To the editor:
I am old and slow of hearing and responding. I cannot speed up my mind when spoken to loudly, commanding or harshly. I know you are often in a hurry, pushed by the clock or shortage of help.And I sympathize with your demanding job and low pay. No one is to blame. Someone said 2,000 years ago that big money has an insatiable appetite for more. Hence the hit lyrics of the 1940s, “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.”
So we’re all in this together. But we do not have to be poor of spirit. We can use our money poverty to unite us in the inexhaustible wealth of empathy and compassion, the peaceful “patience of the saints,” the strength of tolerance and the power of friendly persuasion. We can grow each other and grow together.
I know you cannot help but bring your problems to work with you, for you must carry them wherever you go. But with lots of love, you can be free of them for a while and even return to them with new, relaxed, liberating perspectives.
So when you must tell us to do or to stop doing something, please try to think of gentle speaking ways that would open our minds and hearts to your humble, kindly appeals, rather than make us defend our remnant of self-esteem with disrespect for your careless words to your brothers and sisters in our universal common struggle. In your respect for us, you will feel more respect for yourselves.
Val Vadis
Westfield
