items of interest

with contributions from Eknath Easwaran, David Waters, Bill Sherman, Joshua Levine Grater

"WHEN WE QUARREL WITH SOMEONE, the worst thing we can do is to avoid that person. We are trying to avoid an image in our own mind, which cannot be done. The mind takes some exaggerated impressions, memories, hopes, and insecurities, draws a quick caricature like one of those sidewalk cartoonists, and then turns up its nose. The person in question should retort, 'That's not me; that's your caricature of me. If you don't like it, you don't like your own mind.'

"To heal our relationships, we have to move closer to people we do not like, learn to work with them without friction. When we do this, we are remaking the images in our mind—which means we are literally remaking the world in which we live."

Eknath Easwaran
"Turning Enemies Into Friends"
Reprinted with permission from
SojoMail, Sojourners e-mail magazine
www.sojo.net
May 23, 2002