| The Miracle Worker |
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer
in the long run than exposure.
Helen Keller
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
Helen Keller
I recently watched “The Miracle Worker” again. In this movie, Annie Sullivan is
hired by Helen Keller’s parents to civilize her. But the movie is not about that
relationship, really; it’s more about the relationship between Annie and Helen’s
parents. Annie is humanoid, and does not buy into the human Capt. Keller’s view
of Helen. She does not aspire to ‘civilizing’ Helen, like a missionary bringing God
to the unwashed. Her target is connecting Helen to her infiniteness, and she’s
intolerant of anything less.
Helen’s movie family pities her. She is a lesser creature, the victim of life’s
cruelty. They coddle her and reward bad behavior, because she has ‘so much to
deal with’. They feel superior. And the movie’s target is to remind us what the
world would have missed had Annie’s point of view not finally won out: Helen
Keller became an influential writer, poet, and teacher – a far cry from the
‘disabled creature’ depicted at the movie’s opening.
What struck me as I watched the movie is the following: We like the movie and its
message, but we don’t live that message. As we watch it, we know Annie Sullivan
is ‘right.’ We know that expecting the best from others and ourselves creates that
possibility, and then the reality. We know that, had Annie not trusted her knowing
about Helen’s infiniteness, Helen would likely have lived out her life with grunts and
spasms and emotional fits. She would likely not have created the magical,
insightful life we now know she had. But when we leave the theater, we don’t hold
to that knowledge. We don’t apply it to our own lives.
Dare I ask it? Are you living a life of grunts and spasms and emotional fits? Are
you denying the magical, insightful life that is uniquely yours to create?
By demanding little of Helen, her parents were creating their own reality. Helen
had bought their reality that she was a victim, less than, a creature. She was living
that bought point of view at the opening of the movie.
“Victim” is a human concept; it does not apply to you!! Victims and Superiority
support the energy that humans resonate with: the energy of polarity, drama, and
trauma. As a humanoid, that energy will never satisfy you.
Creating a reality that says that others are less than or victims is a way of creating
separation. Feeling pity is not expansive; it makes for drama, but not oneness.
What if it’s true that we all choose our lives? We choose our parents, our realities,
even the specifics of our lives? We are not victims, but merely living out the life we
have chosen. What would it be like to live life in complete and utter knowledge of
your brilliance and talent? To be your infinite creativity?
Helen’s talents and abilities existed BEFORE Annie arrived. Annie just evoked
what was already there. Your magnificence and power ARE. They already exist!
You may deny them, make yourself a victim, play small with your talents and
abilities. But your denial does not change the reality. You are a powerful, creative
infinite being. What will it take for you to step, like Helen Keller, into that reality?
What would change in your life if you claimed your talents and abilities TODAY,
and just gave up the lies of your life?
What would it take for you to make a different choice?
What are the infinite possibilities for your life?
What steps to create them could you take TODAY?
© John DeVault 2005