A Sunday morning post…
I love Sundays. Setting aside that it’s laundry day (lol), Sundays represent a day of rest and family and love to me. I guess it is from my upbringing that I get this feeling about Sundays. I tend to feel pollyannic on Sundays. Like if every day was a Sunday the world would be a better place. I once was involved in a team building exercise (over the course of 20 years of working in corporate America you do this several times in different ways according to what comes around at that time) that was different than any I had been involved in before. This was the team building concept behind the McCarthy’s “The Core Protocols”. I actually went through their BootCamp twice. The second time as a coach to a new team. It was not until that second time that I was blessed to be in a team that “got it”.
The Core Protocols work toward building a team that is committed to achieving Greatness. (No, this is not a commercial, I am just explaining the concept so you can follow the story.) Greatness is a fairly amorphous term…and I believe that was intentional. Each team must come up with their own definition of what Greatness is, and then the final project is to conceptually show what achieving that definition of Greatness would be like. Being an engineer who likes to stick with numbers and objectives, it is hard to get into the creative mindset of thinking this way for me.
I remember in that second BootCamp at one point our team was stuck and really not clicking. We went out and set under a big tree in a nearby children’s park and started talking about what we would think the world would be like if the entire world achieved this undefined “Greatness”. The talk went from everybody having every they need (not necessary want, but just basic needs) to everybody being honest and finally, collectively, we agreed that if everybody just loved each other the way they love themselves that would eliminate greed that exploits, dishonesty, violence, etc. We weren’t talking about a “socialized” world, but about a world where nobody would, well…basically crap on anybody else. Because it’s pretty hard to achieve Greatness in your own life if you’re busy all day shoveling someone else’s shit off your head…to be blunt.
Wowzer…our answer came down to the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Pretty neat.
Our conceptualization of this came down to a short play in which we had various headstones each having a commonly perceived “evil” of society on it. War, Addiction, Theft, Death, etc. And at each one of these headstones a very short enactment of that particular dark side of society was conducted. For addiction a man shooting heroine. For war a battle scene. For theft a mugging. For death, a homeless woman with her child dying in her arms and a doctor just walking by without assisting. Throughout the short play one man is seen walking through each of these scenes and viewing the atrocities of society as they take place. He wanders over to a large canvas we had collectively created that showed the world without these evils. It showed the world in Greatness.
After seeing the “right world” he walked over to the doctor and led him back to the dying child and silently pointed to the world as it should be. The doctor picked up the child and exited with her in his arms. The mother then walked to the scene of the drug addict and embraced him and starting talking to him. He then went to the next scene and righted something there and so on…each scene passing it forward.
I was not in this play because I was a coach and it was the team’s responsibility to conceptualize what they had defined as Greatness. As I stood in the sound booth and watched it, I was overcome with something….not sure what. Pride that these people had together conceptualized what the world should be. Sadness that the world was not that way. Hopeful that maybe someday…someday.
I leave you for this Sunday with one of my long-held favorite quotes…
The day will come when after harnessing the ether,
the winds, the tides, gravitation,
we shall harness for God the energies of love.
And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world,
man will have discovered fire.
Pierre Tielhard de Chardin
HAVE A LOVED-FILLED SUNDAY!
Valhall.
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Tags: love, pierre de chardin, sunday



19 People have left comments on this post
What a great story! Makes my day. Val, it is like you took all my thoughts and organized them into what I have been trying to say for years!!

Splendid post, thanks for sharing.
Love this ,makes my day to see that others think we should follow the “Golden Rule.” If mankind would follow this just think what joys we would have in life. God Bless you and your family I know he will for you have blessed others.
Val, I hope you know how awesome you are. God Bless you and your family.
Val..your post set off a discussion in my own home regarding work, success, and the Golden Rule. So true, so true..
Blessings for you and yours.
Beautiful. Thank you.
Louis Armstrong said it beautifully when he sang’It’s a Wonderful World”……
The Bible makes reference to The Lion laying down with the Lamb…(don’t remember verse..or Chapter)
I have done years of volunteer work in my life and have been so deeply blessed by doing so. One precious memory I have is visiting my late friend Pharis Fuller in the hospital. Her frail little body was badly crippled and twisted from Multiple Schloris. On one of my regular visits with her, as I was just opening her door, her lunch had just een served. As I looked in I saw her little twisted hands gathered in prayer over her lunch….the sun was shining on her crippled little body like the Lights of Heaven were surrounding her. It took my breath away, and left one of my most precious memories.
p.s.
One of these days I will share with you the night Pharis passed away….another very precious happening that I was blessed with.
Amazing, Our lives lack in quality and greatness.
We know this, but have no clue where to find either.
Something the generations before us had, but seems
to no longer exist. Truth is, these things which cannot
be heard, or held, or seen, or smelled, is actually within
each of us. It took the life time of my Father, 92 years…
(I was only part of that life for 59) for me to realize my
Dad had these things. They were a part of him every day
of his life. If I ever manage to grow up I want to be like
my Dad and the people of his generation who lived life
with greatness and quality.
Val Thnx so much for writing this. You are as always…

One AWESOME Lady!
God bless, Val.
oops! SCLEROSIS
Good Sunday to you too, Vall. kh
Val

You sure know how to tell a story! I also love Sunday. I still gather my family for the big meal and enjoy them. The telling of stories and lifting each other up happens every Sunday here. The grandchildren also learn alot about the entire family as we tell and retell favorite stories about the “characters” in our family! lol
Thank you all so much for your comments on this. I forgot to include an important part of how the team built the tombstones for the playlet they had. I want to share because it was so creative. The tombstones were built with two faces at 90 degrees. The play started with each tombstone erected with the “evil” of society. They were all in the dark and the spotlight hit each tombstone as the little skit took place at that tombstone depicting that evil taking place in society. When the change happened and people started showing compassion to their fellow man, each time a good deed was done the person who had just had a good deed done for them, as they walked away to pass it forward to the next area, tipped the tombstone over and the other part, that was not shaped in the traditional tombstone shape but as a monument, had the opposite of the bad – the good that the team felt should be in society. So for death, there was Healing, for War/Peace, etc. for each one.
It was amazing to watch…and very emotional for me.
Inspiring post, Val. Thanks.
As one of my little English friend says as a quote constantly, LIFE IS GOOD!
Even with the trials and tribulations, LIFE IS GOOD!
Such an inspiring post! Thank you, Val. (This one is a keeper!)
You, Valhall, are a Renaissance Woman.
I’m a bit late, but: Love to you, too, Val!! And to all the Hinksters!
The Golden Rule is my rudder for steering through life. And, while I am not a Christian, I do know and love one of Jesus’ quotes where he says:
John 13:34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
Yep.