Page 144 - moondani kyema
P. 144
ndani kyema, My Story - Ray Moore 144
Look for the inner beauty in everyone, however plain or unattractive the wrapper
may be.
When I was fossicking with a friend near Mount Buninyong, I picked up this rock. I
was about to throw it away, when my friend stopped me and took the rock from me
and placed it in his collection. Some days
later he returned the rock to me. He had cut
through the ordinary looking rock revealing a
beautiful rich brown wood pattern.
This highlighted something that I had learnt
from childhood, which had been reinforced at
the Melbourne City Mission and throughout my
life: There is no person in the world that does
not have something of value or something
beautiful inside them if you look hard enough.
Don’t generalize (except when you are saying ‘Don’t generalize’!). Generalizations
are usually untrue or at least inaccurate. One of my travelling friends will say “that is
what the Germans do (or eat)” and in turn I have heard him say to visitors to our
country, “Australians are like that” or “This is how we do it here”. He was assuming
that when he went to Germany, the family that he stayed with or the city that he
visited was cloned in every home and city in the country, and we all know that is not
the case. Nor are the idiosyncrasies of one family those of the whole country.
This was the advice I used to give to telephone workers at Lifeline. If they were
going to understand exactly what the problem was, they needed to be specific and
not talk in generalizations themselves nor let their caller talk in generalizations when
describing their problem. One example I used to give was when a teenage girl
phoned and said “I did it with this boy. Do you think I can become pregnant?” The
assumption would immediately be that she had had sex with him. But this was not
Look for the inner beauty in everyone, however plain or unattractive the wrapper
may be.
When I was fossicking with a friend near Mount Buninyong, I picked up this rock. I
was about to throw it away, when my friend stopped me and took the rock from me
and placed it in his collection. Some days
later he returned the rock to me. He had cut
through the ordinary looking rock revealing a
beautiful rich brown wood pattern.
This highlighted something that I had learnt
from childhood, which had been reinforced at
the Melbourne City Mission and throughout my
life: There is no person in the world that does
not have something of value or something
beautiful inside them if you look hard enough.
Don’t generalize (except when you are saying ‘Don’t generalize’!). Generalizations
are usually untrue or at least inaccurate. One of my travelling friends will say “that is
what the Germans do (or eat)” and in turn I have heard him say to visitors to our
country, “Australians are like that” or “This is how we do it here”. He was assuming
that when he went to Germany, the family that he stayed with or the city that he
visited was cloned in every home and city in the country, and we all know that is not
the case. Nor are the idiosyncrasies of one family those of the whole country.
This was the advice I used to give to telephone workers at Lifeline. If they were
going to understand exactly what the problem was, they needed to be specific and
not talk in generalizations themselves nor let their caller talk in generalizations when
describing their problem. One example I used to give was when a teenage girl
phoned and said “I did it with this boy. Do you think I can become pregnant?” The
assumption would immediately be that she had had sex with him. But this was not
