Testimony - Three Stories of Formation

“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.”

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

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

https://youtu.be/1k_ffl3ZM2s

Dream Big - N.  Lofgren

https://youtu.be/wpytyf_N69c

Harbor of Love - Ry Cooder

https://youtu.be/LTLIwUoC7s4

The Healing Game - Van Morrison

https://youtu.be/q4rAP-KAOgQ

Western Stars - B. Springsteen

https://youtu.be/_IXzAAKrsFE

amdg

Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved JF Sobecki LLC

Ballad of the Refugee Pt 1

Everything is Waiting for You - David Whyte

audio link -
https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/david-whyte-everything-is-waiting-for-you

Your great mistake is to act the drama

 as if you were alone. As if life

 were a progressive and cunning crime

 with no witness to the tiny hidden

 transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

 the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

 even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

 the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

 out your solo voice. You must note

 the way the soap dish enables you,

 or the window latch grants you freedom.

 Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

 The stairs are your mentor of things

 to come, the doors have always been there

 to frighten you and invite you,

 and the tiny speaker in the phone

 is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the

 conversation. The kettle is singing

 even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

 have left their arrogant aloofness and

 seen the good in you at last. All the birds

 and creatures of the world are unutterably

 themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

Too Long in Exile - Van Morrison

https://youtu.be/A9gRbpe7LUU

The Ballad of the Refugee

Nervous and fidgety , sweat slowly dripping from his brow,

harshly rubbing his hands against his pant legs

before grabbing for the tattered worn wallet,

scrambling to secure frayed folded pieces of paper

from private hidden compartments that everyone knew about.

He secretly glanced down hoping that no one was looking

at his information.

The worry grew as the sweat increased in volume with each 

tempered step further up the line . 

Glancing up forward he witnessed how some on the line

were being separated into separate groups. 

The anxiety and blood pressure built up like

some volcano ready to blow. Another step, more pressure,

 more sweat. Surely they would find out! He didn’t know 

what they would find but he believed that they would find something. 

There was probably some great secret

from his past that even he forgot about.

He was aware of his imperfection but he also knew he

wasn’t evil. Loved sinner?He abandoned conjuring an escape plan 

as he was aware he had nowhere to run. This was it. 

This was the day of truth, the great reckoning.

Was this long journey all for naught?

Maybe it was his credit score?Maybe it is his skin 

color or ethnicity? Maybe it was his not getting that

 job promotion? Maybe it was not being able to provide 

his family with all the things they desired? Maybe his wife 

reported some secret about him? Maybe the local 

priest turned him in for not frequenting services or turning in his 
weekly envelopes after the allegations of sexual abuse by the
clergy hit thepapers and courtroom?He even thought about how 

his doctor may have turned him in for not following 

the recommended diet and medical regimens. He didn’t

 need anyone to tell him he was too long in exile,

A perpetual refugee.

Was he as good a person as he could have been? 

How did his family ,friends and neighbors really feel 

about him and did that really matter? He thought he tried 
to live an unselfish life and tried to avoid behaving or doing 

things just to get recognized or rewarded. He often 

thought it a little narcissistic to behave this way or 

that in order just to get a reward at the end.He wrote 

somewhere , “I don’t think one loves others just to

so one can be loved in return.” 

Did he remember to leave that letter in the desk?
 Did he update the list? 

Maybe he should have thought more about scoring 

more points and making sure he had achieved more and 

received the proper recognition. He finally turned

 his head in humble grateful prayer. No one knows 

what he whispered to the divine but rumor has it 

that mystical universe knew precisely what was in his heart.

The time then arrived where everything would be answered.

Another surprise surfaced that there was no real 

wall or massive gathering of armed guards at a gate .

He worried that maybe this was all a dream. As a matter

of fact there was no one there who was separating 

and screening the hungry souls, who were now also gone. 

A soft gentle consoling voice from an unseen source 

whispered in the silence...

“Welcome. We have been waiting for you.”

- JF Sobecki

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

Murder in the City - Avett Brothers

https://youtu.be/cr420Jwr14U

(… Make sure my girls and grandchildren know I love them..

  Always remember, there was nothing worth sharing

  Like the love that lets us share our name.)

Deportee - Ani De Franco and Ry Cooder

https://youtu.be/fCCgtRy5vYE

amdg

“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple”

        - Jack Kerouac

“The only truth is music”

       - Jack Kerouac

Copyright 2018 JF Sobecki LLC All Rights Reserved

Crawlin' From The Wreckage: Coincidence + Fate vs Divine Intervention

A recent retold story of a tragedy in the media

rekindled a repeated reflection that would prey upon the Pilgrim. 

“Sometimes we are witnesses to or part of incidents that change us forever”

There was that day when a crash so loud occurred

It had had pounded his heart and chest.

A bang so fierce that when he sits in silence today,

The  smell of the burning gasoline and its smoke

that filled his then innocent senses are as clear as the moment it happened.

Turning and running to the source of the sound and billowing smoke

a vision of twisted metal crunched and broken,

A car, a taxi-cab he recalled, upside down or just mangled

in a way that no human could imagine undoing .

A voice weeping from inside the pile of twisted disfigured steel

calls out desperately “ Help me ! Help me!”

A slight flame flares to heaven

frightening away the witnesses 

and potential good Samaritans as a small stream of blood

converged with a dripping puddle of leaking oil.

The mission focused super hero first responders 

appeared in a blink of an eye. 

Barricades placed , sheets hung around the scene to block

the view of the gathering onlookers.

Some prayers were heard, a Lord’s Prayer he recalled.

An ambulance solemnly backed into the scene

and just like that it whisked away . 

Silence.

The crowd was dispersed and reverent whispers

asked and commented - “ Is He alright?” And “How Tragic.”

The pilgrim would never know if the man survived

and what was left was a prayer for the driver and his family.

Sometimes over the years there would be unanticipated occasions

when the pilgrim would get lost in his busyness

while preparing to get to some place that

may or may not be important in the grand scheme of things.

He would recall a number of preoccupied days where he was late in departing 

to his destination and while on the road suddenly without warning

he would become aware of an auto accident right in his pathway that may be not as fierce as the one witnessed years ago,

but he would ponder, “ What if I left when I had planned?”

The story that conjured this stream of thought again

centered around a another major accident where a mother and two children

were smashed into a precarious overhang on a highway on the brink of falling to their death.

The first responders professional , diligent and careful but nothing seemed to be able to

stop the crushed car from potentially falling off the highway bridge before they could extract the victims inside the all to familiar twisted mangled vehicle. Time and options had just about run out. Then it happened.

A small group of Seabees who were late in returning from military exercises and were stuck in the traffic caused by the accident. They were transporting an unusual fork lift vehicle that could bend and angle itself and have the ability to lift all types of heavy military vehicles and such.They offered their assistance and as a last resort the first responders had the monstrous  fork lift brought into place. The wreckage was lifted. The victims with multiple injuries were extracted including a baby who slept through the incident. They all survived.The mother, driver, in the vehicle recently said how everything was an unexplainable coincidence and maybe in some ways a miracle.

Somehow that peculiar spark of awareness burned within the Pilgrim’s memory banks recalling how there were multiple times when life happened not in a way that he intended ;accidents, tragedies , unexpected events and encounters and the outcomes somehow always hinted at a  greater hand and intention seems to be at play .

click on link for video

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/family-rescued-car-dangling-off-bridge-15370113

You Can have other words- chance, luck,coincidence,serendipity.I'll take

grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it"

-Mary Oliver

Wreck on the Highway - Bruce Springsteen
n

https://youtu.be/9y4AauEMG6o

Crawlin from The Wreckage - D. Edmunds

https://youtu.be/WrURe9s572I

Any Road - G. Harrison

https://youtu.be/BldrJGDhIME

Amdg

Copyright 2018 JF Sobecki LLC All Right Reserved

The Zen of Baseball

“The game of (base) ball is glorious”

                         – Walt Whitman.             

Ted Williams with Red Ormsby the Umpire

“…Baseball is a lot like religion.

Its followers put their faith and hope in uncontrollable forces in search of fulfillment and inner joy….

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."

 - James Penrice, The Spiritual Lessons of    

                            Baseball

“In my beginning is my end…

Home is where one starts from…

In my end is my beginning.”

       

               -T. S. Eliot, “East Coker”

“Your grandfather once told me it was ok to think about what you want to do until it was time to start doing what you were meant to do.”

          

                 - The Rookie

So where does one get the authentic sense of purpose and identity? What event during one’s younger years sparks that flame to burn and cast a true light as to where one should be headed. Who created that spark? What was the point of this spark in the first place? Why does this flame make everything crystal clear and yet still muddy the waters of one’s own desires and notions about what and where one should be? Could there be more than one flame or more than one source? Would another flame appear if one burned out? Is there any end to the sparks?

Was that youth recreation baseball coach some angelic spirit in human disguise? How did he get here? What was his purpose? Why did he busy himself with encouraging his young charges to be authentic, free to be one’s self, joyful and be in the moment? How did time become no time? Seizing the day, the moment never seemed to be so real did it? How did winning and losing evaporate and get carried away by some sacred breeze?

Who would have thought that the smell of linseed oil on leather would replace that of incense? Who would have believed that the 108 stitches on a baseball would coincidentally be the same number as Buddhist prayer beads or two mysteries of the Catholic Rosary?

Was this the great lesson that could not be taught or understood in school and churches? Were the players who were selected identified by some greater spirit as needing to learn the lesson of unconditional love for self and others, truth, authenticity, faith and integrity by playing this game for this coach ?

And by the way when did the last two words of the National Anthem become “Play Ball?”

Can I hear an "Amen?"

                                         Game is called - Grantland Rice

                                           https://youtu.be/NbN5Q-Na66U

Game Called

Game Called. Across the field of play


the dusk has come, the hour is late.


The fight is done and lost or won,


the player files out through the gate.


The tumult dies, the cheer is hushed,


the stands are bare, the park is still.


But through the night there shines the light,


home beyond the silent hill.

Game Called. Where in the golden light


the bugle rolled the reveille.


The shadows creep where night falls deep,


and taps has called the end of play.
T

he game is done, the score is in,


the final cheer and jeer have passed.

But in the night, beyond the fight,


the player finds his rest at last.

Game Called. Upon the field of life


the darkness gathers far and wide,


the dream is done, the score is spun


that stands forever in the guide.

Nor victory, nor yet defeat


is chalked against the players name.

But down the roll, the final scroll,

shows only how he played the game

 - Grantland Rice

  

                                         People will come – Field of Dreams

                                           https://youtu.be/7SB16il97yw

                                         Docs Dream- Field of Dreams

                                          https://youtu.be/Y9yrupye7B0

                                          Farewell Moonlight – Fields of Dreams

                                         https://youtu.be/v6bD23vEigE

                                        Hey Dad Wanna Catch? – Field of Dreams

                                          https://youtu.be/lXjz-M_6eN8

                                         For the love of the game-  Just Throw

             https://youtu.be/QYTadlooH7o?list=PLeG0OVxY34arKyc0H6tQAlEyjH2v5rKnW

                                       The Natural - Ending

                                          https://youtu.be/i94ldGNNSQ0

                 

( Dedicated to Coach B who taught me to let go , be present and be myself - to live , work and play with joy and love. I still have my youth baseball glove at hand to help me remember to remember.

I always loved having a catch with my daughters. You ladies are the best! Get out your gloves for our next get together.)

amdg

Copyright all Rights Reserved JF Sobecki LLC 2017