Breadcrumbs: A Collection of Spiritual and Philosophical Essays by Francis J. Shaw (ebook voice reader txt) 📖

self-reflection, not judgment. Embrace change, for without it we are stuck in the land of shadows, and when all seems lost and forsaken, ask for guidance in the quiet stillness. It will come on gentle breezes and in quiet whispers, holding you close and asking for your trust.

The moment we agree to a lie our mind finds every reason to support it. That’s why our answers can’t be found in the ego and they have to be elsewhere. We call the place many names: heart, heaven, soul, spirit, light, love. Whatever is right for you, name it, and go there every day to banish fear from your story, because it’s never been ‘us against them.’ It’s us against ourselves. Like the butterfly who as an egg, pupa, or caterpillar cannot see where its future will be, we must trust our path and our story.

Standing before my bookcase, I feel better about placing my life book on the shelf, but is embracing change and banishing lies enough to make my ‘one upon time story’ the best it can be, because who puts only one book on an empty shelf? We fill up the space, and in thinking about which other books should keep my life book company, I realized that to become the butterfly we all desire to be, we need something more, because butterflies don’t just change—they transform.

The Greek word for butterfly is ‘psyche,’ which is also the same word for ‘soul.’ It’s not a coincidence and neither should be the other books we place on our empty shelf. They need to be what feeds our story—what supports and encourages the transformations throughout our lives—they need to be our reference books. In, are the books on kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and healing. Out, are books on regrets, fears, guilt, and the past.

To…not want our lives to be about change, but transformation. To…remember, for all their beauty, a butterfly cannot see their own wings, but they share their splendor with us without knowing, as we must do for each other, even when we don’t see our own beauty.

If you are feeling uncomfortable, it might be time for a trip. There’s no need to pack. In fact, before you go, unpack all your worries, fears, and conditions. Go to the most important room where you live—it’s the one where a bookcase is waiting. It’s time to review what you have; to clear a shelf for you reference books. The ones needed to lead you to transforming your ‘once upon a time’ story. So, embrace The Butterfly Effect, where one change in the complexity of your being, sends the beauty of your soul soaring out to the world.

SEVEN

The Special Theory of Spiritual Relativity

SUMMONED TO THE HEADMASTER’S OFFICE, I approached with anticipation. The secretary said he would be back in a couple of minutes and I should go in and wait. On entering, another person also waited. Looking up from his chair, an old man with a huge grin, filling his whole face, asked, “Are you intelligent?”

An unexpected question, I fumbled for an appropriate answer. Should I lie or tell the truth? I had to decide, and fast. “I don’t know,” trickled out of my mouth. It seemed like the best choice; hardly convincing, but not really saying anything at all. I didn’t know then. The smartest thing to do would be to answer his question with a question. That would have been very smart, but I wasn’t smart. He said nothing, grinned again, and as the Headmaster returned, the uncomfortable moment passed.

The man had come to give us a presentation and I was to show him to the school hall to prepare. I don’t remember the details of what he talked about, nor his specific words, but I do remember how it made me feel. How he spoke painted a picture which I could see clearly—it was magical and at the time I thought it must be what intelligence truly is—I was 11 years old.

From the moment we take our first breath, we are thrust into a world of learning. Our parents are our first guides. They show us what’s good to touch and chew, watching over us with love and care so we don’t come to harm. They pass on their feelings, beliefs, rules, and behaviors. We rely on them to provide expertise so we can navigate through this strange place we have found ourselves. We believe what we are told because we don’t have enough information to consider other answers.

When we arrive at school a new set of experts instruct in other areas we know nothing about. There are mathematical problems to solve, languages to learn, history to review, and…a new set of rules to follow. We believe what we are told is important, most of the time, because we don’t have enough information to consider other answers.

I struggled through school. I didn’t feel stupid, but most subjects seemed beyond my grasp and good results were rare. As the school years passed I wanted to understand why—why my friends did so much better—why Spanish, Latin, physics, and mathematics all felt like foreign languages and why I needed extra mathematic lessons outside school to help me understand equations, algebra, and Pythagoras’s theory. Perhaps I didn’t have any Greek blood in my veins or lost out in the gene pool lottery. I had kept all my old school reports from Primary school onwards for years and spent an evening sifting through them trying to find answers. There it was…clearly stated time and time again by one teacher after another. There was one thing I was very good at—being ‘conscientious.’

Excited, I wanted to rush into school to ask the Headmaster when the ‘conscientious’ class would begin and how I expected to do so well. I was sure he would be thrilled I had finally discovered my place in the school world and it was just possible I could come top. No promises…but there was a chance. There was only one problem. Teachers spent all day imparting knowledge and my job as a student was to learn and repeat it back through tests, tasks, and verbally answering annoying questions in class. It was not enough just to keep trying. Success at school had an expiration date. I pictured the old man with the huge grin, sitting in the Headmaster’s office, asking me again if I was intelligent—‘No, I am not,’ I would have to say, because experts provided the rules and the definition, and no matter what I thought, I didn’t have enough information to provide another answer.

On April 18, 1955, Albert Einstein died in Princeton hospital. Somewhat controversially, but understandably, his brain was removed. A maverick genius, if there was a brain worth studying from the past hundred years, it would be his. If his brain had been larger than others it would have been a straight forward conclusion to account for his uncanny abilities, but it wasn’t. Despite numerous examinations over the years, the experts have disagreed on what they see. The ‘relativity’ they seek, between his brain and what he achieved, remains elusive; hidden behind a veil of possibilities and unproven connections. What if the link between intelligence and relativity relied on more than pure brain power and what if Einstein’s greatest gift to us was not the discovery of specific relationships in his scientific findings, but how he got there?

Our lives beyond school lead for further encounters with experts. Wherever we go, there are voices telling us more about our subject, profession, and expectations. We instinctively trust some more than others and according to a worldwide “Trust in Professions 2015” study,24 trusted professions include nurses, doctors, and teachers.

People don’t always come out and say they are experts, and although Franklin Roosevelt said, “there are as many opinions as there are experts,” we consciously and sometimes, subconsciously, decide who to listen to and why. Position, education, practice, trust, and previous experience all play their part and we may believe they found their path through talent, hard work, insight, and maybe, a little luck.

Politicians score very low on the trust scale. Running for office, they tout their abilities to fix things and make the economy and our lives better. They describe their skills, achievements, and experience—in short, they sell themselves as experts. Once World War II ended, the crying of babies was heard around the world, as what became known as the ‘baby boom’ exploded. Lasting until 1964, it created 76 million new lives in the USA alone. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius (or me) to figure out there would be a huge increase in the number of retirees 65 to 80 years later. Along with longer life expectancy, increases in medical and living needs for elderly care and higher outgoings for social security retirement payments, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize it would create severe economic challenges. Yet despite all the time, all the experts, and all the opportunities, many countries are not only still very unprepared, they are operating under huge amounts of national debt—fiscally bankrupt. Expertise is more than facts and figures.

Struggling to connect knowledge and expertise with intelligence, I opened the dictionary. Intelligence derives from the Latin verb, intelligere, the ability to think, to comprehend or perceive. It wasn’t the definition I expected. Rather than providing clarity, it said nothing about applying intelligence. We all think and create perceptions, but we don’t all change the world with our findings, so how did Einstein do it and why should it matter?—after all, I failed physics, quite badly by the way.

In 1905, he published his paper on Special relativity. His insight – Two events that appear to be simultaneous to one observer will not appear to be simultaneous to another observer who is moving rapidly. And there is no way to declare that one of the observers is really correct. Ten years later, he published his generalized theory, providing the equations that show: gravity, time, space, energy, and acceleration are all related.

It’s amazing stuff and my brain still struggles to process all its meaning. It’s not because I don’t have much of a science brain, which I don’t, but because unlike Einstein, I spent too many years believing in the authority of experts, which he constantly questioned and too long looking for concrete answers, rather than trusting in my intuition.

His observations have had a huge impact on our world, from the development of things we use every day of our lives to understanding the cosmos and it’s an event from his early life that led me down a path, far away from physics and mathematics. Seeing a compass as a child gave him insight, that there are invisible forces guiding the universe, with rules that could be discovered and understood. Because, deep rooted in all our lives are answers to other questions we feel the need to pursue. Links to other invisible forces. Einstein may have wondered what it would be like to ride at the speed of light alongside a light beam, whereas most of us have different questions. Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where are we going when we leave? Who created us? Is it possible Einstein