Under the Surface

There is so much that goes on beneath the surface of our lives.  It can be shocking sometimes as we get to know one another, muddle through the struggles of our own lives, and strive for better relationships with long term family and friends.  We surprise one another, disappoint one another, fail one another and champion one another.  We make assumptions along the way - sometimes correct and sometimes quite flawed.

I've been reminded a lot lately that it's what is below the surface that lies closer to the truth.  If the water is too muddy to see below, don't trust what you see in the water's reflection.  You are only seeing what someone wants you to see or what you want to see.  

I was surprised three times this week with truth below the surface.  People with whom I have a long history and believed to be one thing actually demonstrated an amazing inner strength I didn't know they possessed - attitudes and values I thought were quite the opposite.  I didn't expect them to be ones standing beside me but they were without my even knowing.  Those represent two of the three surprises.

The third was perhaps not as much a surprise as a realization that there are people who seem to have stopped trying to sort right from wrong and have simply entered an intellectual zone of winning and losing.  They have numbed their spirit to a point that feelings, conscience, and empathy are gone.  Oddly they seem most motivated by drama and crisis but actually they operate in their heads with a single goal of overpowering.  These are the religious fanatics, the pathological liars, the criminals and the addiction ridden people of our lives.  They are absolutely certain that they are right - the world is wrong - and we need to leave them alone to dominate the situations we may share.  Contradict them and you are THE problem.

Look under the water's surface.  What you find there is much closer to the truth than what meets the eye in the water's reflection.