Happy Tuesday, Friends!
How are you feeling about the reading this week? Was there anything in particular that really stood out to you? Or, if you’re just tuning in for the first time, no worries! That’s great too. Feel free to scroll down for a list of our previous weeks posts starting with the Intro and chapter 1.
For me, one of the most significant themes this week was story and the idea of a universal message. What do I mean by this? Well, if we’re not careful, I think that it would be really easy to wonder how we personally can relate to this topic or to these stories. Most people in the western world have never personally experienced the types of situations that we are reading about each week in this book. This can also make it difficult to connect what we are reading with our own lives and to figure out to to personally involve ourselves.
Matthew was able to identify this disconnect and gave us an interesting insight when he said,
we understood that the plight of the Dalits is the plight of every person. Don’t confuse what I’m saying here. The plight of the Dalits is uniquely dreadful. The hunger, the disease, the abuse, the exploitation, the violence against the body and spirit, the assault on human dignity, all of it palpable. Incomparable. But there is a universal message here that extends beyond India’s dark secret. It is the Dalit story, but it is also the human story. We are all vulnerable: the message of inadequacy, the burden of guilt, powerful barriers erected as boundaries within which we are confined. There is pressure to conform to the way things are, to accept the unacceptable without a thought toward breaking free. We can be caught in the structures of religion, culture, and ethnicity. They bind us to an aimless, purposeless existence. There appears to be no avenue of escape. We long to be free
I’m sure that each one of us can connect with one of the feelings and emotions above. While we might not share similar life experiences, we can emphasize with feelings of inadequacy. Or maybe for you, it’s not feeling worthy, or not believing that you can meet the expectations set before you.
Through my travels, I’ve found that most people just want to feel understand. A single mother in Uganda with 4 children to provide for might live on the other side of the world, however, her desires and feelings to be a good mother and to provide for her family are actually pretty similar to most mothers throughout the world.
It’s easy to listen to someone’s story and to stand at arms length. But what would happen once you put yourself into the story? What would happen once you started to identify with the emotions, feelings, and desires of the other person in the story? How would that change you or the way you are living?
How did you feel reading about the dalits?
Action Steps:
1. Read Chapters 7 & 8 before Next Tuesday
2. What are 1-2 universal emotions or feelings that you’ve been experiencing lately?
3. Check back on the blog next Tuesday for thoughts and ideas on Chapters 7 & 8
Photo Via: Pixabay
If you’ve missed out on any of the previous chapters, click below to stay in the loop.
Check back on the blog on Thursday for my Business, Productivity, & Travel favorites from this week.
