Education as a Life Theme (or, Why I love driving time)

I have been driving a lot this weekend, from my new apartment in Ithaca, NY to my sister’s in Ellicottville, NY, to Cleveland for my aunt’s 90^th birthday, and back. I love driving, alone or with my dog Sophie, because it frees my mind to reflect.

Education is our Life Theme topic for September. This is one of the most ubiquitous or common Life Themes that most life mappers identify, whether as a set of influential “shaping event” experiences early on in life or running throughout.  As my professional role has been as a Teacher (and Student) for most of my life and still, Education has certainly been a dominant Theme in my own Life Story. Whereas other Themes such as Romance have had a variable or even a Roller Coaster sort of patterning, Education has always been, at least on the surface, an increasingly uplifting experience, patterning as upward tending, step-like plateaus of learning and adventure. For many a life mapper, Education events are consistently +5 (extremely positive impact) experiences which maintain an uplifting theme of stability and growth.

Sometimes—I am learning recently—I need to ask my inner Teacher to step back a bit, to listen more closely to what others are sharing during a time of transition and adaptation after my Big Move. Still, Life Lessons abound, which are a part of my own Education theme.  After all, Life Itself is the greatest Teacher of all, n’est-ce pas?

Education opens our minds and hopefully our Hearts as well, to new ideas and fresh experience. It is so important to remain open as such; even though we might have learned a great deal from a certain belief system, for example, it is imperative not to close our minds to ideas from outside that system if we are to continue to grow and develop.  Here is a relevant passage I have recently been gifted with from David Steindl-Rast (from Belonging to the Universe, IN: God in All Worlds, Lucinda Vardey , ed., Vintage: 1995, pg 22):

We search for meaning, we search for belonging, and that means that we are all exploring God-territory. But that territory is so vast that you can go on forever and ever exploring one part of it and never meet other groups that explore other parts. There are certain crossroads where you chose to go in a certain direction. After that, you are not likely to reach the territory others are exploring who took a different turn.

Drive On!

I welcome YOUR Story and Comments.

God—The Ultimate Elder Leader

What would God do now? Have you ever asked this question, in some form? Isn’t God—in such myriad forms or conceptions as are to be found in any religion or spiritual belief system—our ultimate Elder Leader? The Great Spirit, Higher Power, or some vehicle or manifestation of the Divine represents the highest state of consciousness: omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient! God (and/or Goddess, in some views; or even a scientific principle like a conscious universe) is the Creator, Higher Intelligence, the Divine Dreamer, the ultimate Architect of the Grand Design. It/He/She is also the Source and template of our own Higher Awareness; so we can ideally think/act/be in a specific situation so as to manifest our own divine nature.

To me, the answer is always to express unconditional Love, for whatever else God might Be, It is Love and love is therefore the uppermost source and fabric of all of Life. Some might see God or the Divine as Power; but to me the power of God is yet Love, a pure positive life force.  So, what would God do now? Love is the simplest answer (for me). As the ultimate Elder Leader, love and love alone is the always the right response.

I don’t expect or require anyone else to agree with my perspective here. God is so many things to so many people and from so many belief systems and points of view that your answer is your own, and matters. My housemate and I jokingly declare, “God is on!” whenever we see Morgan Freeman on TV, especially when he is hosting Through the Wormhole, which is my favorite documentary series.

Certainly mythical images of God as an Elder Leader have evolved with society over time and vary cross-culturally and across many different religions. Zeus with his thunderbolt might choose to brandish raw power rather than love; a bodhisattva might exercise detached neutrality rather than either power or love. So, we find models for leadership strengths in our view of divinity or spiritual mastery. What are yours?

I invite your comments and welcome you to share your stories!

Better Stories

Have you read (and/or seen the Ang Lee film based on) The Life of Pi by Yann Martel? While the film version’s treatment of the dual story-line ending presents the final twist, the novel version goes into greater depth and is more layered so as to highlight the meaning behind the message. This dual-story ending exposes differences in the psychological construction and interpretation of reality itself.

Since character drives fictional outcomes–again with thanks to Rebekah’s writerly Guest Blog last week–but perhaps also since the reader’s own character drives their perceptions of these outcomes, I prefer the version of Pi’s story–about how he survived the sinking of an ocean liner–wherein Pi must cope with a fierce Bengal tiger and benefits from divine intervention whenever he surrenders to and accepts his human limitations and his mortality. I love the scene where Pi throws up his arms in utter despair, awaiting his immanent death, and thanks God and the vast expanse of the universe itself for all the experience he has been privileged to endure in this earthly life, only to be answered with a school of flying fish dropping sustenance onto the raft he shares by that point only with Richard Parker, the tiger. By my readerly view, it is a more pragmatic, less believing sort who prefers that Pi’s tale of surviving with animals is but a metaphorical account of a more gruesome expression of human animality. Is Pi compensating with his ‘better story’ through psychological denial of his observations of the brutal murder of his mother by the Cook? Is his very faith a coping device for self-delusion about the atrocities he witnessed?

Which Life of Pi story version do you prefer, and more importantly, why?  If you haven’t read the book, go watch the movie (or, read; it is beautiful writing!), and journal, talk about or contemplate your own response to the ideas and emotions represented. How does this story relate to your personal narrative?

I invite you to send in your Comments or submit your personal story about ‘fictional endings’ this week. Imagine a Better Ending, or a better story about ‘what really happened’ from one of the characters’ viewpoints or from your own retelling of the story according to your own life experiences.

Also for a Guest Blog this week, please answer and send in your answer of ANY LENGTH or format to the question: What is an example of a Better Ending from your own life?

 

Related articles

• Life of Pi by Yann Martel (kittykatkoni.wordpress.com)
• LIfe of pi By Yann Martel (lostinwords12.wordpress.com)
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel (yawebprototype.wordpress.com)