What Works?

Are we getting the results we intend?

Is there incongruence between our thoughts and actions?

It seems to me that we, as Americans, are getting the results we never intended.

We are on a path of the destruction of democracy. No one intended that.

We are more divided than we ever have been. No one intended that.

We feel hatred and animosity from fellow Americans everyday. No one intended that.

Our enemies are increasing around the world and also within our borders. Fellow Americans are creating enemies and monsters right next door even though it may not be true.

If we keep on doing what we have been doing, we will never get a different result but we will continue to get the result we have been getting. That’s the way life works.

Who are we as human beings? Who are we as Americans?

Why are we so divided? Why do we have so much fear and hate?

What are we afraid of? Who and why do we hate?

This is not who we are. We have forgotten who we are.

But what can we do? It always begins with me.

In a world of such complexity and confusion, there is a defining principle, a clarifying question that may help us cut through all of the ideas and beliefs that we choose to follow.

We choose to follow certain principles because they are taking us where we want to go, to accomplish what we want to accomplish. We choose to follow, we follow, then we lose our way.

One way of sorting this out this is to remember that as human beings, we are defined by our actions, by our love, by our visible ‘fruits”, by the impact of the lives we live on others, in the same way that a tree is identified by its fruit. If we see an apple on a tree, we do not call it a peach tree. We know by what is seen that it is definitely an apple tree.