2003-07-15 - 13:38

I'm at the home of a dear dear friend who is very sick. Discussions of funeral plans, feelings about death, acknowledging&celebrating what we recognize to be moments of true love&joy. And then I open my e-mail after a week to find one from one of my Sisters to a Sister list. Read on.

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I asked myself today the following: At the end of life, how important

is it what others said about you or did to you? Do you want to go to

whatever eternal rest we face carrying the burden of grudges, and

oppression or do you want to find peace? I chose today to be happy and

at peace rather than right. I chose today to meet everyone with

compassion and loving kindness. NO MATTER WHAT I don't want to

increase the pain and suffering already in the world. My vows to

promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt apply to my

sisters, and myself as well as my community and my world. By loving my

enemies I might just change them to my friends, but if not, at least I

don't have anything to apologize for later. Sometimes being right

doesn't mean you win.. sometimes being right just leads us all to a

huge loss. Aren't we all working towards the same thing? Aren't we

all wanting peace, and freedom, and justice in our world? What

difference does it really matter if what you consider "nunly" and what

I consider "nunly" are different. Perhaps our separate paths are

actually leading to the same place. You are prettier, you work harder,

you do more AIDS work, You do more tours. Does any of that mean you

are less a nun, or that I am less a nun? I think not. Being a nun

doesn't happen in degrees. You are period. No more, no less, no

better, no worse. Different is just different. I am reminded of the

words of a favorite pacifist:

You are me, and I am you.

Isn't it obvious that we "inter-are"?

You cultivate the flower in yourself,

so that I will be beautiful.

I transform the garbage in myself,

so that you will not have to suffer.

I support you;

you support me.

I am in this world to offer you peace;

you are in this world to bring me joy

-thich nhat hanh

< snipped off the signature of the author >

THE VOW:

Today I make a vow of tenderness. Of kindness. Of charity. Of patience.

Of forgiveness. And of being human and present and real to all who

cross my path today. Today I make a vow to pause before I express

myself in a manner that might be arrogant, distasteful, disrespectful

or unkind. Today I vow to make myself be as human and empathetic to

others as I hope that they would be for me. Today I vow to restrain my

crankiness and not allow my emotions to reign over or take precedent

over the emotions of another. Today I vow that I will do all that I can

to be good. I vow not to aspire to the supernatural or holy, but to be

human, in the most basic and significantly honest way possible. Today I

vow to breathe deeply of the goodness capable in humankind and to

release all residiual stains and scars and crimes that otherwise chip

at my soul and my being. Today I vow to be as good as I can be and

nothing more. And certainly nothing less.

- Min Jung Kim http://www.minjungkim.com/

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