 This is a plug for a street musician from Portland that I thoroughly enjoyed last summer. Hope you check him out and enjoy too... :-)
Everyman's WEEKLY Journal #48
©2013 Rev. David Seacord
November 3, 2013
The Sweetness...
For a while I'd been having a sense that something was up in my 22 yr. old son's life. Usually I wait for him to call me (or I call his mother to make sure that he's ok etc) but this week one morning I set down my tools and phoned him. Because it was early (for him) that he answered surprised as well as delighted me. We talked a good while, revealing why I'd had an active intuition. He'd been fired from his job as an assistant manager at a popular college restaurant because, well, he'd screwed up (he'd forgotten to leave the safe key where it was supposed to be for the morning shift [bad enough]--- but on top of that he'd let his pay-as-you-go cell phone service expire, so there was no way for anyone to get in touch with him. So the restaurant couldn't open. Big ooooppps…
Ambrose has never been fired before… he's always had really great references--- so this is something to deal with, yes? Yet is this all a mistake? I suspect not from a deeper view…..
Our conversation moved on to other topics… in particular his struggle to create a breakthrough in his personal integrity. He lives in a college town with several longtime friends from his high school days and there are number of habits in his life (and their lives) that he would like to break away from but the social environment is full of the opposite…. ie, nobody else sees the habits as a problem. They keep calling him to come back to 'the party'.
I empathized with his situation, as I had seen it first hand when visiting him last summer. It's like he's caught between two worlds… who he has been as a pretty wild youth… and the growing vision he has of the adult he would like to become. It's sort of like breaking out of a rut, or escaping the gravity pull of orbit… he's been 'intending', and 'building up the strength'. And I as the Dad that listens but doesn't preach at him (and I thank MY Dad for that one…) have held the space of faith in him. Our conversation ended on that note.
Then, a short time later, he called me back. "Dad, I was just talking to Mom and she made a suggestion that at first I didn't think was possible, but then I realized it might be, and it might be a really good thing for me… What do you think of me coming to live with you for a few months ….to get myself together… away for all my friends etc…?" In my heart, it was like God had just made me the King of Christmas. OMG… is there a greater call for a father than to give everything he has to help his son become everything he can be? I doubt it. So of course I said Yes, that that was certainly a possibility (and there are some logistics to work out so it's not to be immediately).
Yet clearly the Landmark teaching that 'what creates your present is the future you are living into' has been very evident in me since that conversation… my heart has leaped up to a new possible reality… one full of the dreams of the adventure of sharing (at least for a while) a new kind of life with my very beloved and very talented son. I'll keep you posted. :-)
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I arrived back in Albuquerque last evening after two weeks on the roads of northern and southeastern New Mexico, where I was moving from town to town doing my service work as per my contract in variously located LDS meetinghouses. I'll be based in Albuquerque (with the family of a friend) for about two more weeks finishing the urban part of the contract before returning to the desert and it's treasures.
I love Albuquerque…it has long been one of my favorite US cities… even before the Breaking Bad TV show visuals put it on the map (I've never watched that show…just some clips)…. because I believe it is the most colorful and authentically third world metropolitan area inside the United States. Sure, it has it's track home areas too, but basically the older part of the city is laid out on donkey trails dating from the 1500's, and the since of history is inescapable. Why mention this? Because there is a great gift hidden in plain view visible here… the gift of LIFE being lived close to the earth, as in 'urban indigenous'. The HIspanic culture here (with its acequia's still watering ancient fields amidst the cities streets) is so much more based in the heart and of the land than the mental and money-based English culture that owns most of the rest of this nation. And as the indigenous cultures which predated it here did, it has worked WITH the land rather than exploited and dominated it.
This example is very much worth mentioning, as when examined for models of sustainability there are many to see, and when married to alternative technologies that are also non-exploitive, an inspiring vision a new future emerges for me to see. This is also so very important, for without the inspiration of living into a new vision full of a future of love for each other and the earth, our human mental machinery becomes prey to narcissistic apathies and depressions. This takes courage to face and reverse, yes? I carry in my car a number of small books which often provide me with guidance. Recently I opened my very appreciated copy of Pema Chodran's little book AWAKENING LOVING-KINDNESS. I found myself reading a passage (which I haven't found again) about this theme… that the growth of our courage is an incremental thing. Yet (she writes) even a little effort placed into being willing to be courageous when facing the challenges of our lives bears fruit in time, and the more we face ourselves and our fears, the more fearless we become. Not instantly, but as I have been reviewing my own lifetime and it's multitudes of admitted failures, there is also a growth pattern clearly visible coming directly from those same experiences. For me what I have seen is that the speed of my growing has been directly related to my willingness to be honest within myself. And where does THIS willingness arise from? My experience is that it arises from the quietness of my mind. Therefore I continue to practice and cultivate this quietude, especially the ability to notice that it is always available, even during times of the greatest emotional stresses or storms of the mind. It is like the sea, where even when the surface is in storm, in the depths there is still peace.
In our times we are challenged with many surface storms… insane wars, horrifying ecological disasters, perverse human oppressions, intensely combative politics…. and it is the path of the peacemaker to both work to correct these situations AND at the same time, stay connected to our joy and our peace. To me there is no other way through but via the one Truth… of our Unified Love. The use of any other two-edged sword (the dualities of love/hate, right/wrong etc)… they only perpetuate the suffering by making us into what we resist. Therefore, let us remain in quietude as we act from love and thereby 'pray' a new future for humanity into existence.
Namaste, Sat Nam,
David
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Rev. David Seacord
Fine Art Painter / Sufi Cherag
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