Bucky Group 27 - Love

7th June 2008 - "A Way to God - Love" by Anthony di Mello, video viewing session

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There was an 8 year boy who had committed murder, armed robbery and other violent crimes at that young age and could not be brought to court nor brought to the reformative centres. So the police brought him to Father Flanagan, the founder of Boys' Town.
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While in the train on the way to Father Flanagan, the boy (who revealed that in his book years later) that knowing that he was going to a priest, he resolved that he would kill anyone who would say "...I love you...", to him. And in all probabilities he would do it, as this is coming from a boy who was a killer.
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When Father Flanagan met him, he looked at him, asked him his name and briefed him that there will be someone bringing him around to look at the place and eventually he would have a job there. So he asked him to go and choose something he wanted to do, but to take his time as there was no hurry. Those brief few minutes changed the boy's life.
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The boy wrote in his book that when he looked into Father Flanagan's eyes, he immediately felt love, though Father didn't said the word. You see, love is immediately transmitted to others even though we do not say it. Our thoughts tranfer.
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[I wonder why this doesn't work with girl friends or wives! Why do women need to have love explicitly expressed? hmm... food for thought.]

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To Father Flanagan, there is no such thing as a 'bad boy'. Sure he saw what crimes the boy had committed, but he separated the sin from the sinner.
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In an experiment carried out by some psychologists, they brought some ordinary kids to a school and told the teachers that these kids are of high IQ and are categorised as "Spurters" (though there was no such categorisation in psychology). After a few months, a follow-up IQ test was conducted and all the kids in the group gained 12 to 36 points in their IQ.
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Our thoughts can transform people. This was even found to work with laboratory mice. Even the mice performed better in the experiments.
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Exercises:
1. Think of someone you love and feel how it is.
2. Think of someone you do not like at all, and see if you can see some good of that person.
3. Think of what you will think of that person with Jesus next to you.
4. Think of what names Jesus will call you when he meets you.

Discussions:

SC has a friend who doesn't trust anyone. No one at all, and all of them have proven to be untrustworthy in the end. Personally, I wouldn't trust someone who doesn't trust anyone else. Someone like this is not honest himself/herself.

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So how do we trust people. There are many of us in the room who has at some point trusted somebody only to be let down. I think the fallacy most people have is that being trusting meant that we become 'blind' to what is happening. I trust people, but am not blind.

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"But is that judgment?" someone asked.

Observing and accepting observations as they are, are not judgments. Judgments only come when we start hating that person.

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I have a friend, whom I think is a very loving man. He never despise anyone. He never talk ill about people or situations. However, he is also blind to many 'odd' situations around him. He would even dream up excuses for people who harmed him. In the end he become a bankrupt. How does that serve him by being 'loving' and blind? I put 'loving' in quotes, because I am thinking if he actually love himself. To understand love, we have first to love ourselves. That means to go into situations with our eyes open and protect ourselves. It doesn't mean to be untrusting, but to be truthful to what is happening before our eyes.

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Rachel said we tend to look at the 'bad' sides of a person when they are alive and only speak good of them in their funeral!

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Joo Hwa's Timeout:

There is a pig and a cow in a farm. Everyone loves the cow and not the pig. The pig couldn't understand that as they would eat almost every part of his body. The cow on the other hand only provides milk and she is not even slaughtered. The pig then confronted the cow with the question, which the cow replied, "I serve everyone when I am alive. You only serve others when you are dead!" *laughters*

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Joo Hock related a story about a new comer at the gates of the city who asked an old wise man how the people in the city are like. The wise man then asked what type of people lives in the city he comes from and the new comer said, "Oh! Horrible people. They are unkind and unloving...". Then the wise man said, "Yes, in this city you will meet the same type of people." The newcomer went to live in the city and then meet horrible, unkind and unloving people.

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A few days later, another newcomer came to ask the wise man the same question and he asked the newcomer the same question, "What type of people lives in the city where you come from?" The newcomer replied, "Fantastic people. Kind and loving." Then the newcomer went to live in the city and meet fantastic, kind and loving people.

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The moral of the story is that, as we do not see the positive aspects of people, we will end up attracting the very kind of people that are lingering in our thoughts.

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Joo Hock added that, actually there is no 'good' and 'bad'. They are both part of the whole. The universe does not discriminate against 'good' and 'bad'. Just like the Ying and Yang sign. There is the black and white. In the black, there is a dot of white. In the white, there is the dot of black.

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At this point, I realised that Father Anthony uses 'good' and 'bad' quite often. Perhaps this is due to his Catholic background. I also noticed that of people of other religions. Buddhist monks do the same, they preach what is 'good' and what is 'bad'....

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