Nobody’s right, if everybody’s wrong. –Buffalo Springfield
Phone rang. It was a soccer referee I had assigned to a match. It was 20 minutes before kickoff.
“Gary, I have a problem, they don’t want to give me the check for the game. I’m just going to pack up and go home.”
Then while I’m still on the phone listening, he proceeds to argue with people at the game. He is angry. They are angry. I’m sitting there 35 miles away, listening, thinking this is all just so much nonsense. Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.
It’s the first week plus a day of the soccer season. This is the fourth one of these conflicts I’ve dealt with. Almost no complaints about on-field work. Referees are “shooting themselves in the foot” before the game even begins.
In Ayurveda, there is a concept called pitta. It is the mind body type of the element of fire. Environments can be pitta, as well. Our temperatures in western Ohio this summer have been around or over 90 deg F constantly. It is again today. Heat provokes emotions–anger. And we are getting it.
I am, by the way, a pitta mind-body type. I’ve spent a life calming and cooling down. Now I try to be the calming influence. The Zen Master is what people called me at one job.
And I thought that we have so much of this in our world right now. Heat. Emotion. Anger. Hatred. The whole world needs a cooling and calming.
Where Buffalo Springfield sang, “Stop children, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down.”
I would answer, “Stop children, let’s calm down, everybody breathe and slow it down.”
How do we hear God’s voice and leading if we’re too busy shouting?
Take a deep breath, hold, release, “Ahhh.” Don’t you feel better?
Faith Venture 