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.
Then
there was the time the pilgrim was trying to reach out to old friends and
anyone who might want to listen. There were stories about the illumination of
how perfection is not attainable and parables about how busyness does not mean
happiness ready to explode from within. He had rolled the dice and found
himself singing to himself and writing reflections, lyrics to songs and poems
only he would hear or read. It seems simpatico spirits had either made an early
departure or were preoccupied with
their own searching sojourns.
He
sat soothed by the sea softly swaying as soaring gulls swept just above the
waves with the sun soaking every satisfied soul that savored the sacred serenity
of the hymns of the silence. The clouds blew away. Another season about to
change once again. The oft dreamed about distance grew nearer. Safe harbors
departed. Concern about that which
lies beyond the horizon evaporates. Regrets and receipts of fares paid of
yesterday are logged, stored and shelved. The voice of quiet one echoed
“ its
a game, sometimes your cool, sometimes your lame.”
Then
he remembered how in the great book even the Sons of Thunder were chastised for
wanting the beat the crap out of those who closed their hearts and minds. Gratefully
smiling he returned to that which was burning within singing “That’s the way
goes”
"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
Where is Joseph Campbell when we need him? Great myths remain to be explicated!
So many queries need to be resolved and a substantive discernment is imperative in order to examine the convoluted origins of purpose.
Some unpublished storyteller continues to weave the fable about that lost boy pilgrim dreaming of canvas tightening to catch the breeze just right to head out onto uncharted waters. Another myth had that boy watching in wonder the effortless soaring of God’s favored feathered friends. “To be free” was the oft whispered mantra .”An inner voice said “Just think good thoughts.” Maybe these storyteller are just confused .
Paintings of sloops and ketches would stop the boy dead in his tracks. His trance would transport him into the painting on the shore or even on the deck with the salted wind brushing his face as he prepared to come about on a starboard tack. When in the actual presence of real vessels either moored or under sail offshore he felt as if he was standing at the gates of heaven. Though surrounded by lakes, ponds and bays he remained landlocked as those odyssean dreams dissolved.
Beguiling guitars and girls gradually goaded the pilgrim into another world.
He was also quick to break his covenant concerning passing that math test and committing to priesthood. No one explained to him how God does not forget and how God also forgives. There was a plan, or at least an outline of a potential chartered course that would remain a mystery. What the lost boy didn’t disclose was that the fears, the gratitude and peculiar perceptions concerning these dreams and distractions would be secretly recorded in once virginal volumes. The storytellers said that they may hold the key…but again the musings within those pages might be a diversion.( maybe the Hawk Hill girls will eventually decide the veracity and worth-whileness .)
But it was the admiration of the freedom of the flight of the feathered friends that changed everything, or so it seems. Growing into a classical type “A” , things needed to be controlled and the pilgrim decided to take things into his own hands. Student of DaVinci and Audubon the lessons commenced on the art of flight. He quickly learned that it took more than “thinking good thoughts.” It was more like $50/hr for lessons in a Cessna 172! After a few hours of freedom coasting with the angels a day of reckoning called “power off stalls” arrived. The plane would intentionally lose power and lift and fall from the sky. “Relaxation and response”, everything was almost counter intuitive – such as pointing the nose of the plane down. The next week the lost boy was found wondering at the docks of the local lake looking at weekend sloops. So much for taking things into one’s own hands! “Well, the principle of Bournelli’s Theorem applies to flying and sailing” he rationalized. He finally fulfilled that boyhood dream of discovering the Southern Cross of peace in the wind on the water.
Though the earth has turned more than a thousand times since that day, the wind still speaks to him through the song of the chimes of freedom . The words now flow effortlessly into the new freshly opened journal with wonder in gratitude about how often he has been distracted and how he accidentally comes back to the point where he belongs .
“Another year gone by. Another year begins tomorrow.”
“Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained”
- The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The Voice of the Devil, William Blake
