Turning Up the Heat

Temperatures above 100 are very, very, very rare in Portland, Oregon - which is where I am visiting for the next few days. However, Sunday was about 99, yesterday about 101 and today and tomorrow predicted to be over 103. This is just way too hot for this part of the world!

Air conditioning is a rarity in people's homes here, and opening the windows at night brings little relief as the temperature last night only cooled to 79.

However, we human beings are amazingly adaptive. I watch people jogging early in the morning, walking their dogs (even tho the pads of their paws must be hot on the pavement), shopping (possibly to get out of the heat), going to movies even tho they don't particularly care about the film, and on Sunday at a picnic in a beautiful local park, I witnessed g
lee in action.

The city had created a giant palm tree about 40 feet high, painted a vivid green with purple palm fronds at the top. It sat in a carved out circular cement pad roughly 25 feet across. Out of the top of this unlikely form poured a powerful shower of water that cascaded down the fronds to land on the bodies of awaiting children (and a few daring adults) who were laughing and wiggling with complete delight.

Such a simple contraption that brought joy and relief from the heat to awaiting hot bodies. It was also a joy to watch and everyone viewing the scene had smiles on their faces. Connected by a spray of water - brown, white, black, old, young - united for a few hours in a shared expereience of life.

Is this not what will bring peace and understanding to our planet? Shared experiences of what it means to be human in the most simple of ways - allowing us to drop our entrenched ideologies that promote "us and them" viewpoints?

To me, this is what brings us together. Shared experiences that touch us without pretense. When we "forget" that we look different, and simply allow ourselves to "be" as we truly are, boundaries fall away and right and wrong dissolve.

Let's keep turning up the heat...

Blessed be...