Familiar

"Morning Trail" copyright 2011, Caris Cerdwyn All rights Reserved

This trail is familiar to me.  I have walked it often over the years.  Most of the time it's been just with Madeline the dog.  But once in a while I've walked here with friends.  I know this place.  It's many moods.  This one is subdued, a gentle rain falling, which is actually the beginning of the rain that brought the flooding.  There is the mysterious feeling, when it is full of mist, and sounds take on strange connotations.  There is the glorious, happy landscape, full of the light from a rising sun who's rays touch everything with a kiss.

Familiarity can be a wonderful thing.  Living in the same place for 13 years means that your roots stretch out all over the place.  Familiarity can be a frustrating thing as well.  In small town life, when you roots stretch out all over the place, and so many people have been part of your life at one time or another, well, there aren't many secrets.  And people somehow believe that it's their right to know your private affairs.  It can be a kind of voyeurism in small town life.  A very odd thing.

I'm thinking of a man who was rumored to have had an affair and whose sexual preferences were talked about all over town.  And there was that woman who was selling drugs and lost so much when it came out.  And the young woman with a mental illness.  She was well liked until it became common knowledge.  Now she's isolated and alone.  There is all kinds of speculation that goes around about such stories.  We certainly need to know when someone is a danger to others and take appropriate steps.  But I wonder how far we take matters into our own hands, believing we have a right to personal information about peoples' lives.  And then we make judgments, and make life more difficult for the judged, and we become self righteous.  We think we feel better about ourselves because WE don't engage in such things. 

Human beings are communal creatures.  We need each other in this world.  We need to feel less alone.  We need a sense of belonging.  We can find that belonging without excluding someone else.

The trouble with gossip and exclusion is that one day it comes back around to the one who starts it.  Whether you call it Karma, or simply believe that what goes around comes around, people who cause other people to suffer, will end up suffering themselves.

Kindness extended goes such a long way.   Refusing to participate can end a matter before it begins.  Caring about a person's well being and being respectful of each other, even when we don't understand some things is a better road.

I hope that's the road I will walk through my life.  A place where mercy and justice meet.