When I speak at penal institutions twice per month, I sometimes lead with this provocative statement! I share with the inmates that Helen was born in the hole! She was born in her very own hole! As you know, in prison, the hole is solitary confinement where people are placed if they are violent or a threat to themselves!
I magine the teachers challenge to get this, sometimes, angry always frustrated child to realize that the pressure being pressed in the palm of her hand and the cool liquid being poured on her hand was related and that one was a way to identify the other!
How many times did the teacher have to do that experiment before Helen came to the realization of the lesson! WATER! It is my belief that our Higher Selves have similar difficulty with us when attempting to teach us a new lesson! Especially since it is a common conclusion that we use less than 2% of our brain mind potential day to day!
I then go on to say that we think life has given us a bad deal! I am grateful that I can use the term us instead of them due to the fact that I embezzled $48,500 from a major savings & Loan when I was about 21. When I was arrested by the Secret Service & the FBI, I owned several pieces of income property and 5 vehicles, one 427cu Corvette Stingray, two 1937 Chevrolet sedans in almost showroom condition, a pickup truck, the biggest Honda Motorcycle they had in that year and 3 bedroom home free and clear!
My, Missionary Julia Mae Burton, and an Episcopalian Priest named Dr. Dennis Bennett nursed me back to Spiritual Health! Since there is a sense of forgiveness fro ex-felons in Oregon, Washington and California, I soon became a consultant for the Criminal Justice, System, doing staff development workshops. conflict resolution and sensitivity training!
I digress! I am told in the awesome movie ‘What The Bleep Do We Know?’ that the indigenous inhabitants of North America could not see the clipper ships of Columbus because they had no data to draw from in their minds, they had no point of reference!
How many times have we discovered that what we thought we saw was not the truth? How many times have we questioned several witnesses at the scene of an accident and gotten several different versions of what happened! Many have concluded that each of us live in our very own world!
We must be regularly reminded that the power behind our eyes, Says Gary Zukav, in ‘The Seat Of The Soul’ is more powerful than the power confronting us, whatever it is! I’m reminded of a time when I was about 4 or 5 when my grandmother and I were about to run out of gas on a little dirt road in west Texas. The car was coughing, jerking and choking and seemed like it was about to stop! My grandmother pulled a bottle of ‘Blessed’ olive oil out of her purse and began to anoint the dashboard! She started praying to Jesus and asking for his help! I swear before God and man that that car gasped and choked and jerked for about 20 miles and died in the parking lot of a service station!
She did not allow what her eyes and ears were hearing to become her reality! She refused to be stranded with a little boy out on a dark road!
Like Helen Keller, Mother Harris Could Not Believe Her Eyes!
Rev. William D. Burton considers himself a world class performing artist and is the Executive Director of NC Second Chance Business Academy, The Director of Adult Case management for Communitysucces.org, and #2 on the locals Reverbnation.com/revwilliamdburton/app
