Mary Boby Gates, social worker from Washington DC, shares her impressions from her trip to Turkey. She highlights the love and connection she experienced as ” My treasured moments would be how we connected with people that are not part of the trip. This is not staged, this is reality. Ali could not,Rumi Forum could not stage what we experienced on these trips. It is a reality.”
Transcript
Two first names, it is Mary Bobby Gates, and that is a little bit confusing sometimes. I was basically forced into this trip, because my daughter accepted, and I cannot control her or tell her what to do. So as a loving parent, I had to come to protect her, and at the time, that is honesty! I want to thank you so much for the honest answers that you gave us tonight in reference to reality of how life is. I lived long enough, and I have experienced enough as a social worker, working with the public and being a paid salaried employee, and for a long time I relied on knowledge and experience that would give me wisdom. God allowed me to live long enough to know that wisdom is a free gift that has been given to me. Knowledge and experience can prepare you for wisdom, but it is the love that we have in our heart that helps you to recognize in a glimpse, in a moment, what true wisdom is, and I grateful for that.
What I have learnt since I have been here is that, it is an unspoken understanding. Most of you here are much more educated than I am, and you are not as knowledgeable as some of us as I am. It is the love, it is the pure love; it is the silver core that’s given to us that connects. I too weakly remember, um, my treasured moments would be how we connected, how I connected with people that are not part of the trip. This is not staged, this is reality! Ali could not; Rumi Forum could not stage what we experienced on these trips. It is a reality! Reality happens! You relate to people, and you can’t communicate! You grow on people and people grow on you, and you don’t talk, and we are taught that if you can’t communicate there is no understanding. Turkey has taught me and allowed me to understand that is not true. That’s not true! Love is love, is love!
I will remember you have healed my illness! You go through a Biblical experience as I have with Katrina, staying through the storm, working in the storm, experiencing that, here on the Gulf that say that, Oh that’s a Biblical experience. It is so much devastation. It has taught me that we can survive if we love! You can heal if you love! You can teach, you can learn, at different stages of life, if you love! That’s what’s important. Love enables us to accept the faults of that faults that live would deny us, that we heal each other over. That’s what I have admired so much about your country, is that you teach me first that you love me, and you accept me with my faults, and you don’t criticize me because of that. You allowed me to be me, and I thank you for this wonderful week of healing for me that I needed, and I thank you Angie! I really do! Because of my love for you, that I came, and it was a gift that I almost refused, and I thank you for that!