Learning Diversity and Love as a Clown

I have realised that embracing diversity is peace.  I am a life long learner and life just keeps expanding.

Lately I am thinking a lot about peace as truly embracing differences.  The reality as I see it is there will be those who are sensitive and notice the one excluded and embrace them as they would anyone else.  There will be those who are very caught up in their own reality and give lip service but in reality they don’t feel the emotional connection.  I call this suppression of emotions.  I’ve seen different levels of consciousness and cruel behaviours justified.  However, I am learning to accept that we are all different whether it be physical, emotional or even the level of consciousness.  Can I be with that in peace? 

I will recount experiences that gave me a deep insight.  I was on a Rotary Peace program in Cambodia and went to one of the worst slums with no running water, disease, rotting matter and one toilet.  I didn’t want to go back to this slum but my inner feeling was that I must go and clown there.  So myself and a Sri Lankan Doctor went and we did a little show in the makeshift school.  This community had been relocated to a slum area by the Phnom Penh authorities.  My understanding was that developers wanted the prime land in the centre of Phnom Penh.  Some were intimidated to leave, others received sums of money and went voluntarily.  So we went to the slum to bring a moment of joy and to show people do care.  So we did the show and it was the first time kids had seen clowns.  Their faces were shining and full of enthusiasm.  We then decided to go through the village of bark huts and interact with the parents.  Everyone was smiling and shocked to see a westerner and a Sri Lankan. I remember when we got in the car and debriefed with the Cambodian translator.  He was stunned at the impact we made.  I didn’t think it was much, but he raved.  Then as we drove two children chased us.  One kept going as the other got tired.  I saw him and reached out and our fingers touched.  The weight of the experience hit me as he really had been deeply affected.  I then grabbed a puppet and gave it, he stopped and I could see for him a dream became real.  I went back to Bangkok and told the Rotary hierarchy with tears that what I had learned was that peace is not about sympathy it is about connection.  To dare to care.  That was the message the little boy taught me.  In truth he was my teacher.  It is about really caring about people and feeling the equality.

When in India I clowned at Missionaries of Charity, Mother Therese’s Order, there is a sign ‘Smiling is Peace’.  I met some grossly deformed kids.  As a clown I do not see the deformity, I only see the shining eyes, my only interest in the moment is connection and love.   I felt the same at a HIV clinic in Southern Thailand with HIV patients near death.  I came to them to give not sympathy but joy, love and value. 

So I do this all the time whether I am in clown or not.  I talk to people everywhere as I have seen inclusivity as the key and that every person is equal in value.  Everyone has something to offer, if you are open. 

I have spent my life working for peace with little money but great joy as I feel my work is to help people see the value of others and not just fulfill their own self interests all the time.  As you reach out they reach back and it is you they help, they help you to remember your true humanity is love.  When you love yourself you can truly love others, as you have no need for return.  What you do for another returns to self naturally, in my case I receive joy.  The essence of that is not criticism of others or seeing a deficit but truly loving them as they are.  I am deeply learning this wisdom.  The same applies to those disabled emotionally who don’t feel their feelings and live on the surface of life, it is to accept them as they are and try to be the presence of love under all conditions, this is unconditional love. 

I felt to share with you.  Love and peace to you all.