Monday, August 6, 2012

A Time, A Place, Istanbul, Korea, Soldiers and More


At the end of last summer when I was in London for the last time, I was sure I was going to be in London for the Olympic Games this summer.  As it turned out I wasn’t.  Actually I even barely found the time to watch the games.  The Turkish team was represented by 114 athletes in 16 sports in London, 66 women and 48 men.  This was the game Turkey was represented by the highest number of women athletes.  This surely is a good sign.  However, the difficulties women are facing in Turkey are not diminishing.

I was in Seoul, Korea for the first time in June this year and as I was visiting the National Museum of Korea, I could not be but surprised that a special exhibition “Emperors In Istanbul, The Civilizations of Turkey” had opened in addition to the permanent collection.  I would be in Seoul for only two days and I found the chance to see very important historical artefacts from our history and from Istanbul.  Some of them I had seen for many times at the Topkapi Palace or Istanbul Archeology Museum, but so many more of them, I was seeing for the first time in Seoul. I was surprised, happy and also impressed by the way the exhibition was put together at this National Museum.

A few years ago I had found myself discovering the close relationship between Japan and Turkey through the tragic story of the Ottoman Ship Ertugrul.  And now I was discovering in quite coincidental ways the relationship between Korea and Turkey.  May be there only two important sites where Turkish soldiers are buried in the Far East.  One of them is in Japan and the other one is in Korea.  And in the last two years I find myself visiting our soldiers in both of them in the most unexpected ways.
 

Life seems to coordinate the paths and take me there.  This special exhibition on Turkey was organized to honour and celebrate the 55th anniversary of the friendship and close diplomatic relations between Korea and Turkey since the Korean War, in which Turkey had provided military support to Korea from 1950 to 1953.  Over 1000 Turkish soldiers lost their lives in Korea in that War and are still resting there.
I had not planned to see this exhibition as I had not planned to visit the UN cemetery where our Turkish soldiers are resting in Busan in Korea, on the specific day that the soldiers who lost their lives in the Korean War are honoured and commemorated in Korea.  But I was there, in Busan, on June 25th, 2012.  I was praying for them there when whole of Korea was praying for them as well. 

Life surely has its special order when it comes to times and places.

We might think that we go to a certain city or country because we want to or choose to.  The way I see it now, this is a much more complicated process.  A process we are not usually aware of. 
And exactly for that reason when we need to go to a place that we do not want, we start complaining.  Sometimes we plan to go a city for a business trip. Then we are told we cannot go.  We feel we have been cheated.  We sign up for a tour, then the trip is cancelled and we are dismal. We wanted something, it did not happen, and surely this must be something bad.  Right? 

The reasons we believe things are happening or not happening for might create heaven or hell for us.  We are out of the group for the business trip to Italy and we criticize ourselves for not being good enough to be chosen to go, or we start complaining about how thoughtless and unappreciative our manager, who is not taking as we the company group, is.  It is just not that simple.  Your manager might indeed in unappreciative of your efforts, but he or she still might be making the best decision for you.

When something does not seem to be happening as planned, there are two options.  Either we have to push harder and/or find a way to make it happen or it is not supposed to happen and/or we are supposed to give up or do something else.  Understanding which one we are faced with can make a great difference in our happiness and success.  As work with hundreds of different people in my coaching and consulting work, I realize that main bulk of the work that we do is about understanding this very concept.

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There is a time for everything, a time to go, a time to come.  There is time to know.  And sometimes the universe will want us to sit and wait and do nothing.  All are a gift, as life is.

I chose a card from the “Saints & Angels” Oracle Cards of Doreen Virtue.  The card of “Sweetness” came.  This message is from our Guardian Angels for this week.  The message is about noticing and enjoying life more.  It is about trusting that the support of the spiritual world will be with us if we choose to lower our defences.  Life does toughen us up at times, yet we need to connect with the sweetness of life, with our sweetness to enjoy life.  And our relationships need that sweetness to, through speaking with love, of love, through being kind and generous.

May your days be filled with love and light.
Have a great week.
Zeynep


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Quote of the Week:
“As you teach so will you learn.  If that is true, and it is true indeed, do not forget that what you teach is teaching you.”
-          From  Course in Miracles
Affirmation of the Week:
From Louise L. Hay:  “The Law of Attraction brings only good into my life.”

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