Elena Davis' Blog

The Journey Home

// February 20th, 2010 // Thoughts

I thought about Bernie Madoff as I read the paper this morning. I wonder what he thinks about in his available time, how he occupies the hours while he lives out his life in prison. If he feels any remorse or if he is empty, hollow and disconnected. And what of the other characters of his type that I read about in the paper far too often. People with impressive educations that destroy the hopes, lives, dreams, retirements, and nest eggs of innocent people.  I ask myself how people with such high level educations and knowledge make decisions that are so devastating and why by now all these very smart people don’t take a note from the last guy and stop.

This type of behavior isn’t exclusive to the educated elite. Some of the people I knew growing up were uneducated and corrupt. The people that made up a majority of the citizens in many of the places my siblings and I lived were the kind of people you wouldn’t want to pass if you were walking on the street at night alone.

From those same streets there were good people too. There have been people that I consider angels I know from some of the finer places that I have lived as an adult. It’s not that you find good and bad everywhere; people are just people. Most people are in pain and the way that pain manifests can take many different forms.

As a young girl I was convinced there was a place outside of the world that I lived in; where people were good, that did the right thing, had integrity, honesty and a clean heart. I was convinced these types of people existed for the simple reason that I saw them on T.V. i.e.”Courtship Of Eddie’s Father”, “Brady Bunch”, “Family Affair” and “Little House on The Prairie”

The people I knew weren’t like the shows I watched. I thought it was because they were poor. I thought if they only had money they would have integrity and be kind hearted. Naturally, from all their money, they would love themselves and all those around them. But that was from the mind of a child. Although at 43 years old, at times I still engage in thoughts along those lines.

I have lived in two distinct worlds: the world of welfare, food stamps and shopping for clothes at The Salvation Army as a child. To the world of wealth and privilege as an adult.  I’ve dined with Presidents, a King and a Queen, superstars, famous artists and athletes. As a matter of fact I was introduced to my husband at a dinner that was given to welcome The Duchess of York to Los Angeles on one of her trips to the city.

From the time I was very young until now, I have been exposed to people from ALL walks of life.  I spend a lot of time thinking about people—people I’m going to meet, people I have met, people I know in homeless shelters or the people I know in beautiful houses. People—smart ones, and not so smart ones, nice ones and not so nice ones, and what it is that makes people do the things they do. Well Carl Jung I’m not, so I’ll go no further. I can only attest to what I know from my own experience.

What I believe about people is, that it doesn’t matter how educated or wealthy someone is. What appears to be an attribute or advantage does not lend itself to making better choices.  Nor does it matter how poor or uneducated someone is, because what appears to be a deficit does not lend itself to better choices. Circumstances do not and should not influence character

I have received love, guidance and protection from some of the poorest, simplest, most humble people growing up. People who were born into nothing, became nothing and died with nothing.  Conversely I have been crushed to the point of feeling decimated by some of the best and brightest. In both cases, just people.

In the vast experience life has gifted me, I see in everyone (latent in some, full bloom in others) a Divine Intelligence.  An Intelligence that all people come in with; rich and beautiful, poor and simple.

God (Source or Unified Field, if you prefer) didn’t overlook making this deposit in anyone. It is the tie that connects us to God and each other while here on earth. What is Devine Intelligence? It is sometimes called your “still small voice” or your “higher self”. It’s the non-thinking part of you, The Knower–the Observer.

It is impervious to education and status. It is not bestowed on the lucky and kept from the forsaken. It is the intuitive eye for which to see with and the inner ear to hear beyond words. It is the vision and hearing we all have all of the time and if given the opportunity will make much better decisions for us than we can make from our human agendas.  In some, it might be more buried than with others. Buried under what you may ask? Buried under the scraps of our unfinished business, the undealt with aspects of ourselves the parts of ourselves that we have disowned or keep secret (sometimes the secret is so buried not even the carrier remembers).

An education doesn’t stop someone from making the wrong choices and the absence of one shouldn’t preclude someone from making the right ones.

Turning in and facing the parts of ourselves we are most frightened of or perhaps in some cases terrified by…is the direction we want to head.  It is necessary to go into the dark in order to retrieve the most important part of who we are (the only part that we take with us when our life here has come to pass) the part that is Eternal; Joseph Campbell calls this  The Heroes Journey—the journey is available to everyone and all that is required is a little courage and a little faith

Whether you live in a palace or under a bridge—whether you are a mental giant or average by nature—whether you’ve committed the most regrettable acts imaginable or you’ve lived the life of a saint—whether you are a Rhodes Scholar or an eighth grade drop-out.

The journey home is for everyone. My wish is for everyone to take it.