Tag: hope

Brothers’ Keepers

By C.L. Harmon

When we choose to not understand or have empathy for those who suffer, we fail. We fail on every level and have no one to blame but ourselves. We are created to be our brothers’ keepers and yet we continue to choose ourselves over them. We would rather win than compromise, trip than step back and curse rather than listen. We are the enemy within which destroys what is meant to be.

Leaders choose egos over solutions while followers choose sides instead of sacrifices. We build weapons instead of homes and amass control in place of compromise. We accept greed as common places while countless deteriorate from hunger. And yet we claim to be civilized. We destroy life over plots of dust and rubble that hold no value in eternity and still never learn that our possession of it is always fleeting.

We lust for more and instead of being grateful for what we have. We place value in trinkets and paper and yet and never marvel at the miracle of the seeds which are perfectly designed to grow and give us the sustenance to live. What we should value has become lost to us in our search for a treasure that offers us no life, no love and no redemption. And yet we claim to be a civilized people.

We fail because we no longer see ourselves in others. Their suffering, we distance from ourselves, and ours they distance from themselves. Someone else’s hunger is not ours. Another’s sorrow is ignored instead of embraced, others’ fears become problems in which we choose not become involved and yet we call ourselves civilized. Until we become the keeper of others, we will never truly know what it is to be civilized and as long as we continue pretending to be civilized, we will fail to ever become our brothers’ keepers.

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MUSINGS FROM THE INNER ASYLUM: Knowledge

MUSINGS FROM THE INNER ASYLUM: Knowledge

We suffer, we bleed, we follow, we lead, and through it all, we learn. We kill dreams and prolong pain to be swallowed up in darkness and yet still seek light when there is none. And through it all, we learn. We build what nature destroys while we destroy what nature creates in order to build and we hope to learn. We seek treasures in hopes of gaining value before we know how to define value and through it all, we hope to learn.

We borrow fear and then find courage. We stumble in darkness, proclaim blindness all the while refuse to see the light. And with hope maybe we can learn. We sacrifice nothing and expect something, sometimes everything and with hope maybe, just maybe we can still learn. We blame anyone so we do not have accept that we are the broken one. When will we learn? We break those around us as though their cracks somehow repair us. Do we ever learn? We study the past with presumptions that we already know. Yet we sin the same as those before us. And still it seems we can only hope to learn.

We surrender to difficulties instead of overcoming challenges. We kill what is pure so that we recognize evil and then look away at what is the burning angst inside. We call lost home because it allows us to be selfish when home expects us to be giving. And yet with all that is known, we just never learn.

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Mindset: All Yesterdays Die

Mindset: All Yesterdays Die

All circumstances pass away, they live and die within the moments that age us all. What is happening in this space and time will fade away and only the residue will remain. In each moment we must remember this truth. When we look over our lives and that of history, we see parcels of time where things were good or bad to different degrees. Those moments become lost in days and those days may become wrapped up in months and even into years. That period of time is remembered as a circumstance in our lives.

No matter how violent or frightening a circumstance is, it always fades into the dust of time. We then move forward as tomorrow pulls us out of yesterday bringing the residue of that circumstance with us but leaving the physical aspect of that time behind. That time in our lives then becomes a phantom that no longer harms us unless we allow it to haunt us and taunt the residue that is left inside us.

The evils of yesterday always reach beyond the grave to draw us back because of our unwillingness to let go of a memory or tragedy that no longer has any physical power over us. The very concept of a sunrise and sunset are that all things have a beginning and an end. Although thunderstorms will still come, they will not be yesterday’s storms. And in time, those new storms too will fade away in a future sunset. We must always carry with us that each new sunrise is our reminder to not be pulled out of yesterday but to willingly step anew into tomorrow.

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Mindset: Looking Beyond The Slivers

Mindset: Looking Beyond The Slivers

It is not from the evil of this world in which we are defined. Those acts of atrocity against humankind, the crimes of individuals in our everyday lives and the will of those to bring conflict and suffering are not who we are as a whole. They are mere slivers of a broken world which obstruct a clear view of what is mostly wholesome and good.

Our collective identity lies with those who work hard with pride and integrity to provide a living for those whom they love. It is apparent in the forgiveness that is given when forgiving is the most difficult of tasks and in the examples of our choices when the easiest choice is one that we choose not to be an option.

It is also in the kindness that we teach to our children who learn all too soon that the world is not a fair and just place and all too often not worthy of kindness and mercy. Further still, it lies the faith of those same children who continue the teachings of grace and mercy in spite of this knowledge.

So much of what we experience seems of a dark nature. We are engulfed in a world that appears to be crumbling but the fact that we still feel shocked and shame at the sight of evil is proof that immorality has not become commonplace in our hearts and minds and an accepted as a way of life. It is a belief that good does win out over evil and that we choose to rise above that which attempts to destroy us while building a future that will never crumble into dust.

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Living In The Lost & Found

Living In The Lost & Found

For some, there will come a time when you will step out on faith and that faith will fail you. Only then and only by those who have experienced that loss will ever truly understand what it means to possess it. Many will make sacrifices and carry heavy burdens but that is not faith; those are actions and consequences. To step where there is no ground. To walk in darkness without light. To trust more than to fear, these are actually acts of faith.

There are few who truly test to see if there are boundaries of faith because there are so few who are willing to lose what they have gained. Real faith is not a gamble; it’s a willingness to sacrifice everything for one thing with only a belief. It’s a risk where all you are and all you possess that moment are at stake. There are no contingencies. You are alone, naked and exposed before all others.

Those few who take the risk walk in a different world than the rest. They experience their surroundings in different ways because they see depth even in the shallowest of existence while others remain blind to anything below the surface or beyond the horizon. They feel beyond natural barriers and sense a deeper understanding in all creation. Within them is a courage and a lunacy that outsiders cannot comprehend. And when that faith fails us, leaving us in despair, we grasp even tighter to it. Not because we are lost, but because we are found in that which only the truly trusting can ever know…that which is hope.

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Mindset Origin: Darkness is Where You Can See

Mindset Origin: Darkness is Where You Can See

The first part of understanding is acceptance. There can be no enlightenment through denial. What we allow ourselves to feel and experience are the seeds that become the trees of knowledge and wisdom.

There is growth in the darkness of despair just as there is in the light of prosperity. We shield ourselves from fears and tragedies in hopes of escaping the sorrows that befall humanity. We close our eyes and withdraw from others to find sanctuary within ourselves, trying to avoid the bleak times upon us.

This causes us to lose sight of our potential to expand our understanding of life. What we refuse to see and acknowledge becomes our fears and our boundaries. When we choose not to know it, we take away our choice and opportunity to rise up above it and become illuminated in every darkness that follows.

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Mindset Origins

Mindset Origins

I have been writing Mindsets for 25 years. I thought I might take some time to explain exactly what they are and how they originated. For most, if not all of us, we have defining moments or experiences which mold us into who we become. For me, that was a clinical depression in early adulthood. I began writing to help me express and understand that depression. Initially, most of it was dark poetry, but the more I wrote the less about expression and the more about understanding and finding hope it became. Within a few years, the dark poetry became more, eventually morphing into what would become Mindsets. I had chosen to focus on what could be as opposed to what was. I chose to understand instead of escape into a vice or become completely lost in misery. I needed to believe that everything has meaning and that life is not a cosmic roll of the dice without rhyme and reason. Writing Mindsets has helped me to answer many of my questions and hopefully answer a few for others as well. In addition, it has allowed me to write about subjects for which I am passionate. I will be publishing a series of my early Mindsets that I hope you will enjoy. Most of what I usually publish are new ones that I have written recently and so you will see subtle differences in styles and context as my style has evolved over the years, Below is the first Mindset in this series.

It Only Takes A Spark In The Darkness To See

So often it seems the root of humanity stems from what we want instead of what others need. The desire of tending to our own comforts can build walls separating us from those who need us the most. It is not always a conscious act of neglect but more of an unwilling blindness that keeps us from the most important issues and people in our lives.

It is a simple gesture to give, one that requires only the choices to see and then to act. This simplicity has an awesome effect on both the giver and the receiver because it brings positivity, which sparks an internal change that never ceases to evolve.

After truly experiencing the power of giving, we no longer see ourselves as individuals with personal desires but rather part of a large family whose needs lead us to the understanding that we are only as comfortable and secure as those to whom we give.

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What Lies Within

What Lies Within

A sculptor looks at a piece of granite or stone with either a belief that there is a work of art within that stone that he will uncover. Or he looks at it with the belief that he will create a work of art from where there was none before.Although the creation may be the same in appearance as each artisan finishes toiling with the stone, the sculptures are very different to the sculptors. The artisan who uncovers what is hidden learns that he can see beyond what is on the surface.

He can chisel each sliver of stone to discover that beauty and creation are all around us if we choose to remove those layers which obscure them. He begins to understand that all things have depth and if we do not seek to uncover what lies beneath then we lose what has been hidden for us to find.

The artisan who creates from within to bring about something new understands that the origins of creations are mysteries locked up inside of us. He learns that the surface of the stone is an opportunity to carve, chip and then breathe life into a new creation.

But it is the artisans themselves who learn above all that they are simply a stone for another Creator. One who has hidden beauty and mystery within them awaiting discovery. Through our visions, toils, and patience, we all create and unearth the mysteries in our daily lives only to realize we were always the greatest works of art in the universe.

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The Lost Forgotten

Nothing has ever been destroyed by peace, lost through understanding, burdened by compassion or stolen through honesty. These are lessons that have slipped from the human conscience as we have grown older and grown apart.

We have become a people that has forgotten to raise our nations in simplicity, thus we have become a race lost unto itself.

We have forgotten to teach honesty to our children so they will be become adults with integrity. We have forgotten to teach that we all must accept responsibility for our actions and learn to apologize so we can understand that the true meaning of respect is earned not self-proclaimed.

We have forgotten to live with understanding so that new generations discover fairness and compromise and that one only works when applied to the other. We have forgotten to express compassion to friend and enemy alike and so our world has suffered the tragedies of indifference and not the benefit of charity.

We have simply forgotten to be who we should be. If we continue to allow these lessons to slip away from our lives, then eventually they will be beyond our reach. A people who can no longer learn the simple lessons of life are a people who lose themselves and ultimately become lost to history.

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Mindset: The Journey Into A Dream

Mindset: The Journey Into A Dream

Every destination is the beginning of a new journey just as every thought can the beginning of a new dream. Upon arrival, if we step back for a moment then we see where it all began. We further see why we started, how we have traveled and where we have been. And mostly we see where we are now and this is a must in order to move to other places we wish to go.

Stepping back in our lives does not make us weak, misguided or hinder us from moving forward. It gives us perspective and the tools such as humility and patience that we often find so difficult to use in everyday life, to strengthen our will as we dream. It is in the rare moments in which we reflect upon the rough road behind that we are allowed the opportunity of seeking the smoothest highway ahead to reach our next destination.

Taking a pause from the chaos of everyday life and after the moments of victory, even for only a moment, can sometimes be our only window in which to view the map of that long and narrow path that leads to the ultimate ends of our dreams.

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