Help me learn
This is more of a book review than anything, I fear. I’ve postponed searching for a new volunteer route until after the holidays. More time for reading books that way :) This was one of those books I saw on a thrift store shelf and thought, why not? Then people who had read it kept telling me it was the greatest book. So I put the other 5 books I was reading aside and the quote on the first page had me hooked. It was a Cree saying that say-ed what I wish everyone could hear: “Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find money cannot be eaten.” The book was a could-not=stop-reading after that.
This is undoubtably one of the best books I’ve ever read. What’s my best book ever criteria? I’ve finished reading it and already want to go back and read it again.
While reading the book, Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan, one of her messages stuck with me. Well two, but the pertinent one was about how we Westerners are exploring and looking for new experiences all the time, but how often do we take the time to explore ourselves? Yea of course. When you travel, everything is new. It is terrifically easy to appreciate all the new, wondrous things never before seen.
And then a TED Talk a few days ago spoke of how air travel is the worst.
But then NPR had a segment about a food writer exploring all the eateries on just one street while waiting for approval to go abroad and how he learned he could find the people he was interested in meeting right in his own home.
And then I thought back to a wise old friend I met in Peru who spoke of his friends in the USA giving him a hard time for running away from the things he didn’t like about the US. “We’re staying here to try and DO something,” he’d quote.
It’s so easy to see easy to solve problems in other countries where the biggest problems are survival based. Maybe there’s problems I can tackle on the home front without having to fly halfway across the earth to help. The first step I’m taking is highly recommending EVERYONE reads Mutant Message Down Under. I have a copy I will happily lend you. I’ll buy another if I don’t have a copy to lend. I just tried finding the exact quote I referred to and found a link with the whole book available for download. I love her message and know it was a self published book so here is the link: Mutant Message Down Under.
The main message I got from the book, I want to incorporate into my New Year’s Resolution. Into a new life resolution.
“If it is in my highest good and the highest good for all life everywhere, help me learn.“
Wow. Yes. Please. Thank you. Please.
Go read this book.
