No picture, nor a sophisticated title on this one. Either you dig it or not. And if you don't. That's OK too.
The shift officer of a large oil tanker wakes up the captain and tell him that a small vessel is in the course of the tanker and refuses to change its course as required by the international Marine rules. The captain rushes to the bridge and calls the small vessel over the radio. "I am the Captain of the tanker" he says crossly, "and you are in our course. Under international marine rules, you must change course and clear from ours."
"Sorry Captain," says the voice on the other side, "we can not do it."
"What do you mean?" The tanker's captain says angrily, "We are the larger ship. Please change your course!".
"Sorry Captain," replies the man on the other side, "That's impossible."
"But why?" The tanker's captain shouts into the microphone.
"Because we're the lighthouse." The man on the other side replies calmly.
I believe that the reason why so many ideological movements that try to bring change to the world, and especially to mend the relations between different cultural groups, are not too successful, is that they try to reconcile between positions and beliefs, and not between people. It’s as if they are trying to ask lighthouses to move.
There is nothing wrong with almost any belief or values system by itself. The problem is with laziness and cowardice, and with attempts to implement beliefs and values without being willing to work hard and take risks.
Isn't it that those who are so busy running, fighting, protesting, signing petitions and circulating leaflets, simply forget that many times the best thing is to do, is to do almost nothing, except to shed some light?
Like Rosa Parks who merely refused to go to the back of the bus, like M.K. Gandhi’s advice to farmers in India simply not to grow indigo
It's not easy not to choose one of the instinctive fight or flight options, but only to stand there and show the way, knowing that someone might run into you. Yet sometimes that is the right thing to do: to tell our truth without buckling and without faltering and then – like a miracle - there is enough room for everyone and all the various truths become just the tones of a huge cosmic chord.
Not easy, but it seems like this is exactly what we have to do now days.
