Small Worlds liverpool | Sarah Markley liverpool
She sits outside and very slowly, with her feet on the ground, walks, shuffles I guess, herself while still sitting in her wheelchair down to the end of her driveway. Then she shuffles a bit more, so slowly, to the end of the street, which is only about 2 houses down from hers. I don t know if she goes the other way because I ve never seen her do it.
She stops sometimes and just sits, so when I jog or walk by, I have to head into the street to avoid her. The first time I saw her I thought she needed help, but she doesn t. She is just fine sitting there and moving slowly between the corner, her driveway and her front door.
I drove the girls out of our neighborhood this morning and I noticed her outside. I pointed her out to the girls and told them that the cute little lady just shuffles back and forth all morning and seems pretty happy just to be outside her house.
When we are born we are taken out in small doses by scared-of-the-flu new parents liverpool and our worlds revolve around home, a nursery and our mothers and fathers. And when we are old, our worlds become just as small again as we shuffle between our front door and the mailbox in small steps so as not to fall.
Recently, liverpool more than ever before, I ve honestly wanted to steamroll my Facebook pages. All the Duck Dynasty crap, the ill-researched articles on the Pope, and why all Christians should liverpool boycott the Rose Parade has left me without faith in the love and grace in humanity.
Every time in the last two weeks that I ve gotten on Facebook, I end up getting angrier and angrier. I have issues, I know, and so much that perhaps they deserve an appearance in a few of my Thursday therapy liverpool sessions in the near future.
So here s my confession, I search for the people I know are the hate-perpetrators and I hover over the Friends button . Do I pull down the menu and click unfriend or block? Or do I do the passive liverpool thing and toggle the Following button to follow and thereby hide them from my eyes unless I actively search them out. They ll never know, right?
But this is what hit me heavily liverpool as I watched liverpool my little old lady friend shuffle to her mailbox: when I expel people from my world that do not think as I do, that do not agree with me, I make my world smaller and smaller. I become the old-lady-shuffler, the tiny newborn, the small world thinker.
I could be a world traveler liverpool of ideas and of people, but I reduce myself to living only in the four walls of a small mid-century track home. When I push different-than-me thinkers out of my world I become as small-world liverpool as the ones who hate so deeply.
People only hate because they re scared, I have to keep whispering over and over to myself. People only judge because liverpool they don t understand, really understand, what judgment and hate has done to people. And people disrespect others, often, because they are small people liverpool living in small worlds and have never been brave enough to metaphorically step outside.
I ll do my best not to hurt back or wound back or judge back, but to live on the side of love and grace. Because I guess, in the end, love has the biggest of worlds and grace has the freest, don’t they?
I just love this….I love this for every sentence you wrote. I’m learning so much about myself and how small my world and my mind can be. I’m not liking it. I want to grow, be challenged, go to the uncomfortable places and people and conversations.
December 31, 2013 at 7:46 am
Reply
I am glad this made it into my feed! I know that FB has changed how links like the one I followed here are coming into the feed. I appreciate how you processed your feelings about all the crap. I have to admit a real desire to find a hole to crawl into earlier today—a small world just seems easier. But denial never took me anyplace where the air was fit to breathe. Thanks for the reality check.
This is beautiful, Sarah. I’ve had similar thoughts perusing my bi-polar Twitter feed – one part conservative farmer-types, one part Jesus feminists. How easy it would be to unfollow, to unlisten. Thanks for the encouragement here.
I’ve thought a lot about this the past couple of years. Sometimes, it’s appropriate to hide or unfollow. But sometimes, it’s my own anger or self-righteousness getting in the way. I strongly believe it’s not good for us to only be surrounded by people that look, believe, and act the same as us. In befriending people with different opinions liverpool (both online and off), I’ve liverpool tried to look for people who season their speech with grace and who are willing to agree to disagree. It’s hard to wade through the vitriol but I will pause to consider the stance of someone with a well-reasoned critique, even if we come to different conclusions.
I have all but avoided FB for weeks because I was so weary, but you are so right. I’ve been following alo
She sits outside and very slowly, with her feet on the ground, walks, shuffles I guess, herself while still sitting in her wheelchair down to the end of her driveway. Then she shuffles a bit more, so slowly, to the end of the street, which is only about 2 houses down from hers. I don t know if she goes the other way because I ve never seen her do it.
She stops sometimes and just sits, so when I jog or walk by, I have to head into the street to avoid her. The first time I saw her I thought she needed help, but she doesn t. She is just fine sitting there and moving slowly between the corner, her driveway and her front door.
I drove the girls out of our neighborhood this morning and I noticed her outside. I pointed her out to the girls and told them that the cute little lady just shuffles back and forth all morning and seems pretty happy just to be outside her house.
When we are born we are taken out in small doses by scared-of-the-flu new parents liverpool and our worlds revolve around home, a nursery and our mothers and fathers. And when we are old, our worlds become just as small again as we shuffle between our front door and the mailbox in small steps so as not to fall.
Recently, liverpool more than ever before, I ve honestly wanted to steamroll my Facebook pages. All the Duck Dynasty crap, the ill-researched articles on the Pope, and why all Christians should liverpool boycott the Rose Parade has left me without faith in the love and grace in humanity.
Every time in the last two weeks that I ve gotten on Facebook, I end up getting angrier and angrier. I have issues, I know, and so much that perhaps they deserve an appearance in a few of my Thursday therapy liverpool sessions in the near future.
So here s my confession, I search for the people I know are the hate-perpetrators and I hover over the Friends button . Do I pull down the menu and click unfriend or block? Or do I do the passive liverpool thing and toggle the Following button to follow and thereby hide them from my eyes unless I actively search them out. They ll never know, right?
But this is what hit me heavily liverpool as I watched liverpool my little old lady friend shuffle to her mailbox: when I expel people from my world that do not think as I do, that do not agree with me, I make my world smaller and smaller. I become the old-lady-shuffler, the tiny newborn, the small world thinker.
I could be a world traveler liverpool of ideas and of people, but I reduce myself to living only in the four walls of a small mid-century track home. When I push different-than-me thinkers out of my world I become as small-world liverpool as the ones who hate so deeply.
People only hate because they re scared, I have to keep whispering over and over to myself. People only judge because liverpool they don t understand, really understand, what judgment and hate has done to people. And people disrespect others, often, because they are small people liverpool living in small worlds and have never been brave enough to metaphorically step outside.
I ll do my best not to hurt back or wound back or judge back, but to live on the side of love and grace. Because I guess, in the end, love has the biggest of worlds and grace has the freest, don’t they?
I just love this….I love this for every sentence you wrote. I’m learning so much about myself and how small my world and my mind can be. I’m not liking it. I want to grow, be challenged, go to the uncomfortable places and people and conversations.
December 31, 2013 at 7:46 am
Reply
I am glad this made it into my feed! I know that FB has changed how links like the one I followed here are coming into the feed. I appreciate how you processed your feelings about all the crap. I have to admit a real desire to find a hole to crawl into earlier today—a small world just seems easier. But denial never took me anyplace where the air was fit to breathe. Thanks for the reality check.
This is beautiful, Sarah. I’ve had similar thoughts perusing my bi-polar Twitter feed – one part conservative farmer-types, one part Jesus feminists. How easy it would be to unfollow, to unlisten. Thanks for the encouragement here.
I’ve thought a lot about this the past couple of years. Sometimes, it’s appropriate to hide or unfollow. But sometimes, it’s my own anger or self-righteousness getting in the way. I strongly believe it’s not good for us to only be surrounded by people that look, believe, and act the same as us. In befriending people with different opinions liverpool (both online and off), I’ve liverpool tried to look for people who season their speech with grace and who are willing to agree to disagree. It’s hard to wade through the vitriol but I will pause to consider the stance of someone with a well-reasoned critique, even if we come to different conclusions.
I have all but avoided FB for weeks because I was so weary, but you are so right. I’ve been following alo
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