Today’s sermon is about perspective and balance . From what I can see often any insult, anger, or hurt from most words or actions is caused by a lack of proper perspective. Now this is not to say that others do not say or do mean things for the sake of it or without caring about the impact. No what I am saying is that even with ill intent or lack of care, a proper perspective can take the sting out or at least lessen it.
Let me give an example from my own life. I hate hate hate when I am lied to. Especially because I am good at spotting it. Now I do not hate the reasons a person lies to me or even what is lied about. As most often the reasons a lie is told or what is lied about is too petty to worry about or are so minor it doesn’t bother me. So what then bothers me? It makes me feel like the liar thinks I am stupid enough to buy into their to me, obvious lie.
However lets look at this in perspective first of all I am not even hurt by the persons intent, ill or other wise. I am hurt by a perceived slight to my intelligence that usually the other person doesn’t know about or intend. So while I am worrying about my pride what am I missing? That generally when a person lies they are trying not to upset you. Now even if its out of self preservation at lest they care enough to think of your feelings.
So you see with proper perspective one can find a hint of good even in what most consider a bad situation. Sort of how a lone candle can light up a totally dark room, it does not take much to brighten even a very dark situation. But what does this have to do with balance? Well frankly everything. Yin and Yang are often used as a well known symbol of balance. But what do you notice about each side? That they each have a touch of the other inside them.
If we truly attempt to balance our perspective we will notice that all things good have a touch of negative to them and vice versa. But Hatter how can a good thing have bad to it or a bad thing have good to it we might ask. Well lets look at a few examples again from my own flaws.
First of all I love cheese cake. To me a fresh cheese cake is a very very good thing. But if I am realistic with myself I have a weight issue and It stems from my over indulgence. So while that fresh cheese cake might be a welcome treat it poses the very real negative of tempting me to over indulge in sweets that day and excuse it with having already cheated a bit so whats it matter if I go a bit more.
What about the bad being good? Well I tend to be very very protective and am I very observant. Most people consider it sweet that I look out for those I care about so closely. But honestly how stifling can it be to have a person looking after you all the time and analyzing everything you say and do for hints of something wrong? How annoying and even controlling might that feel? You see good traits taken too far can be a bad thing just as easily as good. Failure to admit this can and has at least for me caused many issues until I came to terms with it.
So how can we tie this all together? Well try to look at perspective and our traits as a load we carry through life. Good and bad are always within us and we cannot just set this load down as we might a heavy backpack. So the key is balance. If we fail to balance this load by looking for positive things even in the negative and watch for allowing the positive to become negative we will tip too far to one side or the other leading to stumbling and even falling flat on our face. The path of the Jedi is one of balance. That means knowing that we hold both good and bad things within us and thus we must take care to seek balance within ourselves. Even more importantly in taking care to look for the good even when others seem to present us with ill intentions. If we seek the right perspective and balance the bad by looking f
