Everyman's WEEKLY Journal #90
©2014 Rev. David Seacord
December 7, 2014
24 Years as a Father….
OMG… it has been 24 years today since my son Ambrose arrived into this world. What a life-changer! Shall I share some on the subject? Thank you. (And Bruce Cockburn just sang "but if you love love then love loves you too…" so I know 'this is Good'.)
My son's birth scene was a humble hillside home surrounded by pinyon pine a few miles out of town, on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ambrose's mother is Mindy, a woman of beauty and deep compassion, who had offered me and my tired soul refuge as my first 2 year-long Love Declaration 'transform the world' journey was being retired for lack of my own integrity as a prophet. Whereas I (then) in my own eyes was a complete failure as a servant of God, what she saw was a good man to love. After a few weeks of apparent romantic happiness she became pregnant, a fact that powerfully impacted our relationship in ways I am not at all proud to speak of, but which eventually made me a much wiser man. It was NOT instant wisdom however… it fact it was years in the coming, and without Ganga Ji might never have been. But I digress.
The birth was at home in the early dawning morning, with the assistance of a wonderful midwife, Laurie. The labor had been short, barely three hours, and Ambrose appeared in a quick squirt-like movement, arriving whole and complete with his birthing sac unbroken. I was later told that this is quite rare, and is often regarded as a propitious omen…. marking a knowing soul.
We had not done an ultrasound and thus did not know the sex of the unborn child to be. I had expected a girl-child, thinking that that would be my just karma given that I had plenty of history with women where raising a girl would provide many growing opportunities for me. Mindy and I had discussed female names, but no male ones.
After nursing a while and after the cord was cut and after he was bathed, Laurie placed my blanketed son in my arms while the afterbirth was delivered. Sitting on the couch with him in my arms, I looked at this brand-new-to-me being and internally heard the clear thought arise "Oh God, what are we going to name you?". In the next instant I had the clearest clairaudience experience of my life, where I again internally heard, but as if by an amplified loudspeaker inside my head, a voice very powerfully and emphatically saying in answer "AMBROSE!". I remembered being a bit shocked by the experience, and to tell the truth, it was the first time I'd ever heard the name and I wasn't sure I even liked it. It seemed strange and a little difficult to pronounce. But when there was a momentary break in the birthing work, I spoke with Mindy and told her of hearing a strange name by clairaudience. When I said the name to her, her reaction was a positive one… she simply said, "That's very interesting… I wonder what it means?" I went to a baby name book and looked it up and read it aloud. "Ambrose--- like a God, immortal. Related to ambrosia, 'the nectar of the God's'". Laurie the midwife had of course been listening to all this conversation, and she now spoke, saying "There is a St. Ambrose". I remembered a little book I had bought on impulse a few months before at a garage sale. It was a book about Catholic Patron Saints and their feast days. I got it and started looking for St. Ambrose. When I found it I was 'blown away'. The Catholic feast day for St. Ambrose was December 7. Today, the birth day, was also December 7. As I shared this information, I felt chills run up and down my body. Something bigger than I was prepared for was happening. Given these synchronistically provided pieces of information, my initial resistance to the name was fast disappearing. By the time my mother called 20 minutes later to check in on the birthing situation, we were all beginning to think of him as Ambrose. Mom then asked "Well, what are you going to name him?" I said, "Mom, we are thinking about a kind of strange name… Ambrose". Her response was exactly like Mindy's…"That's very interesting". "Why, Mom?" "Because the very first Seacord to come to America from France in 1685 was Ambrose Seacord, and there has not been another one since." That confirmation finalized Ambrose as my son's name… (my mother's passion was her genealogy, and she knew our family tree inside and out).
In retrospect, it has been a wonderful gift for Ambrose to have such a name. Recently he said that while he'd met a few people with Ambrose as a LAST name, he'd never met anyone else with it as a first name. So everywhere he has ever been he has been the only Ambrose. I cannot think of a better gift for the Divine to have given him… a name making him 'unique', and yet a life that is teaching him at the same time that he is the same as everyone. I, as his father, am simply grateful that what I once considered as 'the greatest mistake I had ever made' has been transformed through the last 24 years into the 'the greatest gift' I have ever received. Thank you for allowing me to share this bit of history….
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And now, to return to current growth events reporting…. :-)
Yes, I have been making great progress in the area of become free of scabies again. After four days of alternative therapy as described last week, on Tuesday I walked across the border into Mexico and purchased two tubes of the permethrin cream--- one for myself, and one that I mailed to my now "worried and somewhat irritated at me" friend in Albuquerque. The fact that the $180 USA-side name brand prescription-only drug product was available in Mexico without a prescription for $4.85 caught me by dumbfounded surprise. I had not expected the disparity to be nearly so great. For the moment I will leave unspoken volumes on the subject of economic inequality created by the legal fictions of 'national borders'. I'll put that in another writing, maybe a brief, haha :-). The sudden fact of affordability did cause some self-honesty however. Ethically, I saw I WAS "more willing" to use a pesticide poison upon myself when the pain of it's cost was so greatly reduced. Thus, I saw another way the root of the money influence lives inside me. And in a funny kind of twist, I saw I was in fact being quite similar in this to a conventional farmer also using pesticides on his crops for their short term 'benefits'. How amazingly 'relative' all things in this world are. I now see this as excellent grounds for ever increased compassion toward self and others.
Compassion. Writing that word prompts me to report that I watched "Seven Years in Tibet" starring Brad Pitt a couple of days ago, as if to be given a review lesson on maintaining equanimity under the most distressing of situations. I assume you have also previously viewed this dramatized version of the Dalai Lama's youth and the invasion of Tibet by China. It terribly confronts my sense of justice to have events such as these transpiring upon this planet. Yet they are not lessening and seem everywhere present. Herein lies the great challenge to human spirituality… for how can this planet truly awaken without each of us discovering our own complicities which contribute to the mass consciousness allowing such unconsciousness. Truly it destroys whomever we have tried to believe we were to touch this tar baby. No wonder such great courage is required. No wonder we prefer to create personal fantasies….
In any event… as everything reflects everything, and as there are no accidents… this life certainly is an excellent soul school. In the end, that will be all that matters…how much Love have we had the courage to BE in the face of false roaring dragon of untruth.
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The art show opening has also come and gone, leaving me contemplating what it is to be admired as a 'great artist' for an evening. Dressing up in fine plumage and hobnobbing with the art crowd, being gracious to the sincere appreciation as well as its opposite-- this socializing superficiality is not my desire as a daily communion fare, yet it makes for an intoxicating and addictive evening. It was a marked success/status pleasure to place the 'sold' sticker up next to the 8" x 10" that was purchased at the opening. It was also, upon reviewing the evening, sobering to realize that I had let several opportunities to make sales 'slip away'. But that is OK, as for me it is really only appropriate to take another's money when they have freely chosen to offer it without manipulation. I know I wish to make my choices without being coerced… how then can I justify pressuring another to make a purchase before they are ready? It is simply 'The Golden Rule'. And it is also part of 'the faith walk' of a spiritual life…to trust that whatever is truly needed will be provided.
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May there be within these words a useful message. I see you also trusting life to provide you everything needed 'right on time'.
Namaste,
David
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Rev. David Seacord
Fine Art Painter / Sufi Cherag
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