Acceptance!
Terra Cotta, Ontario
I spent a glorious few hours with Bob, Judy, their daughters, Raj and Surabhi in the village of Terra Cotta. Red clay is prevalent in this nestled away sweet place with the Credit River running through it; the rusty earth tone explains the name of the hamlet.
Bob and Judy are school teachers and I put them in the category of Brahmin friends. Their approach to spirituality, Christianity, may be a slightly different approach than their guests, yet I hold it in high admiration that they are as accepting of us as they are of their own fellow worshippers. In fact over a scrumptious lunch and the trek on Bruce Trail they kept encouraging us to seriously consider purchasing the property next to their lovely home so that they could have mutual-thinking neighbours by their side.
What a fantastic couple and family!
I had a continual progressive day from the stand point of acceptance and harmonization. From Terra Cotta I visited three more households in the area, of people of our community. These were people who took time for bonding and gaining an increased understanding though simple dialogue. The end result in each case was, “Hey we are all family!”
As I wound up the day with final contemplations of the day’s stock I was humoured by my first contacts of early morning, a group of young men who identified themselves from the Sikh and Muslim tradition. They were very amiable with me as I walked Yorkville Ave in Toronto. They did smoke. They did probe.
“Are you Buddhist?”
“No!… Hare Krishna!”
“Oh yeah! How did you get into this?… And what is the co-relation between ganja and the Ganges?”
At this question I had to laugh knowing what was important to them. At least I was not dismissed by the group. When you consider that both the Ganges and ganja were dear to many of us who became monks in due course of time someone has to befriend such fellows and give them hope that there are such things more precious than smoking your life away in dreams.
10 Km
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