Finding The Buffer Zone

The other day I witnessed an altercation between two neighbors. One neighbor was sitting on a bench reading a book and the other neighbor’s dog jumped on him.

The dog owner just laughed. She was unapologetic and flippant. This attitude irritated the man who was brushing dog hair and saliva off of his shirt and trousers.

He shouted at the woman, “Control your dog.”

She responded, “You shouldn’t have been sitting there.”

As she walked away, the man followed her telling her that it wasn’t funny. To add insult to injury she aggressively barked,

“If you don’t like it, move out of this community. This place is for dogs. It is not my fault you are afraid, you just hate dogs.”

The woman did everything except take responsibility for her dog’s actions. It was on a leash that was at least 12 feet long. She blamed the man for “getting in the way of the dog’s love of jumping on strangers,” just by sitting on a bench enjoying his book.

The man was flabbergasted by her attitude and he was becoming more infuriated. Just then, another woman came from around the corner and saw her friend (the dog owner).

She asked what happened and the dog owner said,

“This guy is afraid of dogs and he’s blaming me.”

The man shouted,

“I am not afraid of dogs. I am sorry that people like you have dogs.“

Before the argument could escalate any further, the dog owner’s friend apologized to the man even though it wasn’t the friend’s dog.

She said, “There is no love here.”

The dog owner stormed off and the man, still fuming began to calm down. He was still shaking his head in disbelief. The dog owner’s friend told the man that she always tells her friend to control her dog but she doesn’t listen.

It was an interesting exchange of energy. The friend of the dog owner put herself in the middle to diffuse the situation before it got any further.

If energy were a color, imagine the man and dog owner with red energy and the dog owner’s friend came in with a white energy that neutralized the red energy.

The dog owner’s friend played the part of a peace negotiator or a buffer zone. In geography, a buffer zone is any zonal area that serves the purpose of keeping two or more other areas (often, but not necessarily, countries) distant from one another.

Buffer zones can be set up to prevent violence, protect the environment, protect residential and commercial zones from industrial accidents or natural disasters, keep prisoners intent on escaping from rapidly acquiring hostages or a hiding place and other reasons.

A buffer zone is meant to separate a potential problem. Fortunately for the neighbors, the dog owner’s friend was placed in that situation to bring it to a halt.

Have you even been in a situation where you felt you were aiding in solving a problem? As spiritual beings having a human experience, we are often placed in circumstances that test our courage and ability to attain peaceful resolutions.

Certain situations may not be able to be solved with peaceful resolutions, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try our best in every situation.

Just because nations are warring doesn’t mean that we have to stop loving and treating those we meet with kindness and consideration.

Don’t we owe it to ourselves to hold on to love in those moments of despair?

How do you hold on to love in those moments when you feel there is no love?