Pollyanna the Peacemaker
I received the following e-mail from one of my oldest and dearest friends, Betina, in reply to the newsletter I wrote about staying in such a peaceful environment on a fruit plantation over September 11th:
“Oh my God Rafito I just finished reading your Yang Tone Farm newsletter and I got so much into it that after I finished I had to rub my eyes because I felt like I had been watching the most wonderful and beautiful movie ever in a dark theater. What you said about creating peace in our midst was so powerful. Yes, I also agree that terrorism is very much a part of our news media and in the mouths of our politicians, but it doesn’t have to be a part of our souls.
I try to combat terrorism in my little space here in Manhattan by always approaching others with love, no matter what. As an example, my “awful” landlord, Gary, didn’t want to renew my lease and was ignoring my sober letters to him until I wrote him a “love” letter that must have blown his mind because within two days I got my lease. No it wasn’t a letter of sex and hot kisses...none of that slurpy stuff. I just told him how much I had appreciated all the repairs that he had done on the building through the years and that I didn’t want to have to take such a considerate and law abiding landlord to court. Yes, I know I acted like a wimp and a Pollyanna, but that’s who I am when you come down to it. It’s always worked for me. Love always works. I also meant every word that I wrote to him.”
Betina has been living in the same building near the West Village in Manhattan for almost 4 decades now. I know, because she took over my first apartment there when I left for cheaper digs in Spanish Harlem in 1969. (That’s another story, but I won’t tell it here.) I was so proud of that bachelor suite because at 22, just having graduated from university, it was the first time I had ever lived alone. With a mattress on the floor, a few pieces of low furniture, and my two kittens that I rescued from the SPCA, it felt very homey.
I had met Betina several months previously. We had both started work the same week at the New York City Welfare Department, and were in a training program together. We became instant friends, with our friendship continually having grown deeper over the decades. Betina is one of those rare human beings whose deep sense of spirituality, compassion and gentleness comes from deep inside. And if you meet her, don’t let her mild mannered personality fool you. She may act like a female version of Clark Kent, but I think of her as Super Chutzpah Woman.
Betina is of Mexican origin, having grown up in Arizona. Coming from a very religious family, she entered the convent as a young woman and became an ordained nun. The walls and rules of the convent were too restrictive for her spirit, however and shortly before I met her, she threw away her frock and moved to New York City. Think of the courage that takes.
Several years after she took over my apartment, she moved downstairs to a one-bedroom apartment, where she has lived ever since. Stability, however, has not prevented her from living an amazing life. Her jobs have included being a bi-lingual teacher in the New York City public schools, where she calmed down some very tough Puerto Rican children by teaching them to meditate, and later being a teacher for children with terminal illnesses in a New York City hospital. She traveled alone through the hills of Mexico looking for the grave of her great grandfather, who had been a soldier in the Mexican Revolution, and went on another trip by herself into some of the out of the way places in the Amazon. In recent years she spent time at an Ayurvedic Clinic in India, and from what I understand, her spirituality touched many of the people there, who were certainly no strangers to spirituality themselves.
So I couldn’t help but deliciously laugh when I read the above story of writing a love letter to her landlord. Can you imagine trying to evict such a beautiful person who has lived in your building for 37 years? But more to the point, I think of Betina being able to see the good in everybody, and the power that has when it is expressed to someone who has taken an adversarial position against you.
Can you imagine if we all wrote love letters to our so-called enemies? ”Dear Osama.
I really respect the way you care so deeply about your people. I just can’t let you keep hurting my friends. I really don’t want to have to hurt your friends in retaliation! Nobody wins that way. Why don’t we get together for lunch sometime soon and figure out our differences. We’re two good and intelligent people. We can work it out.
Love, George.”
Now wouldn’t that be a different world!
But we don’t have to wait for our politicians to figure this out. Each one of us can do this on our own. We all have someone we are in conflict with. If each of us could stay strong within ourselves, see the good in that person and communicate it to him or her, can you imagine some of the results that we could accomplish? And as we did this, why would we not be touching and influencing other people to try the same. How could Gary not be different since he received his love letter from Betina?
Betina, in her modest manner might think of herself as a wimp, but I think of her as Pollyanna the Peacemaker. And I can’t imagine a better or more powerful way of being in this world.
Muchas gracias mi amiga linda.
(Thank you so much my beautiful friend)
“Oh my God Rafito I just finished reading your Yang Tone Farm newsletter and I got so much into it that after I finished I had to rub my eyes because I felt like I had been watching the most wonderful and beautiful movie ever in a dark theater. What you said about creating peace in our midst was so powerful. Yes, I also agree that terrorism is very much a part of our news media and in the mouths of our politicians, but it doesn’t have to be a part of our souls.
I try to combat terrorism in my little space here in Manhattan by always approaching others with love, no matter what. As an example, my “awful” landlord, Gary, didn’t want to renew my lease and was ignoring my sober letters to him until I wrote him a “love” letter that must have blown his mind because within two days I got my lease. No it wasn’t a letter of sex and hot kisses...none of that slurpy stuff. I just told him how much I had appreciated all the repairs that he had done on the building through the years and that I didn’t want to have to take such a considerate and law abiding landlord to court. Yes, I know I acted like a wimp and a Pollyanna, but that’s who I am when you come down to it. It’s always worked for me. Love always works. I also meant every word that I wrote to him.”
Betina has been living in the same building near the West Village in Manhattan for almost 4 decades now. I know, because she took over my first apartment there when I left for cheaper digs in Spanish Harlem in 1969. (That’s another story, but I won’t tell it here.) I was so proud of that bachelor suite because at 22, just having graduated from university, it was the first time I had ever lived alone. With a mattress on the floor, a few pieces of low furniture, and my two kittens that I rescued from the SPCA, it felt very homey.
I had met Betina several months previously. We had both started work the same week at the New York City Welfare Department, and were in a training program together. We became instant friends, with our friendship continually having grown deeper over the decades. Betina is one of those rare human beings whose deep sense of spirituality, compassion and gentleness comes from deep inside. And if you meet her, don’t let her mild mannered personality fool you. She may act like a female version of Clark Kent, but I think of her as Super Chutzpah Woman.
Betina is of Mexican origin, having grown up in Arizona. Coming from a very religious family, she entered the convent as a young woman and became an ordained nun. The walls and rules of the convent were too restrictive for her spirit, however and shortly before I met her, she threw away her frock and moved to New York City. Think of the courage that takes.
Several years after she took over my apartment, she moved downstairs to a one-bedroom apartment, where she has lived ever since. Stability, however, has not prevented her from living an amazing life. Her jobs have included being a bi-lingual teacher in the New York City public schools, where she calmed down some very tough Puerto Rican children by teaching them to meditate, and later being a teacher for children with terminal illnesses in a New York City hospital. She traveled alone through the hills of Mexico looking for the grave of her great grandfather, who had been a soldier in the Mexican Revolution, and went on another trip by herself into some of the out of the way places in the Amazon. In recent years she spent time at an Ayurvedic Clinic in India, and from what I understand, her spirituality touched many of the people there, who were certainly no strangers to spirituality themselves.
So I couldn’t help but deliciously laugh when I read the above story of writing a love letter to her landlord. Can you imagine trying to evict such a beautiful person who has lived in your building for 37 years? But more to the point, I think of Betina being able to see the good in everybody, and the power that has when it is expressed to someone who has taken an adversarial position against you.
Can you imagine if we all wrote love letters to our so-called enemies? ”Dear Osama.
I really respect the way you care so deeply about your people. I just can’t let you keep hurting my friends. I really don’t want to have to hurt your friends in retaliation! Nobody wins that way. Why don’t we get together for lunch sometime soon and figure out our differences. We’re two good and intelligent people. We can work it out.
Love, George.”
Now wouldn’t that be a different world!
But we don’t have to wait for our politicians to figure this out. Each one of us can do this on our own. We all have someone we are in conflict with. If each of us could stay strong within ourselves, see the good in that person and communicate it to him or her, can you imagine some of the results that we could accomplish? And as we did this, why would we not be touching and influencing other people to try the same. How could Gary not be different since he received his love letter from Betina?
Betina, in her modest manner might think of herself as a wimp, but I think of her as Pollyanna the Peacemaker. And I can’t imagine a better or more powerful way of being in this world.
Muchas gracias mi amiga linda.
(Thank you so much my beautiful friend)
posted by Ralph at 2:17 AM
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