“When you meet a lion”, so Mr. Mniyka from Kenya told me, “you must look him unwaveringly in the eyes. A single short glance to the side, a mere tenth of a second, and the lion attacks. He leaps faster than you can move or speak or even think. That is why, when you come across a lion, look him fixedly in the eyes. Look at him, simply look at him, unwaveringly – so long….until he goes.
I had a dream. I saw a farmer walking over his field, scattering seeds on the ground, a great many. And I saw the same man some time later. He went to the same field, and he had a scythe with him, and the field was white and stood full of the finest wheat. And he said: “Not all the seeds have borne fruit, but the harvest is rich.” And he praised the gift of life.
Then I went home. It was in the evening, and it was getting dark. The windows were lit up and I could look behind them. In the first house I saw a teacher with her school class. She sowed knowledge and understanding. And I saw the same woman some years later, as she talked to the same pupils who had since grown up. And she said: “Not all the seeds have borne fruit, but the harvest is rich.” And she praised the gift of life.
In a second window I saw a mother who taught her son to walk. She took him by his hands, praised him on every step, and encouraged him to take another. And I saw the same mother twenty years later at the wedding ceremony of her boy, who was not a boy any more. And she said: “Not all the seeds have borne fruit, but the harvest is rich.” And she praised the gift of life.
In the third window I saw a jobless man, who helped his mother care for his father, and he went shopping for his sick neighbour, and he went to his sister’s house in the evening to look after the children while she was at a parent-teacher conference. And I saw the same man a few years later. Surprisingly he had found some work, and tomorrow was his first working day. He looked back at the past years. And he said: “Not all the seeds have borne fruit, but the harvest is rich.” And he praised the gift of life.
In the fourth window I saw someone who sowed smiles. He sowed friendly inquiries: “Is your wife better?” He sowed birthday greetings and invitations to delicious suppers.
In the fifth window I saw someone who sowed listening-to-children and telling-them-stories and wetting-them-with-the-lawn-sprinkler-in-summer and rustling-with-them-through-the-fallen-leaves-in-autumn. He sowed throwing-snowballs-in-winter and hunting-easter-eggs-in-spring.
Last of all I looked into a window, and I believe this must have been heaven. Again I saw the sower, and with him were all these people whom I had seen in my dream. And on the field the fruit had grown. There grew the happiness of a child in the middle of a pillow fight. There grew the consolation for a widow, who had good friends. The field bore the relief of a pupil who, for the first time, had a C instead of an F in maths. There grew the patience of adults and the helpfulness of children. And I heard someone say: “Not all the seeds have borne fruit, but the harvest is rich.” And he praised the gift of life.
In Japan, there once lived a man whom this really had happened to: He woke up one morning and had really and truly lost his face! This matter was extremely embarrassing for him. He could not possibly show himself to another person in this state. First of all, he searched for it by touch alone. He checked his bed, and the floor under the bed, and finally also the whole room he was in. He tried to help himself this way for a long time until he realized: he who has lost his face, will hardly find it alone. He can neither see nor hear! How could this man be saved? He only succeeded with the help of his friends. They searched everywhere for him and indeed finally found it. It was in the bathroom, in his mirror, where he had lost it during a nightly visit. Lucky is he who has such friends!
A fairy tale! The children’s eyes lit up. The tale explainer began: “Once upon a time, there was a mother goat. She had seven little kids. As this prototypical introduction shows, this is obviously a fairy tale. In this kind of literature the number seven is the number of completion. Later on it will become important that not all of the little kids are eaten, but instead that all will be saved. We do not know why the father of the goats is not mentioned. The subsequent eating of the little kids can be understood as a violent or sexual act. When you later divide the story into five main paragraphs, you will confirm that the tale follows a graded pattern…” And the lights in the children’s eyes went out.
It was raining. No school today. Like every Saturday morning, she stood behind the counter where the bread rolls and cakes and other pastries were displayed for sale. Through the shop window she saw the leaves swept from the trees by the wind swirling through the street. In front of the shop, a woman was struggling with her umbrella. Above the lady she could read the inscription “Miller’s Bakery””, in mirror writing, of course, for anyone looking at the pane from the inside.
When she was alone and did not need to attend to any customers, she liked to imagine that this shop window was a cinema screen and that what she could see behind it was a film. In her imagination, she would alter the scene. The cars would become stage coaches, the leaves would become birds, and the lady with the umbrella could become her mother fighting a wild dragon. Now this image amused her especially. Her mother, who habitually misunderstood her, who could misinterpret any word she said in a splitsecond, who could turn good into bad and bad into good – she would probably win a dragon fight, or at least go for a draw. Until the next fight.
The lady with the umbrella was long gone. Now she imagined what she would write on the shop window, replacing the boring sign “Miller’s Bakery”. How about “You mean a lot to me” or “I like you anyway”? Or “I tease you ‘cause I love you”?
She grinned at the thought. She imagined what these inscriptions would look like on the large shop windowpane. Anyone passing it would be able to read it, including her mother, of course. In her imagination, she saw the inscription “You mean a lot to me”. Would her mother finally understand her if she read those words?” She saw her mother standing in front of the windowpane with a furrowed brow, slowly shaking her head. Then the thought came to her mind: “You need to put your words in mirror writing.”
They both heard it. A quiet coughing and then a snapping for air. The owner of the kiosk had just placed the illustrated magazine on the table while the woman searched her purse for change. She looked down. “Tommy, what’s the matter?” she called, startled. Her Yorkshire terrier lay, lifelessly, on the ground. “That can happen so fast”, murmured the shopkeeper. “Probably a heart attack”, he thought, “too well fed”. The dog was dead, no doubt about it. But what to do now?
The lifeless body could certainly not remain in the shop. But neither did the woman want to carry her dead dog through the village in front of everyone and get caught up in a conversation on every street corner. “Have you perhaps got a box?” she asked. The shopkeeper went into the back and returned. “This is all I’ve got.” He handed her a printed box which had contained a small portable television set a few days earlier. After the dog was packed away in it, the woman left the electronics shop. In front of the shop she met a young man who, loudly and with a distinct foreign accent, shouted: “They all racist, hate foreigners! No one will change!” Angrily he waved his fifty Euro note back and forth in front of the old woman’s face. “But that must be possible!” said the woman. “Come, I’ll change it for you in the electronics shop. Just hold the box for me please while you wait.” The young man nodded contentedly. When the woman returned with the money, he was gone. To her shock, there was also no sign of the box.
“I would like to hand in fifty euros here”, said the old woman later at the police station. “Where did you find it?” asked the police officers and listened to what had happened. “Keep the money”, they said. “It will be difficult to find the right owner.”
A man stood at the glass door of a department store early in the morning, with the intention of entering. The door wouldn’t even open an inch. He tried to push against it, but nothing happened. He could have knocked or called. He could have tried to open the door by force. The man did none of these. He looked at the sign with the opening times, looked at his watch, and then went for a walk for about ten minutes. Then he came back and stepped in front of the door. The door now opened all by itself, automatically and as if from the hand of a ghost.
There are people who can listen well. And there are others who can observe well. I knew a man once who could do both really well. More than anything else, he was a good empathizer.
When he met another person, in thought or in action he took on his behavior. He looked as the other did, he breathed in and out like him, he moved like the other, and also took on his voice. He felt how a man felt, when he expressed himself and moved in such a way, as the one he met. Then he often asked himself, how a bridge could be created which led away from this experience to another, to a much more powerful, free, and liberated existence.
This man understood many languages. He not only understood them but he spoke them too, at least when he wanted to. Sometimes he spoke the language of an offended person who kept a tear in his voice and held his left hand at his throat, who rubbed his eye after a painful word and coughed at upsetting words. Sometimes he spoke the language of a melancholic person who breathed as if drawing deep breath caused him pain, who spoke of all the things which are lacking, and who almost unnoticeably and yet persistently, shook his head from side to side. He spoke the language of an angry person whose jaw is as hard as a fist, and in between whose shoulderblades one could effortlessly crack nuts. He spoke the language of a sick person, to whom all talk of health seemed disrespectful towards his suffering, and the language of one racked with pain who, for a long time, had no longer searched for words for joy and desire, enjoyment and well-being. He knew the languages of the body, the voice and the breath, and also the ones of the organs, which indeed have their own words. From time to time the empathizer also told a story to the people who came to him. And such a story began, without fail, in the language of those with whom he spoke.While the empathizer spoke in the language of the stricken, flowing from his mouth came the air of the daring. The language of one who no longer cared became the language of one who is propelled by curiosity, and the expression of the suffering became the gesture of the calm and relaxed, who, minute by minute, forgets his pain. And the strange thing was that the people who listened to these stories changed with them. Sometimes this happened secretly and unnoticeably, and sometimes surprisingly, yet the changes had been long on the horizon. Such a story often became a bridge, widely stretched from the suffering of the people to their longed for goal. For the people around him it was a miracle – he simply called it a transformation. This transformation succeeded because the empathizer always secured the first pillar of the bridge near the cliff of their suffering – and never forgot the second pillar of the bridge on the side of desire.
How does one find Easter eggs? And why do some people search but not find? In case you are searching and have not yet found, allow me, as well as I can, to give you some hints.
Possibility one: very small children will not find any Easter eggs because they do not know what Easter eggs are. Sent off without a guide, they will most likely return with mushrooms and tufts of grass.
Possibility two: slightly biggerolder children know what Easter eggs look like but do not yet understand how to actually “search”. There are different ways of searching. And in case one himself isyou are an Easter egg, one yourself, you must know: A good way to find is to allow oneself to be found.
Possibility three: somewhat biggerstill older children know what Easter eggs look like and how one looks for them, but they possibly search at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Have you ever searched for Easter eggs in places where there are no Easter eggs anywherenone? Then you know what I mean.
Possibility four: the Easter eggs are there, but they look a bit different than they did the previous year. Perhaps one knowsyou know them as being red and blue, and this time they are dyed in camouflage green. The inner image of the eggs does not correspond to the outer one. A frequent reason why people do not find what they are searching for is because it does not look like what they are accustomed to.
Possibility five: the Easter eggs are there and look as they did the previous year, but they are covered by something else. For example, clumps of grass, a piece of bark or an old drainpipe are lying on top of them. What is truly valuable oftentimes hides itself. OneYou must search for it.
When one considersyou consider all these possibilities and still doesdo not find any Easter eggs, there is only one thing that can help: pick up a paint brush and paint, and colour your own Easter eggs, red, yellow and blue, and hide them all over the place. Preferably so that a small, colourful part always peeps out from the green meadow!
I went into an inn. It was somewhere in the Scottish highlands. “Greetings! Do you serve warm porridge for breakfast?” The woman behind the counter told me the right Scottish expression: “You mean: crowdie?” “Yes …” – “No.”
“… one does not need even words to make oneself understood, or indeed misunderstood…”