I was at the doctor's again today.  Got more blood work and some specialty tests.  We'll see...maybe and may I say "OUCH"...not for the needles, but for the TAPE, since I'm allergic to it!  While waiting for my turn, I picked up a copy of TIME Magazine  with 100 faces on the cover.  HHHMMMMM...100 "most influential people of the year".  Many on the Times list I did not know, but many do great work.   And regarding many on the list, I could hardly believe my eyes!

These are some of the rankings found in the article:  Bono  #10;  Nelson Mandela #24; Bill Clinton #38; Clint Eastwood #57; Hillary Clinton #77; Katie Curic #144; Barry Bonds #185; Paris Hilton #203 (A blend of magazine and Website).

UNDER PEOPLES’ “HEROS AND PIONEERS”

            Oprah Winfrey; Elizabeth Edwards; Warren Buffett……Well…..?

What was Times’ Top 100 Most Influential? 

(Hey…it’s in the May 12, 2008 issue – I ain’t listin’ them all…)

But the first ones I encounter as I turn the pages (they were not listed in numerical order – and * means that I agree with the listing) are:

The Dalia Lama *

Valadimir Putin

Obama/Clinton/McCain (wasn’t Pat Paulson also on the ballot once?)

Hu Jintao – Path-breaking Chinese leader *

Anwar Ibrahim – global voice of moderate Islam*

Bartholomew I – Eastern Orthodox leader who defines Environmentalism as a  

                             spiritual response*

HEROS AND PIONEERS:

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie….HHHMMMMM?

Oprah Winfrey – at times?

Lance Armstrong – the remarkable athlete who taught humanity and cancer

                                  patients like me how to keep up the fight *

Peter Gabriel – the musician who keeps finding new ways to bring Justice to the

                           world*

            “It has been written: ‘THE SWORD COMES INTO THE WORLD

            BECAUSE OF JUSTICE DELAYED AND BECAUSE OF JUSTICE

            PERVERTED.’”

Randy Pausch – his lessons on life (via YOUTUBE) – at 47 years of age, he is

            dying of Pancreatic cancer.  He chose to follow his dream by urging us to

            follow ours.*

And then we have ALEXIS SINDUHIJE, the Berundi journalist risking his life to

heal his nation’s wounds.*

George Mitchell – Well, he perhaps did a good job in brokering Irish peace.  But cleaning up baseball?  Barry Bonds – perhaps the only player to maybe take performance enhancing drugs.  Hey…I mean yeah, baseball is realizing 1,000 fewer home runs than before  Conseco “blew the whistle” – but aren’t we ( and Congress) faced with more important issues – environment, dollar strength, War???.

Hey…You know…sometimes we are so caught-up in who’s right and who’s wrong, that we forget ‘what’s’ right and what’s wrong…!

How about ERIC CHIVIAN and RICHARD CIZIK, the Physician and the Preacher, coming from two different worlds, but with one message: PROTECT THE PLANET! 

            But then, WHY??? How come and what for ?

I really dig what MARY LOU JEPSEN has accomplished with her goal of One-Laptop-per-child.  Solar-powered, wireless, and at $188 per computer…she is shedding true light, and actually making a difference !

There are lots more, and I would urge you to read a copy at your library soon.  But also remember…or ask the “WHY?”

In HAMLET, I read “THERE ARE MORE THINGS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH, HORATIO, THAN ARE DREMPT OF IN YOUR PHILOSOPY.”

I don’t think we know the 100 most influential people in the world … REALLY!

Oh, I have met some – Warriors of Peace, the TEJA BELLS, and even the B.K. FRANTZIS, who even though one might not enjoy or agree with all he says and does...the world is certainly a better  and healthier place because he is here.

Hey, I know how to figure out how influential a person is; we could calculate a person’s influence by taking their GOOGLE hits, adding to that their YOUTUBE hits, and then adding the number of words in their Wikipedia entry, and to be well-rounded, we’ll multiply that number by three or four.  Blah, Blah, Blah…..

Yeah, I know, Three (3) is a more Taoist number…

I know how to tell the strength of a person…:  by how much he can lift; Well…actually, no!  I judge how strong a person is by how they treat children and senior citizens.  I employ the kindness factor, for only the truly strong can ever afford to be kind.

According to an accompanied essay by Joel Stein, the most influential person in the world is Vladimir Putin, Time’s  “Person of the Year” in 2007.  Yeah!  WENDY KOPP, creator of TEACH FOR AMERICA, is the least influential on the list.  OH REALLY, and Oprah comes in at #16, while LANCE ARMSTRNG IS #15 (Who’d a tho’t?) Bush came in #2!

Influential?  HHMMM….once perhaps, I did employ that yardstick.  Now, I keep score rather differently.

There is a NUN who hasn’t left her hut in 60 years!  She gets my vote!  WHAT  Influence, man…influence! Making a difference in the real world, not the Transitory…

I measure success and impact and rate on a different scale!  Many  on the top 100 could be undone with a bullet….or in a car wreck. 

But there are those who’s lives are interwoven into the very fabric of life – who aren’t concerned with being in WHO’S WHO – in fact they wish you wouldn’t bother with them. 

I had listed some names, but felt it would be better to allow you to encounter them in your own personal DREAMTIME, your own forays into FOURTH TIME.

But to be exposed to a few: “Some Light at the End of the World…

Produced by National Geographic and available here on YouTube: "Light 
 at the Edge of the World-The Science of the Mind" with Wade Davis (a 
 guest speaker at Mountainfilm). The program is comprised of five 10-
 minute videos, which are listed in order here:
 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3oz9S84us4
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PCKXvmWkYY
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVoa6hk1MLI
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meFdtlFBIPE
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTh8ioDx-ow
 
 Here is a description of Wade Davis on the Mountainfilm website:
 http://www.mountainfilm.org/festival/2008/weekend/guests.asp#davis

There are people, people great of soul, who spend their time sending out love to the world, sending out peace and healing, fostering acceptance.

Oh, yes, the Dali Lama is a great person, and must be in the top 10 percent, I guess.  But there are people in Asia, Europe, America (both South and North)… in Alice Springs and many who loom FROM A-FAR in Africa and Egypt and places we have never heard of…all who are linked by the thread from the fabric of life.  People who send out love, and forgiveness and Light.

Friends of TAO: If you think the world is in a bad state of affairs, with the Church in it, just think what a condition and sad state of affairs the world would be in without the church…and by church, I mean not Religion, the cause of 9/11, but I mean spiritual people from all over – who only care, who only love, and who do so off-the-beaten path…away from centers-of –influence; in the quietness and stillness of the high-ways and by-ways of the World….

100 most influential people:  I couldn’t begin to pronounce their names – or even the towns and hamlet where they dwell – but even now, I feel them – and I know their influence in the world.

Antoinne de Saint-Exupery wrote in The Little Prince:  “IT IS ONY WITH THE HEART ONE CAN SEE RIGHTLY; WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IS INVISIBLE TO THE EYE.”

100 Most Influencial…..Phooey !

There are basically two-types of people in this world … Really !

There is the person who makes a bad situation worse simply by showing-up; and

Then we have the individual who can make a bad situation better simply by showing-up.   Which are you cultivating towards…

I shall conclude with the words of Anais Nin who wrote…

 “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage”.

Influence ; the type on the nightly news or the influence of being a thread in the fabric of life…

Shen Sung

  Fred