So here’s the tragedy about
D R E A M I N G
. . .we only think it’s for the young
that it has an age limit attached to it
that after a certain time, a certain age
it’s no longer viable
a n d
we do little to
DISPROVE IT. . .
AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO
What would you do?
o r
is it
WHAT DO YOU DO. . . ?
It’s the First Lecture of a brand new semester. . .
The professor enters the lecture hall. He looks around. . .
“You there in the 8th row. Can you tell me your name?” he asks a student.
“My name is Sandra” says a voice.
The professor asks her, “Please leave my lecture hall. I don’t want to see you in my lecture.”
Everyone is quiet. The student is irritated, slowly packs her things and stands up.
“Faster please” she is asked.
She doesn’t dare to say anything and leaves the lecture hall.
The professor keeps looking around.
The participants are scared.
“Why are there laws?” he asks the group.
All quiet. Everyone looks at the others.
“What are laws for?” he asks again.
“Social order” is heard from a row
A student says “To protect a person’s personal rights.”
Another says “So that you can rely on the state.”
The professor is not satisfied.
“Justice” calls out a student.
The professor smiling. She has his attention.
“Thank you very much. Did I behave unfairly towards your classmate earlier?”
Everyone nods.
“Indeed I did. Why didn’t anyone protest?
Why didn’t any of you try to stop me?
Why didn’t you want to prevent this injustice?” he asks.
Nobody answers. . .
THE SILENCE LITERALLY SHOUTS OUT A BLARING
W H Y ?
“What you just learned you wouldn’t have understood in 1,000 hours of lectures if you hadn’t lived it. You didn’t say anything just because you weren’t affected yourself. This attitude speaks against you and against life. You think as long as it doesn’t concern you, it’s none of your business. I’m telling you, if you don’t say anything today and don’t bring about justice, then one day you too will experience injustice and no one will stand before you. Justice lives through us all. We have to fight for it.”
“In life and at work, we often live next to each other instead of with each other. We console ourselves that the problems of others are none of our business. We go home and are glad that we were spared. But it’s also about standing up for others. Every day an injustice happens in business, in sports or on the tram. Relying on someone to sort it out is not enough. It is our duty to be there for others. Speaking for others when they cannot. . .
The difference is being a caring catalyst and
ACTING LIKE A CARING CATALYST
. . .which ONE are you
We’re all way past asking what would you do. . .
we are right here, right now, showing
WHAT DO YOU DO
(or. . .d o n ‘ t)
YOUR VERSE
Dead Poets Society is a wonderful film, obviously filled with a lot of references to English and American poetry. In this scene, John Keating (Robin Williams) teaches his pupils the reason for reading and writing poetry, quoting Whitman’s Leaves of Grass:
O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer. That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse. . .
AND JUST WHAT IS YOUR VERSE. . . ?
Sometimes I feel
like an unfinished poem
Looking for just the right
word or phrase
Sometimes I feel the most
incomplete without a final punctuation mark
searching for a word
It doesn’t exist or come from me
But you,
Oh how you bring what
I don’t possess but desperately need
So _____quickly
before the paper blows away
and the ink runs low
or the pencil point breaks
Finish me so we can start
a new verse worthy of the both of us
MARY MERRY
INVITATION
OH do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
MARY MERRY
Mary has a way of
making Merry
that allows a
marrying between
Who we are
and Who we’ve yet to Recognize
The Who we are now
in a Forest yet to be walked
A Lake yet to be swam
A bird, an animal yet to be
Observed or named
A Universe yet to know
Another Sun’s rays
A poem
not yet to be written
even as it ever is being
composed
not so deeply within us
as it rises to surfaces
waiting to support
new FoundationsIt was the birthday of best-selling poet Mary Oliver, on September 10; she was born in Maple Heights, Ohio (1935). As a child, she spent most of her time outside, wandering around the woods, reading and writing poems.
Oliver went to college in the ’50s at Ohio State University and Vassar, but dropped out. She made a pilgrimage to visit Edna St. Vincent Millay’s 800-acre estate in Austerlitz, New York. The poet had been dead for several years, but Millay’s sister Norma lived there along with her husband. Mary Oliver and Norma hit it off, and Oliver lived there for years, helping out on the estate, keeping Norma company, and working on her own writing. In 1958, a woman named Molly Malone Cook came to visit Norma while Oliver was there, and the two fell in love. A few years later, they moved together to Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Oliver said: “I was very careful never to take an interesting job. Not an interesting one. I took lots of jobs. But if you have an interesting job you get interested in it. I also began in those years to keep early hours. […] If anybody has a job and starts at 9, there’s no reason why they can’t get up at 4:30 or 5 and write for a couple of hours, and give their employers their second-best effort of the day — which is what I did.”
She published five books of poetry, and still almost no one had heard of her. She doesn’t remember ever having given a reading before 1984, which is the year that she was doing dishes one evening when the phone rang and it was someone calling to tell her that her most recent book, American Primitive (1983), had won the Pulitzer Prize. Suddenly, she was famous. She didn’t really like the fame — she didn’t give many interviews, didn’t want to be in the news. She once wrote in an introduction to a poetry collection, “I have felt all my life that I was wise, and tasteful, too, to speak very little about myself — to deflect the curiosity in the personal self that descends upon writers, especially in this country and at this time, from both casual and avid readers.”
When editors called their house for Oliver, Cook would answer, announce that she was going to get Oliver, fake footsteps, and then get back on the phone and pretend to be the poet — all so that Oliver didn’t have to talk on the phone to strangers, something she did not enjoy. Cook was a photographer, and she was also Oliver’s literary agent. They stayed together for more than 40 years, until Cook’s death in 2005.
Oliver said: “I’ve always wanted to write poems and nothing else. There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you’re working a few hours a day and you’ve got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you’re okay.”
Oliver’s books of poems include No Voyage (1963), The River Styx, Ohio, and Other Poems (1972), Twelve Moons (1978), The Leaf and the Cloud (2000), Owls and Other Fantasies (2003), Red Bird (2008), Dog Songs (2013), and Velocity (2015). Her most recent collection, Devotions, comes out in October of this year.
#TheWritersAlmanac
I’ve always been a Mary Oliver fan
but I’ll also admit that I’ve read much more of her
now that she’s dead
than when she was alive
I suppose which not only makes her
not only more Alive
than ALIVE
but still doing
what she did the best
(and still is)
S H A R E
As I page
through this Anthology
I often have a rainbow of feelings
as she gently pulls off the scabs
of some of my most tenderest wounds:
The Uses of Sorrow | Mary Oliver
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
No matter what the poem,
Mary has a way of letting us know that
when you need a prayer
notice that nothing all around you
is miraculously short of that
with the worldly unspoken invitation:
WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE A PRAYER
B E
O N E
(The only true prayer you’ll ever need
is the one you are)
|
|
MET IN THE STAIRWELL
I know it’s an occupational hazard, getting things others think you might like, enjoy, use because I’m a minister and a chaplain. I’ve received this video dozens of times since it was released 11 years ago, and having been ordained now for a little over 43 years and a hospice chaplain for 29 years, I get asked this one question more than any other: “WHERE WAS GOD AT________________, you can fill in the blank, yourself; at 9/11, when a loved one was dying or going through a most horrendous time, when prayers don’t seem to be answered or can’t even be prayed, WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE. . . ?
And YES, it’s a question we often ask during a tragedy, a sickness, an unanswered prayer, an unmet expectation but rarely during a celebration, an exceeded expectation, a painless, completely beautiful day.
As we remember, and we do, this 22nd anniversary of 9/11, WHERE WERE YOU AT ON that day. . .where are you NOW? The GREAT WHOEVER doesn’t show up in Places; the SHOWING UP comes with People; in them and from
them. . .does the SHOWING UP come with you in the tragic/triumphant and all the seemingly inconsequential unnoticed times in between. . . ?
And now, as we
R E M E M B E R
(Who we are and Who we aren’t)
may I offer you one more special video from one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins
SOMETIMES
THE GREATEST GRIEF
IS MISSING
WHAT WAS NEVER HAD
BUT ALWAYS WANTED. . .
MORE THAN A SINGER
A N D
A N D
A N D
A N D
A N D
A N D
A N D
Ever since his death, all of the pictures and all of the tributes have been nonstop on Facebook, and so many other forms of social media. It’s almost as if he’s bigger than life, and in many ways he is, but in many ways, we don’t realize, so are we!
What we bring to this world continues way after we are gone, even if a name is not attached to it. I am not, and most likely you aren’t either, as famous as Jimmy Buffett, or ever will be, but each and everyone of us brings a song to this life. The world may never recognize it as easily as CHEESEBURGER IN PARADISE or MARGARITAVILLE, but it’s still our’s not just to sing, but to share even with a very few limited but intimate ears. Jimmy, admitted, even in his own band, he wasn’t the best singer or musician, but he knew how to share what he had and share he did, share he still does. THAT is the lesson in itself, and also to grieve that what we have had is still very much what we still have if we but notice it in the new form it has taken.
So LISTEN
HUM ALONG
SING
S H A R E
RINSE AND REPEAT OFTEN
and now if you’ll join me
how about we
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS UP
and go on a little
E X P L O R A T I O N. . .
LET’S GO
IT’S NOT ALL GEOMETRY
It may not all be geometry, but it is something else. . .
I recently stumbled on a brief article written by the professional speaker, Lou Hacker who’s been in the business of speaking/consulting and coaching speakers and business on service for well over 40 plus years now. He started out by saying he had been thinking about Peyton Manning and a tree service professional; he got me thinking about them, too. He related that he had read an interview once with former pro quarterback Peyton Manning where he was asked how he could so quickly spot potential receivers and then fire a forward pass a long way as they ran under it and made the reception. “”It’s all geometry,” was his answer. He said he was able to compute the angle and their speed and put the pass right where he wanted it. This past week there have been a lot of local tree services who have been taking down a lot of trees in the area because of some really bad storms last week in the Northeast Ohio area. I remember asking a guy who once took down several of our trees in the front and the back of our house who climbed the 60-70 feet to begin the process what the secret was to his amazing skills to saw the tree in sections and with the help of his crew, lower them safely to the ground. His response: “It’s all geometry!” WHAT??? I remember almost all of the Math teachers I ever had saying, “You just never know when Math will come in handy later in your life.” I never believed that, mostly because I’ve always had a fairly unhealthy relationship with
Mathematics. . .
BUT. . .
I believe each of us has a super power that if discovered and used properly fuels our ultimate success. Crazy as it sounds, I knew from my very early years that I would always be in front of an audience. What made most of my friends quiver and sweat made me feel great — speaking in class, handling the public address systems, reciting a book report, leading youth group sessions, well, that led me to more than 40 years as a professional speaker, keynote speaker, master of ceremonies, wedding and funeral officiant, and workshop leader/teacher. In your field, maybe it’s not some mathematical integers or put bluntly, “all geometry,”
B U T. . .
Do you know what your super power is? More importantly are you nurturing it, growing it and using it to benefit others?
It may not all be geometry, but it is something else which begs me to ask you.
What is your something else. . . ?
I’m a Math
never quite to be understood
A Geometry with no angles or straight lines
An Algebra without integers
A Calculus without Numbers
A Trigonometry without symbols
And though I don’t often
Add Up
And often feel Divided
I’m searching for a goodness
that multiplies whatever can never
be subtracted
PHRASES PERSONIFIED
SO. . .
ARE WE MORE THAN OUR WORDS. . .
WHAT ONE PERSON SAID:
“I have reached the pinnacle of success in business.” In other people’s eyes my life is a success.
However, aside from work, I’ve had little joy.
At the end of the day, wealth is just a fact I’ve gotten used to.
Right now, lying on my hospital bed, reminiscing all my life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth I took so much pride in, has faded and become meaningless in the face of imminent death.
You can hire someone to drive your car or make money for you, but you can’t hire someone to stand sick and die for you.
Material things lost can be found again. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost: Life.
Whatever stage of life we are currently at, in time we will face the day the curtain closes.
Love your family, spouse, children and friends… Treat them right .
Cherish them.
As we get older, and wiser, we slowly realize that wearing a $300 or $30 watch both give the same time
Whether we have a $300 or $30 wallet or purse, the amount inside is the same.
Whether we drive a $150,000 car or a $30,000 car, the road and the distance are the same, and we reach the same destination.
Whether we drink a $1000 or $10 bottle of wine, the hangover is the same.
Whether the house in which we live is 100 or 1000 square meters, loneliness is the same.
You will realize that your true inner happiness does not come from material things of this world.
Whether you travel first class or economy class, if the plane crashes, you go down with it…
Therefore, I hope you realize, when you have friends, brothers and sisters, with whom you discuss, laugh, talk, sing, talk about north-south-east or heaven and earth,… this is the real happiness!!
An indisputable fact of life:
Don’t raise your children to be rich.
Educate them to be happy.
When they grow up, they will know the value of things and not the price. “
THE
A N S W E R![]()
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. . .
Anyone can deliver a good line
few can
p e r s o n i f y
or
l i v e
them. . .
(Thank you Steve Jobs for continuing to live a life you never dreamed possible
and making good–Better)
Anyone can deliver a good line
few can
p e r s o n i f y
or
l i v e
them. . .
(Thank you Steve Jobs for continuing to live a life you never dreamed possible
and making good–Better)
A POWERFULLY PROFANE PRAYER
Anthony Hopkins might be one of the best actors in the past 50 years and one of the reasons I personally love and admire him is because he says his lines almost as if they were your own thoughts, and a flawless double-take.
B U T
Here’s the problem with his film clip. . .Most of us either got disgusted or we stopped watching or maybe we even haven’t gotten this far when we heard those
TWO WORDS that start with an F and end with a T. . .DID you hear what he said after that. . .You see what makes that prayer so powerful isn’t the words, it’s a REELEASE, A SURRENDER that powerfully were related, actually felt, in those words. When’s the last time you had that kind of surrender, felt that kind of release that you offered it or felt it or just flat out better still, that you actually lived it. . .
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. . .
maybe it’s not the most powerful and the fastest prayer in the world
or maybe it’s just one that’s long been waiting to be
PROFANELY PRAYED
GETTING POOH’D
It’s almost a very shameful confession but. . .
I’ve never been a very big Winnie the Pooh fan
and yet even though I’ve never been able to explain or defend it
I also have to admit
I LOVE THE GENTLE LIFE LESSONS
that are often offered up
L I K E:
Piglet?” said Pooh.
“Yes?” said Piglet.
“I’m scared,” said Pooh.
For a moment, there was silence.
“Would you like to talk about it?” asked Piglet, when Pooh didn’t appear to be saying anything further.
“I’m just so scared,” blurted out Pooh.
“So anxious. Because I don’t feel like things are getting any better. If anything, I feel like they might be getting worse. People are angry, because they’re so scared, and they’re turning on one another, and there seems to be no clear plan out of here, and I worry about my friends and the people I love, and I wish SO much that I could give them all a hug, and oh, Piglet! I am so scared, and I cannot tell you how much I wish it wasn’t so.”
Piglet was thoughtful, as he looked out at the blue of the skies, peeping between the branches of the trees in the Hundred Acre Wood, and listened to his friend.
“I’m here,” he said, simply. “I hear you, Pooh. And I’m here.”
For a moment, Pooh was perplexed.
“But… aren’t you going to tell me not to be so silly? That I should stop getting myself into a state and pull myself together? That it’s hard for everyone right now?”
“No,” said Piglet, quite decisively. “No, I am very much not going to do any of those things.”
“But-“ said Pooh.
“I can’t change the world right now,” continued Piglet. “And I am not going to patronise you with platitudes about how everything will be okay, because I don’t know that.
“What I can do, though, Pooh, is that I can make sure that you know that I am here. And that I will always be here, to listen; and to support you; and for you to know that you are heard.
“I can’t make those Anxious Feelings go away, not really.
“But I can promise you that, all the time I have breath left in my body…you won’t ever need to feel those Anxious Feelings alone.”
And it was a strange thing, because even as Piglet said that, Pooh could feel some of those Anxious Feelings start to loosen their grip on him; could feel one or two of them start to slither away into the forest, cowed by his friend, who sat there stolidly next to him.
Pooh thought he had never been more grateful to have Piglet in his life.
Ever feel like Pooh?
Ever been a Piglet?
The world is filled with both. . .
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