I am a terrorist, and proud of it. Does that rile you—that I have the brass to make such an incendiary claim? I pray that it does. For it means that you are my puppet. I quack and you twitch.
I hope you find this offensive, because then I will have demonstrated just how easy it is for me to undermine your belief that you are an independent thinker––a person in control of his or her own life.
And if now you’re thinking, “This fool’s making me mad,” guess what? In fewer than 100 words, you have relinquished to me your most precious possession: responsibility for your peace of mind.
Is anything more foolish?
Please pardon my tabloid attempt to get a rise out of you. I would never intentionally do harm. Yet I’m happy to go to the Policeman’s Ball dressed as Osama bin Laden if it helps us be more aware of how we allow external circumstances to hijack our well-being—and how unhealthy that is. When they publish a list of the biggest myths of all time, those in the family of “So-and-so made me angry” will be right up there with “The earth is flat” and “My hamster was Elvis in a previous life.”
I’m not denying the vast pain throughout the world. I’m questioning that it need define us. The gift of terrorism is its reminder that “security” can be found only in our own heart.
Consider this: Perhaps the greatest power we humans enjoy is the power of choice. And perhaps our gravest shortcoming is that we forget that we possess this power. Not that we’re completely free to choose whether we become the first stuttering anchor with purple hair on the network evening news. But in every moment we make a much more important choice: whether to cherish our peace of mind or give it away.
Among the most painful telephone calls I’ve received from my son in prison was the one that began with me saying, “What’s happening?” and him replying, “Nothing’s happening, Dad. Whadaya think? I’m in prison.” It was painful because, in that moment, my boy was choosing to have his sense of possibility dictated by something outside himself. And it was painful because of how often I make the same choice.
Recently I heard a guy on a TV commercial say, “The one thing I hate is dandelions.”
Boy, I would love to be him.
If the one thing I hated was dandelions, that would mean I had moved beyond stuff like child abusers, the fact that a third of the world goes to bed hungry every night, and (too often tops on my list) whiners, name-callers and other sniveling noodle-spines who blame others for their misery. Why, if it weren’t for them, I’d be happy.
I once got a rooster as a birthday present from a dear friend. Not the walking, talking, cock-a-doodle-do type of rooster, but the kind Tiffany’s might sell. In this case, gold and porcelain and small enough to rest on a slice of Wonder Bread. It was my friend’s way of reminding me that anger is a precious gift because it is the rooster of spiritual awakening, alerting us to the fear that is crowing for our attention, calling to be set free.
That rooster hangs in the window overlooking my desk. Sometimes I duct-tape it to my forehead.
I’ve made up a spiritual law. It’s called Divine Perversity. Divine Perversity is when the universe asks us to teach that which we most have to learn. An egomaniac extolling the virtues of humility—that sort of thing. With me, it’s that everything is a gift. My job description is celebrating that principle.
“Everything is a gift” is both the most inspiring and terrifying of possibilities. Every familiar disappears when we stop passing judgment and instead open ourselves to how and why the present moment is here solely to help us grow our compassion, understanding and what Albert Schweitzer called our reverence for life.
Someone once said to me, “My god, if I give up blame, what the heck am I going to talk about?”
Precisely.
I told you I was a terrorist. Or at least I’m trying to be. The Terrorist of Love. Dangerous, but not harmful.
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