we can't all be Gandhi

no we can't.

all be Gandhi, that is. this post is the fruit of a conversation with my sister while she was marking her papers, and i, looking into the intricacies of ECM and FEAR (which has given me enough nightmares as it is) to write an opinion.

every generation there come new leaders, people who inspire and who bring us to new insights, new realisations, new ways of being. and not all of us have it in us. honestly.
to have the courage of Gandhi, or Mandela or the sheer oratorical skills of the late Martin Luther King...it's not a calling for each and every one of us.

but what we are asked to do is to leave the world a better place. a slightly more livable place than where we started from. and i believe, with all my heart and soul, that it begins with us, inside, where things are all born. and from there, we move outward, where action meets contemplation.

it's advent, the start of the Catholic liturgical year. a time most appropriate to reflect on this and to continue my spiritual spring cleaning. and part of it involves learning to find peace inside me. the peace and centredness that allow me to reach out, and to love more deeply and compassionately and to give more of myself to all the things i believe in.
i am reminded of Gandhi , weaving on his loom so as to be focused and centred, not carried away by the things of the world. reading the Bhagavad Gita (a singularly moving text. i read it when i was in Form 6)
i don't weave. i am not Gandhi. as i said, we all can't be. but i can revel in the same feeling of being still and knowing that this is not my only home and that no matter what happens on the outside, the chaos and storms, there is a higher being and a greater wisdom who knows and wants the best for me.