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.
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.
“The harder the journey the deeper the
purification”
- Seven Years in Tibet, Heinrich Harrier
Picking up the early morning newspaper the pilgrim readof thefurious unpredicted and unexpected storm that wasn’t as
unusual as he thought. The storm came and went just like unpredicted and
unexpected storms in the past. Some streets were flooded. The dreams of a few
families disappeared with the retreating street flowing like rivers . Other
families had tree split roofs of their lonely homes .
Page two of the paper had a hidden story of he 17th
Dalai Lama at a local college. The Dalai Lama spoke of how once he entered a
grocery store and noticed his favorite fruit for sale. That sumptuous gift of
paradise looked fresh and ready to tempt any sentient being and be enjoyed. The
Dalai Lama checked his secret pocket and realized he had more than enough to
purchase and then savor his favorite fruit. Without a breaththe money slipped back underneath his
crimson robeas he strolled slowly
smiling out of the store . He is one who has the awareness that he did not need
that piece of fruit to experience joy and peace. The pilgrim grabbed for his
journal ,lifted his broken foot wrapped in a protective boot and began to
reflect and write:
“ There
is nothing like the sounds and salt aired smells of a sanctifying summer rain,
chimes softly ring blessing the moment as the birds' sweet refrain welcomes the
nourishment and the new day.
As
the rain finishes her work the serene soaked earth solemnly celebrates the
sacred re-christening as all that is alive at that moment flourishes. Sometimes
distractions bring one to a path where one needs to be...sometimes distractions
get one off the true path... being present helps us know the difference. No
thing can bring one happiness or peace. They say ‘The moment now is called present
as it is a sacredgift of the
divine.’
Moving
to the beach was supposed to bring me closer to heaven and yes , sometimes it
feels like paradise and sometimes it doesn’t .I can stand on the shore being filled by the wonder
whenarogue wave raises itself at my body and knocks me down and
just as I get myself up standing upright again there is another wave knocking
me down again . The gulls seem to laugh as they glide by while sandpipers seem
to chase the comings and goings of the waves ignoring my situation.
The
tide comes in and the tide goes out. The sunrises and the sun sets. All things
must pass right?”
"If a problem can be solved there is
no use worrying about it. If it can't be solved, worrying will do no
good."
-17th Dalai
Lama
“You admire the man who pushes his way
to the too the top in any walk of life, while we admire the one who abandons
his ego.”
- Seven Years in Tibet, Heinrich
Harrier
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you
will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more
than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or
store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much
more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of
the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was
dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is
here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe
you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall
we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly
Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all
these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will
worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
