July 4, 2013 : Freedom Prayer

                             (The Charles River with a view of Boston from Cambridge - J.Sobecki)

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

• Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”

So the planned annual pilgrimage to the cathedral of number nine in the town that birthed a revolution brought the pilgrim up through the hills of the long tidal river. There ahead a cloud poured a continuous veil of tears as his vessel and companion passed through a black hole in the universe. The sound of anguished cries of mothers and angels could be heard in the rain . No words were necessary as they reverently passed the sign that read “Newtown.” Silence. Prayers. After years of repeated passages their vessel and hearts knew this path perfectly to their Jerusalem but now they were aware of how their journey and nothing would ever be the same. 

Just months previously that great storm of the century seemed to be the first ominous sign of that the universe was turning upside down as it battered their shores of their childhood. Memories were washed away to sea. The boss’s prophetic premonition lament of the light shining on the stranded stony faces on the shore should have warned them. Dreams and homes covered by soft-yellowed sand and water logged flotsam and jetsam saw hand holding families bowing heads bidding goodbye from the new shoreline while attempting to rekindle the flame of faith and hope. They will rebuild.

Then as he neared his Jerusalem, with great expectation of redemption and deliverance, he crossed over into the town that had become his adopted home. His welcome was celebrated like a Joycean wake mixed with the songs of freedom by ghosts of patriots . Constant solemn bells rang out in sacred remembrance for all the broken hearts and the heroes. To him it was and is personal. He and the co-sojourner family pausing their moveable feast softly somberly joined the ever echoing voices of marathoners and citizens in a reverential defiant chorus of “we are Boston Strong!” 

“Storms end, souls consoled and prayers are answered for those who believe” were words he recalled from a good book.

The prognosticators proven wrong, the rain ended and the sun broke through the clouds like the first morning. Sitting within a tearful cry from where a young man on the job in training had his life stolen by the sons of Satan, he sat in silence watching the Charles flow. His heart moved by the perpetual flow , the river of freedom – the gift of living in present with his family; the gift to love and being loved, and the gift of hopes and dreams.

                                                                                             (J. Sobecki)

(Lindsay Malone)

(Lindsay Malone)

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amdg

A Good Friday Prayer : For Lilia

It started out as one of those normal good Fridays : coffee , paper, and the dog outside for a whiff of the finally spring air while marking his ground. The sacred day was upon everything and everyone. The pilgrim didn’t realize how holy it was about to become

“We all mark our ground in one way or another,” the pilgrim reflected.

To watch the dog no one would surmise that cancer had invaded his physical being as he carefully observed birds dart from here to there. He and his human companion listened to what seemed to be the first songs of spring from a robin that anointed the scene from above.

For the first time in what seemed to be forever the sun rose without a cloud to hide her beauty as she commenced the gentle warming of everything in her sight. Yet, the pilgrim couldn’t shake the picture of from his head of the once majestic forest of his younger days that had been swept down by some angel’s broom. That which was needs to fall make room for new seeds and new stories to be lived and told.

“ Everything changes, everything says goodbye,” his poem turned song lyrics had become a mantra.

And so it began, while those chimes softly echoed with the assistance of some divine breath. Then just like that…the universe stood still… absolute, silent, pure, peace and grace-filled. That moment of solitude and solace was shattered by a distant call where a brotherly tear-filled voice proclaimed that their mother, who had insisted on going home, had finished her journey and moved on to just what she had desired.

For hours lightening flashes of a million memories constantly zipped through his head. His spirit draining his heart finally rested with the awareness that the sun had reached her peak. It wasn’t until a friend’s words, “Let love lead you into mystery,” that he understood .

And just like that again .... he awakened and it was Easter.

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

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 even 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

                 "A Time to say good-bye"

                        In Memoriam Lilia Avogadri Sobecki

 

 amdg

The Miracle of Yawkey Way: Father's Day Eve

Fenway Cathedral at Dusk

 

In a cartoon called “Non Sequiter” a New Englander is sitting at his seat at his local diner and notices a sign that reads “ Thank you for Not Talking about Religion.” The customer asks the waitress

“Whoa , what’s this all about Flo?”

She says

“I just want to prevent auguments breakin out in heah.”

The customer protests

“Well that’s trampling on my rights!”

The waitress puzzled

“Since when have you been…”

She catches herself mid sentence and says

“Oh” and she continues

“Baseball isn’t a religion, Eddie!”

The customer screams out in protest

 

“BLASPHEMY!!!”

 

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2010/03/06/

 

Pompous prognosticators are paid to predict precipitation possibilities. Passionate prayer filled petitioners plead for picture perfect serene skies. Prediction versus hope.  Dreams of fields filled with the spirits of Williams and Yaz consume the gathering pilgrims parading through passageways of the sacred sanctuary.  The explosive torrent that suddenly washed away the throngs celebrating the awarding of Stanley’s Cup from another season did not wash away the spirit of the anticipated evening-time ecclesiastical celebration.

 

The grace of Kenmore’s tri-color trimark sits atop a short distance from the green monster, quiet vigilant paladin of the trio ward-robed in their allegiant attire maintaining their confident expectancy as they pass through these welcoming gates of paradise. The fears that the diabolical meteorologists may have been accurate suddenly succumb to amnesia. Warm mother sun seems to wind-wipe away the collection of ominous cumulous puffs. All that remains on the great canopy are white streaks along the virgin blue canvas creating a gentle glow of orange-red on the holy horizon as mother sun bids her farewell.   

 

The pilgrim father witnesses this grace with pious humility wondering when will he ever learn and why worry found a place in his heart. Safe at home, his blood, the divine gifts, the miracles of their existence join him in the jubilee of their mutual love and the love for their team.

 

This trinity raise cold ones in sacramental salute while the angelic choir proclaim… ”So good, so good….”

The Trio at Home (plate)

  

 

    “In my beginning is my end…
    Home is where one starts from…
    In my end is my beginning.”
    (T. S. Eliot, “East Coker”)

 

“..baseball is about coming home. The whole point of the game is to finish where you begin – home plate – and once you are home you are finally safe.”

-       Crossing Home, James Penrice

 

 

 

 

 

 

amdg

 

A request

A friend asked "Please tell me about your morning relections."
So I wrote...

Morning peace

There, over there…
Morning bird rests
Her sunrise serenade.
Silence,
Dark nature’s stanchions
Leaves rustled,
Breezes born
From the gentle movement
Of an angel’s wings.
Colors gradually perceptible
By the heart’s eye.
Wonderous orb
Calmly reclaims her kingdom.
Chevron flight
Southbound squawkers
Encourage each other
Journeying home.
Colors and floral perfume
Magnets for worker bees
Humming, buzzing
amongst the petals
At the pilgrim’s feet.

-- J.Sobecki , Songs of The Second Chance Dance,Copryright 2008