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I watched a movie called ‘That’s What I am’ last night. The movie is set in California against the
backdrop of the mid sixties and is a coming of age story that follows a 12 year
old boy called Andy Nichol, a bright student who like most kids his age, will do
anything to avoid conflict for fear of suffering overwhelming ridicule and
punishment from his junior high school peers.
The story revolves around Andy, the school’s biggest outcast
Stanley (Big G) and Mr Simon their favourite teacher. An incident in school that results in the
suspension of a student for brutally beating a fellow classmate has the
vindictive father of the student targeting Mr Simon about a rumour about his
sexuality, leaving Mr Simon and the school principle to deal with the difficult issues
of conceding and bending to pressures based on unfounded and malicious rumours
or staying true to their principles and upholding the truth. And while this is happening Andy and Stanley
(Big G) have been paired to work together on their school project which raises
issues of peer pressure, social acceptance and believing in oneself.
For me, the movie also addresses a larger issue, the one of tolerance
of every human being for what they are.
We cannot all be the same, look the same, think the same, live in the
same way. The beauty of the world is
that we are all very different in our external appearance and thought forms,
there are different cultures and belief systems among all the people who live
in this world. But that does not mean
that any one culture or belief system is right and that the others are
wrong. The differences are all just
individuations of the same Source – Love – to experience different aspects of
creation.
I believe tolerance is about accepting the differences in
each individual being and letting the other being live their truth. Just because you have a certain belief system
and follow one path, it does not mean that someone who has another belief system
and follows another path is wrong. There
is no right or wrong path or belief system – all roads lead to the same place –
back to The Source, to Love. Just think
of going from your home to the supermarket.
There will be different routes that take you to the supermarket. Just because you take route 1 and another
person takes route 2, it does not make route 2 wrong – it’s just another way to
get to the same place.
This could be another way of integrating Love into our daily
life – by just respecting and accepting another human being for what they are
and not judging them by their culture or belief systems.
In Love and Light
