How would you feel when a very close friend decides it’s time to share his secret with you?
It’s often the darkest moment of his life, the most painful memories. And because you had no idea about it, the friend changes in front of your eyes, almost like magic. You feel as if you are meeting him for the very first time.
In summer of 2009, a discovery was made that something fundamentally unethical and disrespectful had been going on at the Burr Oak Cemetery, near Alsip, Illinois. At least 300 bodies were illegally exhumed and dumped in a hole so their original plots could be resold. Then 2 more cemeteries in Illinois went under investigation for similar operations.
While I thought it was immoral, dishonest, corrupt, and all the other words that describe ethical misjudgment, it also brought back an old question I had had when I moved to this country: why is body so important?
About a year ago, a friend of mine introduced me to a book called “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. It is a very small book, less than 140 pages, and I thought even I, who was not a fast reader, could read it rather quickly. Turned out, it took me almost 2 weeks to finish reading.
...I know it is a lot harder to do just one thing at a time, but I also know that it is a lot more rewarding if I can do one thing only at a time. When I am having those wow! moments — the first time I ever saw the Milky Way, the gentle breeze on my face after a strenuous hike to the top of a mountain, the silence in the meadow, the roar of the crushing waves, the last chord of an emotional symphony — I am not thinking “How do I get back to the parking lot?” or “That burger last night was sub-par.” It’s wow! because I am completely immersed in the moment. When my monkey mind starts thinking about something else, it’s gone, the wow slips away. And if the monkey mind is always busy thinking about something, I can’t find the wow in the first place.
