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Bad Vibes - Good Vibes |
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It seemed to be a fairly quotidian bike ride, tapping into welcome exercise and leisure sightseeing, remote from the neighborhood, until I stopped at a red light. There suddenly arose in me without warning, as if from a depth not of this earth, a dark and sinister sense that I had driven into the River Styx. The vibrations round me now froze me motionless as in the Ninth Circle of Dante's Inferno. I raced away as fast as I could. Two weeks later, there was a breaking story in the news of a fatal shooting at that very spot.
Oprah radio host Michael Losier talks about negative and positive vibes, recognizing and using them to affect our general state of being. My massage therapist reports on vibrations he detects in my body's electromagnetic system. As we seek to further understand the relationship with magnetic fields, the key is an awareness of what vibes draw and repel us.
Gerard Manly Hopkins begins his poem "God's Grandeur" with:
"The world is charged with the grandeur of God
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil"
Feeling the vibes - detecting the charge. Discerning the grandeur of God in a sunrise with the sparkle and surprise of "shook foil" is not beyond our understanding. Do we draw toward it? As St. Augustine wrote, "For it is one thing to see the land of peace from a wooded ridge . . . and another to tread the road that leads to it."
*St. Augustine, Confessions, VII, xxi |
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--by Jan |
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Vibrations of the Heart - by Bill
My father cut the watermelon from the vine and tossed it up to Mr. Peterson, who was stacking melons in the farm wagon. As soon as he caught it, Mr. Peterson shook his head vigorously: "No."
Dad was helping the neighboring farmer harvest watermelons. Mr. Peterson was deaf and did not speak, so he could not tell Dad verbally what was wrong. Mr. Peterson shifted the melon to one hand, and held up the other hand curved in the shape of a C, with the fingers 5-6 inches away from the thumb. Then he threw the melon to the ground, where it burst open, revealing a rind that was 5 or 6 inches thick.
On YouTube you can find videos on how to select a ripe watermelon. They tell you to tap or slap the melon and listen for a good, deep "thump" sound. That is the tried and true method of testing the ripeness of a watermelon.
So how does a deaf farmer tell when his watermelons are ripe? Mr. Peterson would also pick up a melon and tap it. But instead of listening for the "thump," which he could not hear, he would feel the vibrations with the hand that was cradling the melon. He had become so adept at feeling the vibrations that as soon as he caught the melon my father tossed to him, Mr. Peterson knew exactly what was wrong.
For the rest of his life, Dad selected his watermelons by feel, not by sound. The vibrations traveling through the heart of the melon would reveal the quality, he always said, more surely than the sound.
Is there a moral to this story? Several come to mind:
- To describe someone as "differently-abled" rather than "disabled" is not just politically correct; it is factually accurate.
- Pay close attention when things don't "feel" right.
- Most important: the vibrations of the heart reveal more about the quality, of both watermelons and persons, than the sounds that they make.
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Copyright (c) 2012 Soul Windows Ministries
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