Blog 299 – 05.20.2016

I quoted a few lines from a country song sung by Don Williams in a blog teaser on Facebook recently. The song is called I Believe In Love and was quite popular some years back. I think it says a lot of things I agree with very much. It is mainly a list of things the singer does not believe in with a chorus from time to time where he sings about what he does believe in consisting mainly of things like babies, old folks, mom and dad, you, and in love. The lines I’d like to quote in this article inspired the title:

“I don’t believe in Superstars,
Organic food and foreign cars.
I don’t believe the price of gold,
The certainty of growing old,
That right is right and left is wrong,
That north and south can’t get along
That east is east and west is west
And being first is always best.”

Being first is not always best and neither is being right or thinking you are right. I grew up in a divided house. There is a great line in the book by the late Pat Conroy called “The Prince of Tides” where he says, “In the war between my mother and father the only prisoners they took were their children.” Because of the never ending argument between my parents about almost everything I inherited a strong tendency to argue, to want to be right, and to correct others. Would I had always been as quick to correct myself. I would like Tide detergent be almost perfect now. As many times as Tide has been “New and Improved” over the years it should be the most perfect detergent. And if I had turned my zeal in correcting others to improving myself I would be a much more evolved or perfect man than I am but I’ve still got time. Ha

Being right is over rated. I am told the best way to end a feud is for one to go to the other and say what are for some the most difficult words in the English language. I never heard my Daddy say those word and seldom if ever my mother. With dad it was a joke. He would laughingly say, “I may not always be right, but I am never wrong. I was wr…, wr…, wr…, and you were r…, r…, r…”  He just could not bring himself to say the words. The magic words that tear down walls and restore relationships, that heal wounds deep and bleeding. How do they do it?

I quote William Shakespeare, “To err is human, to forgive divine.” Appeal to your brother or sister’s divine nature, let them be their higher best self. When you say, “I was wrong” and they get to get out of ego mode and into God mode and say “I forgive you” then they most always have an urge to appeal to the divine in you and admit their own culpability. But you say it would be a lie to say I was wrong. No, it would not. Think of all the time you were wrong and bluffed your way through and of all the many other times you were wrong and didn’t even know it.  There is a bigger issue always at stake than who is right and who is wrong and that is Oneness, Love, Peace, Joy some of God’s other names.

Be wrong, let the other guy be God for a while. That little ego won’t like it and may try to dust up a bit but he/she never wants anything good to happen for you and certainly doesn’t want you tapping in to your divine nature. Just a closing word about righteousness. The only real righteousness is God’s. He/She has it all so we only get to access it through our divine nature or side. Humanly speaking we will never get it completely right. Abraham believed God and God counted that as righteousness. If you don’t believe in God that’s okay too for He believes in you and you still get the inheritance from your Father’s side of the family. That explains why sometimes non believers are nicer and better behaved than believers. They have that stronger family likeness on their father’s side. I am not picking on mothers here just using the archaic imagery of a patriarchal society that produced the Bible.

It’s just my opinion and I could be wrong. And trust me being wrong and admitting it is the best thing most of the time.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White