For some there comes a time when a second chance is given.That time then becomes a celebration of the unrecognized gifts of the past and humble gratitude for the wonder of present.
This then is a collection of reflections and comments on life,work,love and faith to be sung ,and danced to, in thanksgiving for a second chance.
"Into this world, this
demented inn, where there was absolutely no room for him at all, Christ comes
uninvited.”
- Thomas Merton
For Religious fanatics only...
Charlie Brown asked Lucy why she
was so happy. Lucy explained how it was "Christmas" and she
explained further that this was the time of year to "spread joy, caring,
compassion, giving and love." Charlie Brown wondered to Lucy, "Why
do we just do these things at Christmastime and why can't we do those things
all year round?" Lucy yelled at Charlie Brown "What are you some
type of religious fanatic?"
From small villages his heroes
and
great things seem to come.
There was that asterisked Home
Run champion,
A nobel awarded vagabond singing
poet ,
And best of all - a son king born
in poverty-
living peace, love and mercy.
Though the journey not always
easy
And the path not always clear,
The way is simple.
Those who doubt and those who
stray
Are welcomed
To join the returning prodigal
Sons and daughters and their
celebration.
No formula , elaborate scientific
calculation
Or manufactured drug
Will result that which is
discovered when the heart
Lets go opening self to the fulness of time and
To what the soul has known all
along.
And the blessing of the miracle
of babies at Christmas continues:
Frederick Franck in writing
about spirituality spoke of the Bodhidarma in the 6th century who
said something like “It has been suggested that All That Matters is
transmiitted outside of all scriptures, not depending on words or letters but
pointing at the true human mind/heart making us see our true nature…”
Sometimes
in that birthing moment on the first of November
In the last jovial, clear-sky days of autumn
the mockingbird
in his monk-gray coat
and his arrowy wings
flies
from the hedge to the top of the pine
and begins to sing — but it's neither loose, nor lilting, nor lovely —
it's more like whistles and truck brakes and dry
hinges.
All birds are birds of heaven
but this one, especially, adores the earth so well
he would imitate, for half the day and on into the
evening,
its ticks and wheezings,
and so I have to wait a long time
for the soft, true voice
of his own glossy life
to come through,
and of course I do.
I don't know what it is that makes him, finally, look
inward
to the sweet spring of himself, that mirror of
heaven,
but when it happens —
when he lifts his head
and the feathers of his throat tremble,
and he begins, like Saint Francis,
little flutterings and leapings from the pine's forelock,
resettling his strong feet each time among the branches,
I am recalled,
from so many wrong paths I can't count them,
simply to stand, and listen.
All my life I have lived in a kind of haste and darkness
of desire, ambition, accomplishment.
Now the bird is singing, but not anymore of this
world.
And something inside myself is fluttering and leaping, is
trying
to type it down, in lumped-up language,
in outcry, in patience, in music, in a snow-white book.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
-Mark 8:36
So the pilgrim had one of those dreams again. He woke tired
and filled with sweat as if he had been wrestling with some unknown angel. He
couldn’t remember if he won or lost the wrestling match. He thought that maybe
because he woke as the sun rose that he had probably won. Still unsure with his own
interpretation he ran to meet with his master teacher and confessor. After he
fumbled to find the words to explain what had occurred the teacher smiled and
looked at the pilgrim with compassion.
The teacher asked, “”What is this obsession you have with
winning?”
The pilgrim was confused by the teacher’s initial reaction
and responded to him , “One doesn’t like to lose.”
“Why not?”, smiled the teacher.
“ No one likes to feel embarrassed after trying so hard“,
whispered the pilgrim.
“ Embarrassed with what?” the continually smiling teacher
queried.
“ You know, embarrassed about putting one’s complete effort
that results in not gaining anything , you know…losing,” The pilgrim stood
frustrated.
The teacher outstretched his hands compassionately smiling
saying “Losing what? Is it that your pride and your ego were lost? Is that a
good or is that a bad thing ? Do you think anyone loves you any less or that
you can love others any less because you had that dream? What does it really
matter anyway? Maybe that angel was you? Maybe this moment now is the dream.
Maybe we are here… and heaven.”
The pilgrim tried to bring this conversation to a more
proactive conclusion and asked,“ So what can I do?”
The teacher poured a cup of tea for the pilgrim and gently
handing him the cup he smiled and said, “Be grateful, be present to how all is
sacred and learn true simplicity to bow and bend. Keep your heart open all
ways. Help any you meet on the way.”
Yo Yo Ma and Alison Kraus - Simple Gifts
https://youtu.be/baNueuDCue0 Yo Yo Ma and Friends - Here and Heaven
https://youtu.be/21vw-0GWBKQ
For my Soul Teacher
amdg
Copyright JF Sobecki LLC 2016 All Rights Reserved -
“There once was a simple farmer who lived and
struggled alongside his neighbors and friends, trying to exist and fulfill a
peaceful life. One-day news arrived from far away, that his old loving father
had died. His neighbors gathered to grieve, but the farmer simply said, “Bad
luck? Good luck? Who knows?"
In time relatives brought a very fine horse of
great cost and fine breeding, left to the farmer by his father. All the
villagers and neighbors gathered in delight with him to celebrate his good
fortune, but he just said, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”
One day the horse escaped into the hills and when
all the farmer’s neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the
farmer replied, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”
A week later the horse returned with a herd of wild
horses from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on
his good luck. His reply was, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”
Then, when the farmer’s son was attempting to tame
one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone
thought this very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, “Bad luck?
Good luck? Who knows?”
Some weeks later the army marched into the village
and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the
farmer’s son with his broken leg they let him off. Now was that good luck? Bad
luck? Who knows?”
- Anthony De Mello SJ, Song of The
Bird
“If you
want to make God laugh, tell God your plans.”
“Nature
does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
- Lao Tzu
It seems like yesterday that the pilgrim, who had grown
tired of what was considered an extended and unwanted winter, was dreaming
optimistically about a mystical filled summer season.On the eve of the season and the great sacramental
celebration for his second everything that was dreamed about would change in
the flip of switch. Homebound for weeks great anticipations were altered. It
wasn’t until this season was to make her final bow when the predicted second
great hurricane of the century became a great false alarm the illumination
occurred.
“So is this it? Is
this what it is all about? Is your great plan just one big roll of the dice for
us and then you wait and see how we deal with the outcome? Are you trying to
teach us that our pilgrim egocentric plans are really of no significance in the
long run? Why is it that it takes some of us so long to learn that it is how we
respond to situations and people and how we treat others that matter? How is it
that with all my imperfections that I am permitted to wake to another glorious
new day? Why is it that my heart is not filled with one perpetual feeling of
gratitude for all the tender mercies? How often do I have to be thrown off my
Pauline horse before I hear your voice and trust in just being mindful and
compassionate? Forgive me for not being more cognizant and appreciative of all
those sacred pilgrims you have placed in my path to help me along on this
passage. Though people come and go and things change I hope I remember the holy
presence and that this life is a sacrament no matter where and how I am and
there will be days like this. ”
(He remembered that when feeling blue and in doubt – PLAY Van Morrison!
- Besides he
had been accused of being on the Harrison payroll and a Jersey Boy disciple.)
“The Now is called “The Present” as it is a gift.”
“Time
isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious
is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious
indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the
Now, the most precious thing there is.”
There she was standing on
the shore with the majesty of that sanctifying sea, her feet inviting and
welcoming the christening waters into the great peace and the great journey
ahead. On the horizon the canvassed vessel coasted with the current and wind
carrying her dreams.
The witnessing prodigal
pilgrim wondered:
What knocked me off
course? When did I lose that innocent joy where living in the present wasn’t
questioned and being and living were one and the past was not regretted nor the
future feared? Am I too easy to let storms or even prospective squalls distract
me from being?
On the eve of the eighth
anniversary of the second chance dance the season he had hoped seemed to
evaporate.
However, however… that
vision of the bloodline innocent present on the gateway to paradise
reinvigorated his own spirit with gratitude, humility and commitment to letting
go and being.
It is not
living(Leaving?), it is not living (Leaving?)
So play the game "Existence" to
the end
Of the beginning,
of the beginning
Of the beginning,
of the beginning
Of the beginning,
of the beginning
Of the beginning, of the beginning
* George Harrison questioned whether
Lennon fully understood the meaning of the song's lyrics:
You can hear (and I am sure most
Beatles fans have) "Tomorrow Never Knows" a lot and not know really
what it is about. Basically it is saying what meditation is all about. The goal
of meditation is to go beyond (that is, transcend) waking, sleeping and
dreaming. So the song starts out by saying, "Turn off your mind, relax and
float downstream, it is not dying."
Then it says, "Lay down all
thoughts, surrender to the void – it is shining. That you may see the meaning
of within – it is being." From birth to death all we ever do is think: we
have one thought, we have another thought, another thought, another thought.
Even when you are asleep you are having dreams, so there is never a time from
birth to death when the mind isn't always active with thoughts. But you can
turn off your mind, and go to the part which Maharishi
described as: "Where was your last thought before you thought it?"
The whole point is that we are
the song. The self is coming from a state of pure awareness, from the state of
being. All the rest that comes about in the outward manifestation of the
physical world (including all the fluctuations which end up as thoughts and
actions) is just clutter. The true nature of each soul is pure consciousness.
So the song is really about transcending and about the quality of the
transcendent.
I am not too sure if John
actually fully understood what he was saying. He knew he was onto something
when he saw those words and turned them into a song. But to have experienced
what the lyrics in that song are actually about? I don't know if he fully
understood it.[4 (The Beatles Bible)
With gratitude and love for the First Member of The Band
and our recent reunion on stage.
