|
Disneyland is a truly wonderful place. But something is showing us our connection and bringing us back together. People are
slowly realizing they want more than to be simply entertained. People want connection and meaning. People more and more are
asking "How can I help", "What can I share?", "What can I learn?", "How can I find greater
meaning in life?" and "Is this all there is?"
From "Courage is Contagious" by John Kasich:
Time after time, we see that people want to help others if they are shown a way. When vehicles are created for service,
volunteers flock to them. What is your gift? How can you best serve? Are you ready to take the first step? For those who do,
there may be no turning back, because even as you help others, and help your country, you are most of all helping yourself
lead a richer, more rewarding life.
From "Still Here" by Ram Dass:
It's important to create opportunities to consider our deepest questions about who we are, where we are, and how it all
makes sense. It's a great feeling to be able to open the door to mystery and reflect on the deeper significance of life.
Many spiritual seekers are lonely on their path. They live in small towns and have no one around with whom to share how
they're feeling. They're looking for fellowship, a community of like-minded Souls with whom to voice their concerns about
the deeper issues surrounding aging, the mysteries of death, and how to remain conscious in the face of physical, social and
psychological challenges. Community is vital to help us reorient ourselves to a spiritual perspective. It helps to have fellow
seekers in your life who can help you to stay on track, and who remind you gently when you seem to have lost your way.
It's important for us to seek opportunities for connecting with others on this path of wisdom, and when this isn't possible,
to find other ways to cultivate some means of staying connected.
From "Living, Loving, & Learning" by Leo Buscaglia:
We think to be a grownup we must be independent and not need anyone. And that's why we're all dying of loneliness. How
wonderful to be needed! An how great to need and to be able to say to someone, "I need".
People ask "Do I exist?" - Because nobody looks at me. Nobody touches me. I speak to people and they don't hear
me. They're looking over my shoulder to see who else is there. Nobody looks in my eyes anymore. I'm alone and I'm dying of
loneliness. As Albert Schweitzer says, "We are all so much together and yet we are all dying of loneliness."
From "Between Heaven and Earth" by Harriett Beinfeld and Efrem Korngold:
We lack interpretive systems that connect our deepest aspirations with our personalities and the shape and performance
of our bodies. We lack a language for appreciating our physical, emotional, and spiritual life as on seamless, uninterrupted
story. Feelings of being disconnected exist inside us, between us, and above us, as human beings in relation to the cosmos.
What is it that we want? - To fully experience out aliveness. To be awake, alert, and responsive in our limbs and sensitive
in our fingertips to the textures we touch; to be infused with our own whispering current of wind; to feel as if our outer
and inner reality is congruent and that our efforts are rewarded by a sense of satisfaction. We carve out our own identity
and possess our own purpose, and yet we also yearn to shed the isolation we feet within the envelope of our skin. We desire
union. We aspire to have our private lives nestle within the valley of a public world that we can affirm. We long to feel
connected with each other. We want to feel a part of a community that spills into and becomes part of a larger universe. We
want to be able to embrace and be embraced. We want to live the life of our bodies and want our bodies to permit us to fully
live our lives.
--------------------------------------------------------
There is a place which I have not yet named that I have created over and over in my mind. It exists. The final step is
to bring people together to build it. This is a place where we take creativity beyond where it has been before. This new kind
of Disneyland is a place where we re-connect with each other by helping others, sharing our knowledge and experience, learning
and experiencing whatever we have dreamed of. It is the feeling of when you shake the hand of an old friend you have not
seen in ten years.
This is not specifically a retreat, spiritual center, or religious-oriented place. This is a place to experience "that
which calls us" - it can be volunteering, performing, learning, listening, creating in all forms. Particular emphasis
would be placed on the elderly and disabled - helping them and enabling them to help everyone else. Schools would constantly
be sending students on field trips to experience it.
For example, there would be a huge library, for people of all countries to study, learn and share information. There would
be fabulous restaurants where chefs would come from all over to participate. Magnificent gardens where people could bring
things to plant, or take things home. There would be a performing arts center for music and theater. Of course, a center for
healing body, mind, and spirit. And much more...
I have described my idea to a number of people and they respond by either asking how they can be a part of it, or telling
me they have had the same kind of idea, with some variations. One woman I talked to said she had the idea specifically for
handicapped children. Another woman said "That is MY life's mission!".
The purpose is to bring us back together to a place and feeling we have not known for a very, very long time.
I realize not everyone will understand, but for those that do, I welcome anyone and everyone who would like to help create
this place. I hope I have not limited the concept. Please help me expand and define it. There are no limits to where we can
go.
Please use my blog to send comments:
http://sigisbert.tripod.com/togetherblog/
|
