"Why did they kill him?" she wants to know.
We've had this conversation repeatedly in various forms: the 'why do people do bad things to good people?' conversation. I’m not very good at it. I never feel like I nail it. If I can barely wrap my mind around it, I'm pretty sure my five-year-old is mystified. But sometimes the universe gives you answers to questions before they are asked. And occasionally you notice.
Last night I was listening to the first
episode of the new NPR show, Invisibilia.
A freelance IT guy was talking about how, after his wife left him, he really
struggled to be around people. He was becoming more and more of a recluse. It
struck him one night that he was afraid of was rejection. He decided that if he
was going to overcome this debilitating fear, he would have to face it head on.
And so he made it a personal goal to get rejected at least once every day. It
was harder than he thought.
“There just aren’t as many no’s out there as you
might think.”
“We’re always, always telling stories to ourselves about the situation we’re
in and about other people. And that story becomes a reality for us. And that’s
the problem,” he concluded.
This really resonated with me. Assuming my husband is thinking and feeling
things he absolutely is not is our single biggest source of contention as a
couple. I have been repeatedly made aware of the fact that the stories I tell
myself are OFTEN inaccurate. I don’t think I’m alone.
So when Samaya asks me why Martin Luther King was killed, I say: “Because
a man told himself a story about how white people were better than black
people. A story that his father probably told him. And he wasn’t willing to listen to any other story but that one.
The only reason why someone would do something bad to someone good is
because they got the story all wrong.
We talk about how we all tell stories to ourselves constantly. And not all
of them are true. For instance, she tells herself elaborate stories of monsters
coming into her room at night. She’s terrified of cats and dogs. Of her brother
falling down while walking, knocking out his teeth, and having to go to the
hospital. And she can choose to believe these stories and be full of fear, or
she can choose to challenge these stories and find out if they are true or not.
And keep finding out. Because the thing about stories is that they are a product
of the past. A new story is constantly being created. And it will never be
exactly like the last story.
Abdu’l-Baha unequivocally asserted that, “the root cause of prejudice is blind imitation of the past.”
And it's anecdote:
“Among (Baha’u’llah’s) teachings is the independent
investigation of reality, so that the world of humanity might be saved from the
darkness of imitation and attain to the truth; might tear off and cast away
this ragged and outgrown garment of 1,000 years ago and put on the robe woven
in the utmost purity and holiness in the loom of reality. As reality is one and
cannot admit of multiplicity, therefore different opinions must ultimately
become fused into one.
On her way out the door to go to an indoor play place with the grandparents, I call to Samaya, “Make a new friend! That’s what Martin would have done.”
She did, by the way. Her name is Lindsey.
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