“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.”
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
"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
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