All Things Considered…

I’ve been reading The Way of the Dreamcatcher: Spirit Lessons with Robert Lax by S.T. Georgiou. Lax—an American poet and close friend of Thomas Merton—spent his later years living simply on the island of Patmos. Though some saw him as a hermit, he quietly welcomed visitors with kindness, his life itself becoming a poem of presence and simplicity.

Georgiou tells of a fly entering Lax’s home. Instead of swatting it away, Lax carefully caught it and released it outside. He treated even the smallest beings—spiders, ants, flies, cockroaches—with reverence, stepping carefully so as not to harm them. When asked why, he replied: “All creatures are my friends, and all creatures hate pain… Nothing dies. Perhaps if we lived as though everything were alive and exquisitely sensitive, we might become more gentle.”

This echoes the Buddhist teaching of ahimsa—non-harming—which honors all life as sacred. To take life is to forget our interdependence; to act with mindfulness toward even the smallest creature is to practice compassion in its purest form.

I confess I am far from this way of being. Exterminators still come to my home, a reminder of the distance between the life I live and the one I long for. Yet Lax’s words awaken in me a yearning for that spacious goodness—a gentleness wide enough to embrace every living thing. His example shines like a lamp in the dark, reminding me that another way is possible.

This is why resisting cruelty and hate is never wasted. It is always a choice between life and death, between indifference and care.

So let us remember:
All things considered, choose life.
All things considered, choose kindness.
All things considered, stand against cruelty and hate.

And in doing so, perhaps we step a little closer to the gentleness Robert Lax embodied—living as if all creatures are our friends.