Conscious Kindness

In the Sanctuary (building) tonight I had the great opportunity to sit for a Talk given by Zev Kedem, who survived the Holocaust, including Auschwitz, as an 11-year-old boy.

Many of you know that everything having to do with Jewish persecution, Holocaust, and the atrocities of the Nazi Regime have always gripped me strongly. Even as a very young girl, whenever I'd stumble upon a black and white documentary on tv that had ANYthing to do with this subject, I'd be rivetted and absorb it all.

So, tonight, when it was posted on our staff classes board that he's staying here on campus for a while and was going to speak, I knew I had to go -- no matter how tired I was from today's Transition Day (our roughest work days).

Granted, after tonight's experience witnessing Zev Kedem speak, with a twinkle in his eye, as he relayed the oddly positive parts of his horrendous holocaust experience, I can't say that I will ever again bemoan any work or life situation I have -- because it's NOTHING compared to what he, and so many others, experienced.

Let me set a bit of the atmosphere for you, of tonight: The Sanctuary is a quiet beautiful cozy venue up on a hill in the woods overlooking most of the Omega campus. It's usually the home of early morning and early evening meditation sessions.

Everyone sits on meditation cushions and if you choose to, you can usually find one of those cushions that has a little back support. But basically it's hard to get or stay comfortable - at least for me... and probably for most people.

Even considering this potential fidgetyness of the seating arrangements, added to my real fatigue and back pain from a hard day's work, combined with the fact that I have to be up at 6am for work tomorrow, Even knowing all that, I barely took my eyes off this 70-something-year-old man for the 3+ hours he spoke.

With an eastern european accent (mixed with highly educated Oxford English), he sat in a chair before us, habitually smiling the most gentle yet mischievous smiles, and weaving the extraordinary tale of his encounters with bizarre chance, horrifying circumstance, and enduring wit.

I wanted to hug this man, to just be near him. But mostly I just wanted to thank him for taking his time to tell us his story -- and for having lived thru it so beautifully.

If any of you have ANY interest in an amazing story, and wish to gleen the positive message(s) from it, feel free to google Zev Kedem and read. That's what I've done tonight. And if it helps stoke the flames of your interest, he happened to be on the very Schindler's List that Steven Spielberg made famous in a film by that name.

One of the important things to remember, in my opinion, is that as atrocious as most of us think the Holocaust of the 1940s was, holocausts are still happening, even today -- Darfur, for example. One of the things that has always stuck with me whenever I'm learning about history and the Nazi Holocaust is that I am totally dumbfounded and appalled that human beings - whole groups/countries/societies of people felt it was OK and maybe even Good to totally de-humanize, torture, and ruin other human beings so systematically and cruelly. And yet, it's still happening today! This boggles my mind! We all turn a blind eye -- or should I say "a comfortable eye". We just want to stay in our comfort zone, to not interfere too much, even though we know crazy-bad stuff is happening to men, women, children, families, communities, spirits throughout the world.

After his talk tonight, one of the intimate group of 30-or-so people sitting on cushions around him asked Zev what we could do in this world, with our lives, to make something positive out of something negative. He simply talked about energy - I think meaning "intention" - just putting positive energy out there. Basically, I believe he was saying, to tune into and facilitate "random acts of conscious kindness" (I believe those were his actual words).

So, I hope anyone reading this might think a little more about taking a breath when they feel anger or frustration. Just take a moment. And maybe turn it around to a moment of Kindness instead.

This is the kind of message OI seems to be all about. And that is why, I think, I feel so at-peace here, so happy here. And I do hope this sort of things spreads. I really do.

http://www.oskarschindler.com/20.htm
http://www.auschwitz.dk/zedem.htm
http://www.greatertalent.com/biography.php?id=206
http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/archives/archives/100997/top.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av7f2ZfrGvs