in these days. It's always been that way, but today, you are the one making the decisions about your own life's path. I just think that all of us need to be a bit more deliberate about what decisions we make that affect our path. I say that because I made some wrong ones and they cost me a bunch of years of heading in the wrong direction. There are just too many influences out there that attempt to sway our thinking. When I'm confronted by such a person, weather it be teacher, preacher, politician, newscaster or whatever I just try to determine if they are trying to scare me into thinking like they think or do they seem to be caring and at peace with themselves. Do they make me mad or do they make me care? Are they about fear or are they about love. If they say they are about love but all they talk about is fear, what are they really about? If they suggest they are about the right way to live but only talk about the wrong way, what are they about? Tough questions, that are hard to easily answer, it just seems to me that we human beings spend a disproportionate amount of our precious time being taught to fear stuff instead of how to understand and not be so fearful.
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