Panda Heart Publishing's Official Blog

I watched a movie last night entitled,” The Secret Life of Bees.”  I am not attempting to critique the movie but rather to just let you know how I felt watching the characters.  I experienced an amazing story of love, the complications of love, and overcoming the barriers to love.  The setting was in the south during a very painful time in our history.

It tore at my heart when I watched how we segregated and treated the African Americans in our country.  The teaching of hatred and prejudice has always crippled society at its core and it still continues to do so every where it exists, what-ever group is being singled out.

It appears that in our current society, we have expanded our targeted groups that are at the effect of our ridicule.   This is not to compare the pain of slavery with our current targeted groups but to acknowledge that we are a long way from letting go of prejudice.  People are now grouped and judged by their ethnicity, culture, religious affiliations, political beliefs, etc.  The list is endless as our judgments of each other continues.

As in the story, the single thing that bridged the characters over the divide was the opening of the heart and finding the common language of love.  It was love that ultimately healed their wounds and brought them the happiness they sought.

Let us all try to keep ourselves free from judging each other.   It only cripples our society and tears us apart.  Remember, we are all 99.9% genetically identical and we are making these distinctions over the .01% of our differences.

The common language is love and it pores out from an open heart.  Keep looking for the treasures within each of us.  We will then finally be able to create an incredible tapistry with all of our individual beauty shinning through.

I once worked for an incredible organization called, The Hunger Project (THP), which began under the leadership of an extraordinary woman named Joan Holmes.  After observing what was happening in the world and the millions upon millions of dollars being spent on the issue of hunger with minimal results, she studied the situation from a  new and broader perspective.  She wanted to know that the work of  THP brought about the desired results.

After many years of intense struggle, the break through began appearing, as THP created a new paradigm:  A Paradigm for Success.  The key elements of this new paradigm were found to be:  Self Reliance, an Enabling Environment, the Empowerment of Women, and Global Responsibility and Investment.

Many examples, that were set by THP,  have given me so much insight into many areas of my life.   One example, is how THP developed a process to work with the people, which left the solutions to be created by the people themselves within the different communities.   A solution from one community, therefore, did not become the solution for the next.

It is the letting go of having the answers for other people that I have found so powerful.  It is so much easier to just rush in with the “right solution” to a given situation.  THP taught me how brave, knowledgeable, and resilient  human beings really are when their spirits are unleashed no matter what their circumstances might be.

How often do we hear from our leaders, of either party of government, that they have the solutions to our problems?   Do they examine the results of these solutions that were done in the past?   How much trust do they place in our communities to discover our own solutions?

The people who find themselves with the most severe economic and environmental issues are somehow able to find the answers to overcome these conditions.  This should make it clear that we are all far more capable than we realize.

It is time we all unleashed our own human spirits, our “Yin Spirit”, and began coming together as communities and looking for the answers to our own specific needs.  Our brothers and sisters from Africa, India, Bangladesh and other countries are doing this and so can we.