For the past few months, I have been trying to stay out of the spider web. I had an epiphany one night in a hotel in Missoula in early August. I realized that I get in trouble when I think I can "right the world". This usually manifests itself in my thinking that if I just talk with certain folks, they will come to "understand", "see the light", and then all will be well - or at least "well" as I see it.
In the middle of the night, awake and trying to figure out a better way, I realized that it is like a spider's web for me. I need to not go there. Stay out of the web . Let people think their thoughts and say their words, but don't enter that web. I can only "do" me.
This morning, and I know it is because I am very tense about Bob's coming surgery, I found a couple things that are potential webs to me. Why would someone post on a public quilting discussion board about another person's business practices - of course no names, but lots of hints - but why do that? If you have an issue with someone's business practices, take it up directly with that person and resolve it there. Can one event deemed "unprofessional" be resolved by another unprofessional act? Now I am reminding myself to stay out of that web.
And, why is it okay, even meritorious, to openly criticize a huge section of our world who follow a different religion? I can understand that as the world works to become one in peace, we have a lot of work to do. There are changes that are difficult for everyone, lives lost that shouldn't be, wounds that never heal - but it is the journey we are on and one for which we have to find our way as humans. As soon as we post our side being best, in song or deed or event or token, we ostracize the other. That is one huge web that has no place on a quilting discussion board. So, why go there?
Maybe I should stay away from quilting discussion boards. That might be the real web. Hmmm, I will have to think about that.
