love the moment

think lottery or homecoming or survivor or home after a long, long journey and think of a journey hard uncertain and lonely and think of the sweetest fruit of summer a peach or a perfect strawberry and remember the warm taste of wonder in your mouth and how at that very moment of tasting - you wanted all moments to be forever peaches and strawberry moments but you know, that cannot be because those moments are precious - like perfect diamonds they are beautiful and rare and in that forever moment you know just how rare and how much you yearned for those moments when during your long, hard journey home - there were none to be found. no matter how hard - with tears - you searched for them. so now, home at last in your arms all of those precious moments melt into your warm kiss and all of those dark & bitter nights are washed white in that bright and lovely light that is your smile.

to create without owning to give without expecting to fill without claiming this is the profound action of the Tao the highest expression of Te Tao 51 seeing your own smallness is called insight honoring your own tenderness is called strength Tao 52 thus the sages say: act with a pure heart, and the people will be transformed love your own life, and the people will be uplifted give without conditions, and the people will prosper want nothing, and the people will find everything Tao 57

9/4/09 there are so many things we at times fear. we fear lack when we have enough - we fear alone when we are together. we fear sickness when we are well, and we fear old when we are young. but if we rest in the truth that all things work together for those that love good, that embrace mercy, who pursue peace - if we can do this - there is no fear. because all those things we dread, never come true. and if our path does bring suffering, it is not meant as a punishment, but as a hard blessing. when i am old, i may slow down to honor an aging body. but, then, i will only have more time for the inner world - which grows inversely to my outer one. for as my body ages, my soul gets younger. as my muscles weaken, my heart grows strong. as my face begins to show the miles and the years i have traveled, my inner child gets ever younger, ever purer, laughing more and more as i approach the return to the holy place of my beginning. for there, there is no fear - only love. there is no death, o...

9/1/09 at what point is a story over? when is it "too late"? i think as long as there is breath, as long as there is any light left in your eye - then, there is hope. no matter how horrific the devastation, no matter how pervasive the damage - i believe that - as long as there is the smallest ember of desire still burning - as long as there is any remaining warmth in the body - at even the darkest moment of midnight - there is hope. at 52, i am learning that fairy tales do come true. that life does have a 2nd, a 3rd, even a 4th act in the play. my life is so unlikely. my path - if it were not my own - would be unbelievable to me. i am happy.

8/31/09 so today is my birthday. there is something in me that was once puzzled by the custom of celebrating my arrival. a nd yet, considering all the things in one's life that try to bring you down, i think i rather like the idea, now. it allows those that love me to say so without embarrassment - not to mention the occasional surprise. like the unexpected call from my nearly invalid mother - who calls to ask if i'd like her to bring a cherry cobbler to my party. because, previously, she had said she would not come to the party at all. but here's another idea. how do i consider this day? i have this ritual each new year of a considered re-examination of my life path. how about a ritual of - on this day - my own personal celebration not of my birth - but of the continuing rebirth i've been graced to experience. one that, to me, is so unlikely so as to be considered miraculous. because, the one who was once so lost - how now been found. the one for so long withou...

life is a series of moments. some good, others not so much. and yet, in truth, i suppose no moment is really good or bad. they are simply single strokes on the canvas of your life. they are a solitary splash of color that until the painting is complete - are elusive in their purpose and intent. that bold, dark spot that now seems so ominous, may really be only a point of contrast - one necessary to more brilliantly display the bright yellow of sunshine that might be dulled without it. and that one broad stroke that seems now out of place, is only so considered because you thought the painter to be painting a windmill instead of a forest. no, it is more than simply premature to judge a moment or a day or a year in one's life. it is more foolish than hasty, more arrogant than misguided. because we do not know and we cannot - thankfully - know how a life will conclude. we neither know when the final curtain will fall. will the play's most tragic character find redemption - o...

8/28/09 so how does one assess a life? how did the person in question come to terms with their own humanity - flawed and fickle as it is? as i listen to the commentary on this life, i feel a deep affinity to a man who lived life fully. a man who knew both privilege and tragedy. one who knew opportunity and failure. one who fell hard, but always rose again to press on. one year after Bobby's death, Chappaquiddick. the terror mother Rose must have felt, the fear of losing her last son to tragedy. but Teddy Kennedy labored on. the debacle of a misguided presidential campaign only served to birth his real purpose - to lead in the US Senate. now, his life is remembered for what he accomplished - not where he failed. i see the grieving loss and tears shed at his passing. will Rush or Glenn or Bill have such loved poured out at their passing? what will such men as these reap? have they sown love and mercy or division and hatred? those that live by the sword will die by its sharp t...

8/25/09 we begin pure and unbound. life, then, adds things to bind us, to weigh us down with baggage we were not meant to carry. words we remember, some spoken in anger, others in misguided love, can lead us away from that singular path laid out for us by unseen hands. our mission, once our morning begins to dawn, is to return. to rediscover that single center, that quiet place where sacred truths are whispered. if we listen, we can hear. if we look, we can see. if we soften and open - and linger long enough, we can touch the perfect beginning. at that moment, in an instant, the wonder and beauty that only newborn babies can know returns to us. and then, there is no time. there is no death. there is no fear. only joy. only peace. only love.

Barack Obama, Nashville, Tennessee. November, 2006 8/24/09 i have watched the devastation of guilt and shame for 30 years. played out on the stage of God & Country, sung in the words of Jesus or Yahweh or Allah. the great fear of missing heaven or of an eternal hell drives men to such great evil. the love that Jesus felt, that Muhammad knew as a father and husband - has been swept away by the torrents of self-righteous hatred. the sad irony of peace used to kill, of love being bent into a sword of hate would be laughable if it were not so tragic. men, women, children who are meant for joy never know it. soft and tender babies grow up into hard and raging inquisitors who cannot forgive, but only condemn. the open embrace of mercy is suffocated and squeezed into the fist of judgment. when, where will it end? how long will people deny their own hearts and their lofty calling to be as gods - to heed the better angels of our natures? how long will we, instead, live as almost anim...

8/17/09 God is so big. i hate all the things that make her small and petty. i hate all the doctrines that make him weak and needy - as if he cares about wars or politics or right & wrong. right and wrong are simply excuses posed by devious people to push simple minds in their direction. right & wrong are only passing fads that are severely constrained by the human heart. right & wrong clearly misses the point of every truth that was ever spoken. in the end, a life, a book, an action is judged by the love that it shows - or the mercy that is poured out to the needy and fallen. God, and holy, and right & wrong are just words that barely scratch the surface of the beautiful perfect diamond that is the divine.

8/7/09 SBX it is impossible to see clearly my own face. even the mirror distorts what the eye refuses to see. am I good today? was i bad on thursday? i am unable to say. such a judgment requires a wisdom i do not possess. all the wasted days of navel gazing would have been more profitably directed at sunsets or joy chipmunks - whose gleeful abandon is so much closer to goodness than anything i have ever done. Give up the thoughts that lead to false distinctions! There is no "self" and no "other", no "anger", no "hatred", no "love", no "victory", no "failure". Huang-po 8/9/09 Liberating yourself from evil is not so hard. Discarding the idea of "goodness" is much harder. 8/10/09 Normal life carries on without people noticing just how extraordinary it really is... Religion is taught so badly that people either end up believing a silly fairy tale or end up not believing it. What good is that? In either...