Impermanence

The following is a Sunday Lecture that I’ve written for my children:

We should not be lulled into thinking there is a permanence or consistency in our bonds: in our family relationships. Instead, we should fight fiercely to assure that life is flowing through the veins of our kinship. We must strive to be alert to new nuances or shifts in sentiment.

It is not enough just to ponder why we were born into our families. As a matter of a fact, a friend of mine once advised me to erase the question “Why?” from my spiritual/emotional vocabulary. For the answer to “Why?” is fickle and forever changing.

Instead we should concentrate on the what, when, how, or where of our interpersonal relationships. We each have to ask what is happening, how do I contribute to the situation, when do I aggravate it, where are we when we are the happiest, etc.

Take each situation as a possible synopsis of the whole. Philosophise about the whole; peel away the layers of onionskins of personal and family dynamics. If we pose these questions, the answers might possibly illuminate the dark corridors or dead ends we have taken or take in our journey towards truth and clarity.

Don’t avoid conflicts, nor accept that certain problems never change, or believe it is better not to speak out when everyone is playing blind man’s bluff with our family’s dysfunctional elements. To do this, is practising a form of moral cowardliness: not wisdom.

This is my appeal to you, my children, “Speak up, speak out, stand tall, search fearlessly for your truth!”