Music Playlist for September 2010
Each week we broadcast six New Dimensions programs four times a day. Click here for this weeks listening schedule.
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What's It All About?
by Justine Willis Toms
Recently I gave myself the gift of a detox retreat at the Optimum Health Institute in San Diego, California. This is a place where you can give your digestive process a break using a cleansing diet along with freshly juiced wheatgrass. There were about one hundred fellow participants and, as you can imagine, some significant conversations unfolded as we took our minds off our stomachs and started exercising other aspects of ourselves.
On one occasion I sat on the lawn with the soft winter sun gently warming me, and had a pleasant exchange with Len Wechsler, a tall, lean man whose deep brown eyes and impish smile revealed the little boy alive and well within. A spontaneous storytelling moment emerged as we challenged one another to share interesting stories about our lives.
Len offered a memory of Harvey Goldberg, a gifted professor he had the privilege of meeting during his undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Len’s eyes welled up with tears as if forty years had not passed since he was enrolled in Professor Goldberg’s class on the History of Contemporary Revolutions, including twentieth-century uprisings in Iran, Poland, Japan, and many other countries. My friend told of how his teacher stood at the lectern each day and taught without the aid of notes. The course was so popular that semester that it was moved three times to ever larger lecture halls—and still the class had standing room only.
Len described for me the final lecture of the course. "Goldberg taught up to the last minute of the last day, teaching right up to the bell. He says, ‘Well, we are done.’ He turns his back to the students as if to close the class. Then turning back towards the shining young faces he says, ‘You want me to tell you what it is all about? You want to know the answer. Well, guess what, I’m going to tell you.’ All of us were on the edge of our seats, holding our breath, knowing that in a moment the secret of it all would be revealed. He says, ‘Everything we’ve done this semester, and all the other courses you've taken this semester, it's all good. But none of it really matters.’ Then he leans forward on the lectern and says, 'It's really very simple. And it's one word. Love. That's all that matters. That's what life is all about.' With that he leaves the room. Everyone is crying."
Professor Goldberg was right. Love is the way in and love is the way out. Love is the path, the process, the key.
May your new year be filled with love.
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