We are brain heavy.
Folks with big brains are elevated in status and honored throughout history.
This intellectual power has transitioned us, as humans, out of ignorance and into civility.
Great minds have hurled us into a new technological world filled with wondrous devices like automobiles, cell phones, the Internet, and HDTV.
Devices designed to connect us as human beings,
While all of this brain work is performed in the name of progress with a desire to keep us connected,
I wonder just how connected we are?
We tweet but do we talk?
We post but do we listen?
We "like" but do we know how to love?
I wonder if in our pursuit of greatness, we have lost our hearts?
Has our desire to become smarter inhibited our ability to become deeper?
Throwing us off balance,
creating an emotional vacuum
abhorred by nature
Are we forgetting the simple things?
Why is intelligence considered a strength,
while compassion is viewed as a weakness?
My son Nicholas is not an intellectual mastermind.
In fact, he is cognitively delayed,
mentally inferior
he has been labeled "a retard"
a human being who is somehow less.
A victim of our society's obsession with the mind.
Think about the words we use to describe those lacking in superior brain power.
feeble, incapacitated, dim
suggesting a weakness, a brokenness, an absence of light.
But I am Nick's mother.
And although I may not have a superior IQ,
what I see in my son is something more
not less
Perhaps you believe I am deluding myself
in an effort to "super humanize" my inferior child?
And maybe that is true.
But maybe, just maybe, as a long time observer of my child,
I see something you do not.
I see a boy who engages always with his heart,
not with his head.
His spirit bright and strong.
He sees the beauty in simple things,
and loves from his soul.
He enjoys the now
and is able....simply "to be"
Creating an inner peace and ability to love unconditionally.
Bringing out the very best in others.
And although he is defined by some as "simple"
I believe his purpose here on earth is complex.
With his silence, he educates,
Defining a shining and seemingly forgotten truth that:
When we see with our brain.....we judge.
When we see with our heart.......we accept.
Lisa Peters writes about family life at www.onalifelessperfect.blogspot.com
