I am blessed to have taught for approximately 25 years. I guided my high school students for 15 years through European history and basic economics in New Jersey and for approximately 10 years teaching history and literature to freshmen and sophomores, Actually, first and 2nd year students in a Virginia community college. My only regret is that I did not start to do this as a younger man. Whereas, then at age 50, after a lifetime of studying and then teaching history and then evolving into a literature professor using the great literature of the world to help explain human history there were a few things that I learned.
Mankind was given an absolutely marvelous brain by God; but refuses to use it. Man seems to indeed live by impulse rather than wisdom. For example, and please don’t get me wrong for they do some great deeds, and I’m not condemning them, but many of the great religions of the world are built on select groups, led by consciousness, and resolutely, mythology. And these groups are destroying the beautiful creation that God made in which he put mankind in charge. I say this, for many, many people are left behind to suffer, needlessly. And the cause of this suffering is withholding the necessities of life, food, clothing, housing, and proper medical aid.
Although I now teach not in a classroom, but through my writing I try to awaken the hearts and minds of a greater audience, or let’s say a greater classroom. When I first entered the world of teaching, I tried not to go into it with clouds over my eyes. Realizing that we do not teach people, you open their minds to other new and different ideas. I look at mankind and its institutes of religion although I have condemned them earlier, I am optimistic. We aren’t always perfect. But eventually we do catch on to the realities of the world. We can’t really blame ourselves because we are inculcated by the great moneyed institutes, but if we open up our hearts and minds to see that poor person lying on the side of the road, beaten down by society, to the one that only the Samaritan stopped to assist. I read in the Old Testament, and maybe you can call me an Old Testament Christian, but there are 10 basic commandments that God asks us to follow. There is also an ancient Hebrew custom that says do not turn away the stranger. When he comes to your house for help, invite him in. It may be God calling.
On a local level, I see many churches, many different faiths getting together, helping those in the community who are in trouble. Which in the long run can possibly save us as a species. But this has to grow upwards, it has to grow up to the ultimate stage, into the country. We cannot allow the homeless to suffer. Our country is too wealthy. We must convince the politicians, the churches, the wealthy, and then we’ll see. To realize that the building that you dwell in is not the important thing. Outward appearance seems to rule all facets of government and church. . . and family. The simple Hut will do the same thing; has the $20 million building or home made a better family, or government, or church? No, it is the works done inside that matter.
I think upon my relationship with God. And realize that I am one very small peanut. Or better yet, I am one grain of sand. On the eastern beaches of Virginia. Insignificant. As an individual grain of sand. But I also know that when the when all of us grains of sand get together we can do great things. I look at the beautiful sand-filled beaches, of New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, and the people who love. . . that’s Love! Turning their toes into the warm sand. The children who loved to build sandcastles. What a wonderful thing for all of us grains of sand to do. We protect the shores. From the violent oceans. So, it’s grains of sand joining together. We’re not only protected. Active. But we’re productive. As grains of sand, we also do something much more important.
Everywhere together we could feed and house the poor. As people living in the world. On Earth today. Economists say that there are between 6:00 and 7:00. Billion people. That’s a hell of a lot of grains of sand. Think of the good that we could do if we emulated the sand on the shores. I live for the day. We understand that one grain of sand is no different than another grain of sand. One person is no different than another person. One group of people is no different than another group of people. We share one common goal. And that is to survive. On this rock where we live, this rock called Earth, I pray that we all can in our individual faiths and beliefs recognize the divine mystery that man’s relation with God is for all of us. Not just the select few. Our intimate relationship with God calls all of us to love the outsider and care for those forgotten by society—the ones who are rejected and tossed away by our ignorance and selfishness. Can we truly live on an Earth that struggles to be alive? God willing, we can.
©Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. Dlitt.
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Meditating to Heal 
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