Two Different Worlds
Someone sent me this picture the other day, inspiring me to contemplate the two different worlds depicted. What does the picture say to me? What does it say to you?
Let’s look a little more closely. First of all, I notice that the picture is divided as if I am looking through a window, clean on one side and with some sort of a dirty film covering the other.
Because it’s easier to see through a clean glass, my glance is drawn first to the happy, healthy family seeming to walk right out of the picture toward me. Their hands are joined and they are smiling. All the family members look healthy, too, as if they love being active.
Next I see the shop, displaying beautiful, healthy fruits and vegetables in front. The open door seems to beckon me inside to select some of their all-natural products. Next door is a green park with tall, shade trees, the blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. People are playing in the park and an adventurous soul hang-glides on the breeze.
Then I look through the clouded side of the glass and, with a shock I realize that this dim picture is the reality of most of the North American population and of a great part of the world today.
The pharmacy is advertising its FDA-approved prescription drugs for pain, depression and all the thousands of chronic diseases that afflict the human population. I see three very overweight people, one of whom can no longer even walk about.
A building appears to represent the crippling debt and taxation that are a reality for so many. I see crime happening in the street in broad daylight. And the sky? The once blue sky is laced with chemtrails and hovering over ordinary citizens are symbols of our loss of privacy as government increasingly monitors our every movement.
Maybe most important is what I don’t I see on this side of the picture. I don’t see smiles on even one face or people stopping to chat with friends. I don’t see families or tall trees or green parks – only tall buildings that house busy, stressed-filled, unhappy people.
All of a sudden I realize I am looking at two different worlds. What has covered half the window is grime – it’s smog, environmental pollution which is the reality of life in big cities today.
So what are my feelings when I look through the dirty glass? I guess the overlying feeling is of a bone-deep sadness. Sadness because so many innocent people have been swept into a living nightmare they had little or nothing to do with. People who just want to live happy lives, to work hard and raise their families in a clean, peaceful world.
I used to feel helpless a long time ago until I learned why things are the way they are in this world we live in. I heard someone the other day call this planet a lunatic asylum and he wasn’t off the mark.
There’s a place in the Bible where one of the Old Testament prophets is reported to have said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” And also, “ You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
Can we possibly find freedom in the darkness surrounding every breath we take? If the above quotes are true, there is freedom for those who have knowledge.
But knowledge of what? The nightly news gives us knowledge at 6 and 11 o’clock every evening, doesn’t it? Well, no, it doesn’t. It spews out utter falsehoods most of the time, giving us our nightly dose of what someone else with a questionable agenda and big pockets wants us to believe is reality. And we accept the skewed version of the truth because it’s the CBC or CNN.
How do we find the knowledge that will make us free? The first and perhaps most important requirement is passionate determination to know the truth. Most of us want to know truth – but not really. Not if it inconveniences us, if it disturbs us or causes us to be “different” from our friends and neighbors. If that is the case, we will never be free. Never.
Secondly, we must do whatever it takes to find truth for ourselves. Digging out the real world behind the one we experience on a daily basis takes courage, it takes time and dedication. Especially, we must question our own long-held beliefs and that can be the scariest part of all.
We have to research the stuffing out of everything – health, politics, the environment, government, religion, the institutions and systems that control our lives. For centuries, we have sowed seeds of apathy, letting others tell us how our world works. Today, we are reaping a harvest of wars, pestilence, poverty, starvation and a severely damaged planet as a result. We have no excuse for remaining in our ignorance any longer.
But when we know the truth, we can be free. We can take the steps necessary to help ensure we never again have to be victims of our apathy. We must decide, and quickly, which of the two different worlds we want to live in.
Over all these many years, I have learned a couple of things which have been a strong foundation for my search for truth.
The first is that once passionate determination opens the door to truth, even a crack, truth just seems to appear. Everywhere – all the time.
The second thing, and very important for me to remember, is that I can find my own freedom but I can’t wish it upon, give it to or force it on someone else.
Each of us is on a journey whether we know it or not. Where that journey will lead is not certain. I have come to believe that the end is not the important part – it’s the journey itself, what we learn along the way – and it is what we do with it that makes us who we are.
Two different worlds stand before us. Which one will we choose?
