Second Chance Dance: 2020

Showing posts with label 2020. Show all posts

Monday, August 31, 2020

Words To Admonish the Age 2020: The Sea, Masks, Mirrors of Holiness, Lock Down and Labor Day

"As if summoned by seagulls , we come back to the beach where we can cast off our shoes and our everyday cares, tell time by the tides and live in the moment. Our search for shells an echo of childhood and the surf's refrain is music remembered"

- unknown

“ I am just a poor boy

Though my tor’s seldom told

I have squandered my resistance

For a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises

All lies and jests

Still a man hears what he wants to hear

Ans disregards the rest”

( * After changes we are more or less the same.)

- The Boxer , P. Simon

—————————————————

Words To Admonish the Age 2020: The Sea, Masks, Mirrors of Holiness, Lock Down and Labor Day

1. Waiting , watching , wondering

The beach at dawn - perfection

Gulls stop their flight

Sandpipers cease their sacred scampering

Creation sanctified

Serenity is creation

Red bead peaks over the horizon

Illumination commences

Waves calmly roll to shore

Baptizing witnessing pilgrims

And any creature ready to receive.

2. The dreamer was confused

Forty winks felt like forty years

Twenty Five million infected

Debating masks explodes

Experts consider options

a.Protect others

b.Protect yourself

c.Flatten the Curve

d.Don’t Change/Don’t Do a Thing

“ I have worn masks of all sorts

For most of my life and most fear to admit

They have done the same.

So why change now?”

3. Attachments and desires

Distract from the essential purpose.

No thing is needed.

The Dalai Llama spoke

Of how he saw the perfect fruit at the market

He admired imagining it’s perfection -

Sweet, soft and delicious

He possessed the money to purchase the fruit.

Smiling as he passed it by he knew

This fruit was not need

For him to be happy or experience peace.

4. Contracted wisemen proclaimed we are

How we see ourselves,

Like to be seen and

How others see us.

“ What does it matter?” He recalled

No reward nor approbation desired

Just authentic being precisely

Who we are intended to be.

Locked down or not,

“Love , serve, be compassionate ,selfless

Trust and hope” implored the master to the mystics.

5. A spokesperson for the divine revealed

“Make your work your prayer

Your prayer your work”

The therapist retorted,

“Unfortunately most humans believe the two most

Important aspects of one’s life are

‘Work and Love’ and in that order.”

“Surfs up - Be careful out there.”

Lifeguards and beach boys chant.

A wiseman mediating the Scallop’s shell,

“The Passage within is this great Camino,

Many paths lead the soul to the center

Of the magnificent universe.”

JF Sobecki

————————————-

Hope - Wendell Berry

https://youtu.be/2j_r4jb9AYw

If - Rudyard Kipling

https://youtu.be/mu46bq8ZZHs

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

https://youtu.be/vrBHd41YqTc

Untitled #4 - The Avett Brothers

https://youtu.be/zvHiqQfOYFM

The Boxer - P/. Simon, J. Baez, R. Thompson

https://youtu.be/lr1iKrTqa2w

At The Beach - Avett Brothers

https://youtu.be/ZpVmFVzdaq8

Amdg

Friday, July 31, 2020

A Remembrance: Right Now

“Remembrance is a form of meeting”

- Kahil Gibran

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

A Remembrance: Right Now

Closing his pilgrim eyes in morning remembrance

Twelve years have sped by since

The first visit to the great cathedral of Boston

With the first one.

Torrential rain ceased and the clouds opened

As the boys of summer took the field

To signal greater miracles to come.

Within days the “fab four” sat in Giant land

As they were serenaded with thousands by the boss.

Suddenly it was the Solemnity of the Company’s founder when

Fr. Gerry bestowed the Sacrament of healing

While Obe Wan Fr. Tom whispered “You know this works.”

Next thing you know the wayfaring stranger's chest

Cracked opened like a lobster

And a limited undated warranty was provided.

The great “last” kiss Impassioned him to redefine a purpose..

The sun continued to rise and set

Little victories came and went like a holy wind.

The two escaped to the sea seeking paradise.

The prognosticators failed to predict

That dream where a game show host

Would be the leader of the free world.

(Right from a Jerzy Kosinski novel.)

Who would have thought the fictious films

“Outbreak” and “Contagion” would become reality

While the king slept in his new clothes?

Quarantined on a viral retreat

Hope seemed at times a tired construct,

Prayer disconnected from the divine.

“Why worry and why the anger?

Knuckleheads and evil have been around for a long time.”

Twelve years gone by since repair of the broken heart

The end of the line bypassed temporarily ,

Distractions and meanderings fading

Storms abated…

The exasperation fades , clouds evaporate -

A gleam illuminates the truth , the heart sees

…. serenity and love is everywhere.

- JF Sobecki

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

Wild Geese - Mary Oliver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv_4xmh_WtE

Wayfaring Stranger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp7mdSMNQB0

Love is Everywhere- Wilco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G6Apj7Zj20

Victory - Avett Brothers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inv_ntQkXgU

Little Victories - JD Souther

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe4Z8YV99Mw

A now a little uplifting music so TURN IT UP LOUD ! and Stand up!

All These Things I have Done - The Killers

https://youtu.be/o76MfByFNK0

Ok Now for real....TURN IT UP LOUDER AND DANCE!!!

What are you afraid of?

Louder!

Soul Shoes - Graham Parker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWm8RUD4jOE

Pics from 12 years ago

First Trip To Fenway 2008

The Fab Four at Bruce Concert 2008

Post Surgery "Heart Walk" with Family and Friends 2008

Amdg

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

https://youtu.be/ODIvONHPqpk

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

https://youtu.be/lGuqjNRmzvg

Great Big Love - Bruce Cockburn

https://youtu.be/ALy65QqM348

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

https://youtu.be/WpJ1WbHP5DQ

Let It Be - The Beatles

https://youtu.be/QDYfEBY9NM4

Amdg

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

New Blog - Rain and Rivers Revisited: A Journey of a Lost Weekend

Well you may recall I have been working on a piece of fiction for a while now. It is still a work in progress. However, I decided

to release drafts of the first few episodes ( chapters.) Much of the work is completed but I am always cutting and editing.

http://rainandriversrevisited.blogspot.com/

It is difficult to release just pieces at a time as they are created as independent episodes they are also all parts of a larger piece (and picture .) I could share more but I am curious to read or hear your feedback.

I want to thank those friends and supporters who have already provided feedback ...and of course all the folks who have been following my Second Chance Dance Blog ( by the way that will continue.)

The material in the Blog is all copyrighted and cannot be reproduced in any form. Though, I welcome you to share the link and this blog with others .So please when you have a few minutes take a read and let me know what you think. I expect to be posting a series of subsequent episodes shortly.

Thanks....

News of Death

(This is for Coach)

Last night they came with news of death
not knowing what I would say.
I wanted to say,"The green wind is running through the fields making the grass lie flat."
I wanted to say,"The apple blossom flakes like ash covering the orchard wall."
I wanted to say,"the fish float belly up in the slow stream,stepping stones to the dead."

They asked if I would sleep that night,
I said I did not know.
For this loss I could not speak,the tongue lay idle in a great darkness,the heart was strangely open,the moon had gone,and it was then when I said, "He is no longer here"
that the night put its arms around me
and all the white stars turned bitter with grief.
- David Whyte

What Work is

We stand in the rain in a long line

waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.

You know what work is--if you're

old enough to read this you know what

work is, although you may not do it.

Forget you. This is about waiting,

shifting from one foot to another.

Feeling the light rain falling like mist

into your hair, blurring your vision

until you think you see your own brother

ahead of you, maybe ten places.

You rub your glasses with your fingers,

and of course it's someone else's brother,

narrower across the shoulders than

yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin

that does not hide the stubbornness,

the sad refusal to give in to

rain, to the hours wasted waiting,

to the knowledge that somewhere ahead

a man is waiting who will say, "No,

we're not hiring today," for any

reason he wants. You love your brother,

now suddenly you can hardly stand

the love flooding you for your brother,

who's not beside you or behind or

ahead because he's home trying to

sleep off a miserable night shift

at Cadillac so he can get up

before noon to study his German.

Works eight hours a night so he can sing

Wagner, the opera you hate most,

the worst music ever invented.

How long has it been since you told him

you loved him, held his wide shoulders,

opened your eyes wide and said those words,

and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never

done something so simple, so obvious,

not because you're too young or too dumb,

not because you're jealous or even mean

or incapable of crying in

the presence of another man, no,

just because you don't know what work is.

Philip Levine

On Marriage - Kahil Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love:Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loafSing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.And stand together yet not too near together:For the pillars of the temple stand apart,And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

A favorite "Journey" poem from a favorite poet

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
-- Mary Oliver

Send or post one of your favorites! They can be lyrics to a song!

Playing For Change

Please see the current music video from "Playing for Change" at the bottom of this page. It is a movement. Enjoy!

"Playing for Change" is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race. And with this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we set out to share it with the world

Fall in Love

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in a love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.” --- Pedro Arrupe SJ