Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

The Motion









"I'm a dark horse

Running on a dark race course

I'm a blue moon

Since I stepped out of the womb

I've been a cool jerk

Looking for the source

I'm a dark horse"

- Dark Horse , G. Harrison


"We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being.We think when we are not doing anything are wasting our time.

But that is not true. Our time is first of all to be.

To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving.And that is what the world needs most"

 - Thich Nhat Hanh

-------------------

The Motion


Some say seasickness is self sabotage.

The perpetual perplexed pilgrim was presented to the great teacher.

"A sailor is an artist whose medium is the wind ( the breath of the great divine),"

Whispered the wonder-filled wiseman.

Sometimes it is not the storms that frighten us

But the constant rising and lowering of the magnificent

Seemingly uncontrollable waves,

Rocking and severely heeling fragile unprepared vessels.

Stomachs churn inside out while scaring the most adventurous of spirits.

Healthy tolerance of ambiguity and reasonable locus of control

Get lost on Homo Sapiens focused on worldly promises of "success"

By abiding to a preprogrammed plotted course - come hell or high water.

The best charted passages and the most scientific analytics

Of future forecasts and anticipations are often at best "wish lists."

Not knowing and the worry about what's next fuel 

The flames of fear and self doubt.

Leading weak egos to the wearing of masks 24/7.

It has never been about what one does,

What one has accumulated or not or one's 

Desires or accomplishing long term goals.

Isn't it about how you do what you do,

Turning the page the message is clear

"You don't need a reason to help people."

A companion once confided that the more love

One gives to others is the best way to honor their own journey.


The experienced navigators and scientific prognosticators 

Sometimes might volunteer and become defensive about their imperfection.

Futurists craft visions in their anticipation

But their calculations and projected forecasts

Are never quite one hundred percent accurate.

Homo sapiens are not as bright as we say they are .

How significant is it that  Hemingway may have reported disdain

About the fog he encountered and getting off course sailing 

From Key West to Cuba?

The tide comes in and out.

No need to get seasick . Panic helps no one.

Be grateful, authentic and precisely who we are

Meant to be.

Savor the sanctifying serenity that is ever-present 

Even if we get shaken by the motion

And remain constant sandpipers .

                             - JF Sobecki

----------------------------------------------------------------



Sandpipers - Cathleen Engelsen


--------------------------

Just The Motion - R. Thompson

https://youtu.be/QfjdXKitiPY

Wasted on The Way - Crosby,Stills and Nash

https://youtu.be/nWlEsta4xS8

Doctor My Eyes - J Browne

https://youtu.be/BrCLkeYKuEw

Will People Ever See It  - G. Harrison 

https://youtu.be/FxL69A5d7kk

What Makes a Good Life - R.Waldinger

https://youtu.be/8KkKuTCFvzI

Til I Die 0 Beach Boys

https://youtu.be/Qx-taep4NNg

Beware of Darkness - G. Harrison

https://youtu.be/VqRRnb4S_6U


A Labor Day Song (  for all who work  - and my dad R.I.P.)


Factory - B.Springsteen

 

https://youtu.be/plaOhNjJeBg




amdg















Copyright JF Sobecki LLC 2021 All Rights Reserved





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Thursday, January 2, 2020

The New Year's Ballad of the Wrong Answer Boy





"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."
—T.S. Eliot




































The New Year’s Ballad of the Wrong Answer Boy

Contemplating the arbitrariness of the celebrated 
annual milestone
He thought it a benefit to consider the sometime 
mile markers
On the decades of the pilgrimage  labeled the
Odd-yssey thus far.
(Sort of a long term Ignatian Examen of sorts)

The first remembrance that flashed was during 
during the elementary days when the
good Sister asked “ 
So, what is it you want to be?” “Kind” ,he said.
The weaponized yardstick swiftly appeared
Cracking down the back of his head.
She said “Again”
Pondering a possible right answer the boy whispered,
“Just who I was meant to be.”
That yardstick raised and his arm stiffens holding back the
swoosh saying to the 
Shocked nun, “never again.” Since that incident he was
left to his own mistaken devices  
falling off the track on a number of occasions .

He eventually found solace in music, poetry and books. 
The next test was the future 
father in law’s Interrogation “ So what can you do with being
an English Major? 
How will you provide for a family ?” And on and on… 
The now young man just smiled 
confidently and said “ I’ll figure it out.”
Again, wrong answer.

After twelve years of institutional spiritual formation … 
‘these are the rules… the divine DNA is in all things, love one
another, live in peace , be selfless, be merciful, trust and have
faith and live in truth and 
integrity , action is greater than words ,follow the rules in our
book and don’t forget to memorize and say these prayers 
daily.” But , the world didn’t care much about that “Holy roller.stuff.” 
How much do you have 
;How important are you and why should I care about you seemed 
to become the metrics of 
importance and success. How well one panders to others was 
defined as a key foundational 
standardized barometer. He got lost on that river and found 
himself submitting to worldly 
promises.Some wizards tried to rescue him converging 
the religious formula with
promises of prosperity. “That might work”, he believed. 
Again, he was wrong. It didn’t.

It wasn’t until he crossed that line when his heart half 
broken that the only way to
continue was to get a second chance.Somehow 
someone something intervened . 
Some mysterious angelic voice in a dream reached
into that cage encouraging to 
him to shed the ragged coat  and mask that confused 
everyone even himself and “
Don’t let the darkness rule you.. let go and let that 
authentic voice within surface
and just let the wind and the river take you 
where you need to go.”

That caged bird mysteriously was released and 
he was last seen singing up a
storm as he let go… sanctified, soaring somewhere. 
Paradise? Some say 
he was finally getting it right


……JF Sobecki





Autumn Poem

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.

 - Mary Oliver


Free as a Bird - The Beatles

Head full of doubt /Road full of Promise - Avett Brothers


Great Big Love - Bruce Cockburn


Lost On The River - New Lost Basement Tapes ( E. Costello 

https://youtu.be/fDwx_tFfSGw

Can’t Find  My Way Back Home- R. Price ( S. Winwood )

https://youtu.be/1xZxxVlu7BM

Days Gone By - V. Morrison


Let It Be - The Beatles






Amdg


Dedicated to the  family , friends and all those I met and will meet along the way.























Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved JF Sobecki LLC
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Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Testimony - Three Stories of Formation




“I believe , help my unbelief”
    - Mark 9:24

“ Why are you terrified,O you of little faith?”
   - Matthew 8:26


Testimony

In one of those vulnerable moments he
Shared three stories with his almost lifelong traveller

Once an old salt counseled the novice sailor
“ If you fear the wind, the waves and believe
You are about to lose control of your vessel 
You are probably right. If the boat seems to be
Vigorously bouncing to the left and then
Just as fiercely to the right.
Sometimes there is one essential simple remedy
For a quick fix…
Stay calm and let go . 
If your boat is balanced she steady herself
And will head up wind.”

He also recalled that one fateful
Flying lesson of "power off stalls.”
His flying mentor had him
Point  the nose of the Cessna up gradually .
As the voyager slowed the speed of the plane
In that split without warning second
A screeching horn from nowhere
filled the cockpit.
Just a quickly the plane began
A free fall with the tail pointing earthward.
Faster, faster she fell from the heavens.
The mentor repeated that quite frequented lesson
“Give her full throttle and push down on the stick
Pointing nose downward with a calm and deliberate manner.”
The voyager thought
"Are you Crazy?” As he
Followed the instruction without question. 
The almost tree top flyer found his plane
Gaining speed as the plane's nose moved upward
Where he leveled her off.
The flying mentor asked
“Is your underwear dry?”
“Yes,” exhaled to dry mouthed pilot.
“Good” the instructor said and smiled saying,
“Do it again.”

Then there was the occasion
When then voyager felt he needed a retreat,
At a safe harbor .
His spiritual guide would provide 
Words of wisdom to ponder in silence
As the voyager  would meander the pastoral
Sacred grounds of the safe harbor.
After a few days of wandering
The voyager met with the guide
Informing him,”I am not getting it.Nothing is happening.
I need to leave.”
Guide responded , “ The problem is…
You are trying to ‘make a retreat’ and not allowing
The retreat to make you. Go for your walk but with no agenda, Nothing on your mind to consider. Just be present and let go.”
As the sun began to say her daily farewell
The pilgrim slowly strolled the grounds puffing
On his trusty cigar. Without warning and in complete surprise
He found himself surrounded by five local deer.
They all stood in silence staring solemnly at each other.
Telepathically the deer seemed to whisper to the pilgrim,
“Why do you walk in fear? Don’t you know  we are safe
And that this is Holy Ground?” Just like that the deer were gone.
Filled with excitement the voyager raced to find his guide.
Upon finding the spiritual master the voyager explained in detail the occurrence. 
The guide looked at the the excited exhausted young man nonchalantly
And said “ That is nice. You know the deer are always there but you were too busy , worried and preoccupied to be present and see them. When you let go the sacred truth becomes obvious.” 

He sadly concluded his stories and explained with dismay that he no longer had a trusted mentor or master teacher to guide him through the endless maze and at times the flame of fear seemed as though it was about to resurface . The yellow brick road had faded , his own teachers and mentors had also  faded  to be distant spirits to remember. The co-traveller smiled and suggested, “There comes a time when the student must become the teacher and allow those seeds learned to flourish by letting go and continuing the Odyssey with faith.”

———————————————————————————-



“Come, my friends, 
'T is not too late to seek a newer world. 
Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds 
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
Of all the western stars, until I die.”

  - Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

FAITH

I want to write about faith,
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night,
faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.
But I have no faith myself,
I refuse it the smallest entry.
Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.
- David Whyte
from "River Flow: New & Selected Poems"
©1990 Many Rivers Press

God Is God - Joan Baez ( S. Earle)

https://youtu.be/Sx9Tkbs3GOY

Love and Mercy - Brian Wilson


Dream Big - N.  Lofgren
https://youtu.be/wpytyf_N69c

Harbor of Love - Ry Cooder

The Healing Game - Van Morrison
https://youtu.be/q4rAP-KAOgQ

Western Stars - B. Springsteen




amdg





















Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved JF Sobecki LLC
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Thursday, November 1, 2018

Ballad of the Refugee Pt 1

https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/david-whyte-everything-is-waiting-for-you

Everything is Waiting for You - David Whyte


 Your great mistake is to act the drama
 as if you were alone. As if life
 were a progressive and cunning crime
 with no witness to the tiny hidden
 transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
 the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
 even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
 the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
 out your solo voice. You must note
 the way the soap dish enables you,
 or the window latch grants you freedom.
 Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
 The stairs are your mentor of things
 to come, the doors have always been there
 to frighten you and invite you,
 and the tiny speaker in the phone
 is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
 conversation. The kettle is singing
 even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
 have left their arrogant aloofness and
 seen the good in you at last. All the birds
 and creatures of the world are unutterably
 themselves. Everything is waiting for you.


Too Long in Exile - Van Morrison
https://youtu.be/A9gRbpe7LUU














The Ballad of the Refugee

Nervous and fidgety , sweat slowly dripping from his brow,
harshly rubbing his hands against his pant legs
before grabbing for the tattered worn wallet,
scrambling to secure frayed folded pieces of paper
from private hidden compartments that everyone knew about.
He secretly glanced down hoping that no one was looking
at his information.

The worry grew as the sweat increased in volume with each 
tempered step further up the line . 
Glancing up forward he witnessed how some on the line
were being separated into separate groups. 
The anxiety and blood pressure built up like
some volcano ready to blow. Another step, more pressure,
 more sweat. Surely they would find out! He didn’t know 
what they would find but he believed that they would find something. 
There was probably some great secret
from his past that even he forgot about.
He was aware of his imperfection but he also knew he
wasn’t evil. Loved sinner?He abandoned conjuring an escape plan 
as he was aware he had nowhere to run. This was it. 
This was the day of truth, the great reckoning.
Was this long journey all for naught?
Maybe it was his credit score?Maybe it is his skin 
color or ethnicity? Maybe it was his not getting that
 job promotion? Maybe it was not being able to provide 
his family with all the things they desired? Maybe his wife 
reported some secret about him? Maybe the local 
priest turned him in for not frequenting services or turning in his 
weekly envelopes after the allegations of sexual abuse by the
clergy hit thepapers and courtroom?He even thought about how 
his doctor may have turned him in for not following 
the recommended diet and medical regimens. He didn’t
 need anyone to tell him he was too long in exile,
A perpetual refugee.

Was he as good a person as he could have been? 
How did his family ,friends and neighbors really feel 
about him and did that really matter? He thought he tried 
to live an unselfish life and tried to avoid behaving or doing 
things just to get recognized or rewarded. He often 
thought it a little narcissistic to behave this way or 
that in order just to get a reward at the end.He wrote 
somewhere , “I don’t think one loves others just to
so one can be loved in return.” 

 Did he remember to leave that letter in the desk?
 Did he update the list? 
Maybe he should have thought more about scoring 
more points and making sure he had achieved more and 
received the proper recognition. He finally turned
 his head in humble grateful prayer. No one knows 
what he whispered to the divine but rumor has it 
that mystical universe knew precisely what was in his heart.

The time then arrived where everything would be answered.
Another surprise surfaced that there was no real 
wall or massive gathering of armed guards at a gate .
He worried that maybe this was all a dream. As a matter
of fact there was no one there who was separating 
and screening the hungry souls, who were now also gone. 
A soft gentle consoling voice from an unseen source 
whispered in the silence...

“Welcome. We have been waiting for you.”

- JF Sobecki

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Murder in the City - Avett Brothers

(… Make sure my girls and grandchildren know I love them..
  Always remember, there was nothing worth sharing
  Like the love that lets us share our name.)


Deportee - Ani De Franco and Ry Cooder

https://youtu.be/fCCgtRy5vYE






amdg



“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple”
        - Jack Kerouac

“The only truth is music”
       - Jack Kerouac



















Copyright 2018 JF Sobecki LLC All Rights Reserved
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