Point of View

In all this discussion about the need for gentling our rhetoric, I like the point I heard on The Diane Rheem Show this morning. A couple of times I heard one of the guests mention that, despite the need for greater respect for each other (which she was clear IS something we need to return to these days), we still need to recognize the  importance of room for dissent in our discourse. 

Our differences are also what make us "great" - homogeneity is not a condition in which life can thrive. In Buddhism, the concept of the "noble friend" is the notion that those who appear extremely different to us, and annoying or even repulsive, in their contrasting preferences, opinions, beliefs or sensibilities, can actually be some of our greatest teachers. And yet there is a way to hold these differences in a less violent, respectful, LISTENING sort of way. The poem below reminded me of the beauty of contrast.

Point of View

And what if it is all about contrast,

that life without distinction

wouldn’t be life at all? Who’s

to say that line black and curved

stone and tapered light – all which look

to be in bold disagreement with the point

they are trying to make – aren’t noble

friends bringing out the best in each

other by being true to themselves?

This evening storm has altered the skyscape

of eternal summer, our illusion of it anyway,

clouds one-upping other clouds layer upon

layer upon ivory upon graphite upon cerulean.

We were just talking about how much

nicer the light for the photo shoot

is this evening than yesterday’s blue-sky

perfection, vacant of contrast, glaring

so full of itself, triumphantly uninterrupted.

©Heather Barron