ON SMOKING, PRAYING AND WEEDS
Just to be clear, it’s not the weed I’m smoking. Please read on.
I read recently that you should never smoke when you are praying. I guess it’s seen as disrespectful.
But then I read that it’s quite a good idea to pray whilst you’re smoking. If smoking is your habit, then using that habit as a trigger to pray could be helpful.
Hmm. So which is it? Do they belong together, or don’t they?
And then there’s the weeds.
Walking around our garden recently with a friend, she started pulling up some of the plants.
Somewhat startled, I queried this. “But they’re weeds” she protested.
“Not to me” I replied. “They’re simply tall plants with pink flowers”. To me.
Hmm again. Are they weeds? Or aren’t they?
By now maybe you get where I’m going with this.
In both cases, it’s a question of perspective. My green-fingered friend was sure she was right. I was equally sure I was right. How could we both be right? Who’s wrong?
I fear that we are so used to binary, dualistic, black/white thinking, that we find it hard to accept that both perspectives have value. And, shockingly, that we might even learn something if we could see things from the other person’s perspective.
Work-place example.
A particular team within a larger organisation doing great work in their specific field. Everyone recognises it as great work. But it doesn’t fit with the wider organisation’s direction any more, so they let the team go. There’s a lot of pain. But a decision has to be taken on strategic direction and best fit.
See above. Do they belong together or don’t they?
It’s all about perspective. Some think they do. Some think they don’t. There is no absolute answer. Just a decision to be taken.
Somewhat shockingly, a few weeks on I found myself pulling out the plants that my friend was so eagerly pulling out a while back. Why is that? Because although I valued them at the time, now that other plants had flourished around them, I didn’t value them so much. They have become weeds!
It turns out then that there’s even a time dimension to all of this. What was not a weed then is a weed now! What fit well with that organisation once upon a time doesn’t fit so well now.
Complicated isn’t it? And therefore every reason for us to hold our perspectives relatively lightly, understand that they are OUR perspectives, and be open to the view of others.
Bye for now. I’m going to do some weeding. Or praying. I don’t smoke.
GOING DEEPER
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