I typed this over and over again, hoping that one day I’d learn the fine skill of typing as I sat in a class with all girls. Young women, I should say. I was the only male in the Delaware County Community College course of study, and I never once felt out of place or unusual.
I wanted to be a journalist, you see. So, I figured I had to learn the fine art of typing to file my stories. Continue reading
My second wife stopped breathing shortly after they placed her in the emergency vehicle en route to a hospital some eight years ago. The day was six-months to date of her first bout with an emergency wagon when she fell in our Conshohocken, PA, home, suffering a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
She remained in a coma for more than five days. This time, however, they were more certain that she would not recover from her latest, unplanned date with Miss Fate. A nurse or a social worker at the Hospital suggested I contact a priest to say the last rites for Wendy. Continue reading
I see my life through the eyes of a kid who grew up in Brewerytown, swashbuckling my way through fights on the streets and later the jungles of Vietnam before finding my true calling as a spiritual clarion who wants all North Philadelphia children to return to their God-given Nature of Love. Continue reading
I never wanted a cigarette as bad as I did when I got thrown into a “lockup” after getting kicked out of the courtroom by a judge whose ire I had raised by raising my own voice at him.  Continue reading
My all-time favorite Philadelphia Judge was James Lineberger, a no-nonsense jurist who’d scare the hell out of many a defendant I’d bring to the bar of the court, and one time caused one of my clients to pass out when he sentenced him for a heinous crime a jury found him guilty of committing.
Judge Lineberger could also be as warm and fuzzy as a teddy bear who would leave the bench at the top of the courtroom and float down to the metal bar when spotting a Korean woman. He could serenade in her native tongue while gazing out from his big, lovable, and loving eyes.  Continue reading
That’s one of the prayers I’d recite as an altar boy at St. Ludwig’s Roman Catholic Church, and I’ll never forget it ‘til the day I die. Don’t ask me what it means right now. I never figured it out as a kid, but I loved to say it!  Continue reading
Collegeville may or may not have been named after a religious school called “Ursinus” in the central part of Montgomery County. . . Or some long ago seminary school. I really don’t know, but I rode through it when traveling to one of the last outdoor movie theatres, the one located in Limerick, Pa, a drive-in movie just outside of Pottstown.  Continue reading
I heard a banjo strum as I fed the birds outside near the plum tree in my yard this morning. Banjo? Strumming? Where could that have come from, I wondered?
Continue readingIf I had a magic wand, I would wave it and remove all of the hate in our land. It would take away the hurt all felt throughout the ages of man from the beginning of time, when Cain killed his brother, and when a stupid Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for a lousy bowl of soup.  Continue reading
The Shaman applied pressure with his fingers and thumbs to the side, back, and front of my skull. He told me to let him know if he caused me any pain.
I felt some discomfort, but it wasn’t intolerable, and so I said nothing and let him continue the process as I sat in a chair in front of more than a hundred people attending the symposium on “What is Healing? – Archaic Traditions Meet Ways of Experiencing Modern Consciousness Exploration and Psychotherapy.” He was the principal speaker, having taught the participants to dance and sing in two large circles in the room where we had met.  Continue reading
I think I’m going “Cat Shit.” You probably heard of someone going “Bat Shit.” But I’m here to tell you that I’ve gone “Cat Shit” and this is the reason why:
My son’s cat, Daniel, has developed some ESP skills. Extraordinary Sensing People skills.  Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I envisioned what the coming year would be like in a “Vision Board.” I got together with a small group and pasted magazine pictures and bold 48-point type letters to a cardboard placard showing what we would like to see enfold in 2016.
I placed the Vietnam War book at the top, adding lots of spiritual and meditative symbols alongside it. On the bottom line, I pasted “Love to Travel” and displayed two large pictures of my son and me on a cruise to Alaska some two years ago.
Little did I know then that writing about the war would take a backseat while my traveling plans would enlarge and grow immensely! Continue reading
“Think before You Speak” reads the sign that my new best friend gave me for Christmas. She thought of me when she saw it, she said. She knew how many problems I had had with boundaries. Or, rather, lack of boundaries.  Continue reading
I don’t feel my age. I know I’m getting older and will soon meet my Maker. But I just can’t see myself as a senior citizen, let alone someone who will one day praise the glory of Medicare and the free rides on public transportation in Philadelphia.
To tell you the truth, I feel like I’m seventeen years old again. My body would disagree, but my heart and my mind often see things from that period of time . . . It was a time when I had just graduated high school and the world was my oyster, so to speak.  Continue reading
Mental illness scares the shit out of me. The very term conjures up images of some crazed guy with wild, straggly hair and a demon-like smile of malevolence. Steven King kind of comes to mind when I think of someone who might be a little touched in the head. A Stephen King character, that is. Not Stephen King.  Continue reading
Reflections opened a new world of understanding today. Years after a traumatic event, I can look back and see things in a totally different and healing fashion.
I couldn’t do it when the shit was happening. It hurt too much.
Even five or ten years after the trauma, I’d get sweaty palms and a sped-up heartbeat when thinking about the worst day of my life. I couldn’t dwell for too long without having to relive the God-awful experience.  Continue reading
I fall to my knees every day and give thanks for at least three things that I am totally grateful for. I usually include my son and at least one of our cats but also acknowledge the advent of a new day as well as a nice new warm bed and the person who invented the heater to keep all of us warm. The cats included!  Continue reading
No matter where I go, Philadelphia will always go with me. I’ve taken the old neighborhood to combat in Vietnam as well as to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. I let it shine in the courthouses of Philadelphia and the one and only house of pleasure I visited in Panama.
Yeah, I’m from Brewerytown, an old German-based section of Philadelphia that families of beer-makers settled in a small enclave of the City of Brotherly Love. Brewerytown is near the Philadelphia Zoo on Girard Avenue and not too far from the Eastern State Penitentiary, where Al Capone once lived in a section called Fairmount.  Continue reading
I remembered what love once meant to me, and I thought I’d share it with those of us who might have forgotten it.
I’m talking about the love that hits you upside the head when you’re not looking; the type that won’t let you think of anyone else besides him or her; the love that you wish your lover would feel but you’re too afraid to hope for a schmuck like yourself.  Continue reading
Who am I? What do I believe? And can I name a few of my beliefs?
Let me name a few things I believe about myself. They’re in no particular order.  Continue reading
I believe that all of us are placed on this earth for a purpose, and the aim for us in life is to find out what that purpose is!
We don’t usually seek the answer right away. Most put it off until some calamity forces us to find answers to life’s most important questions. Why am I here? Why am I in this body? Who am I, really?  Continue reading
If you haven’t tried it, you ought to Google “EFT” and see if such a technique could help with whatever might ail you today!
Like December 7th, 1941, the date of “9-11” will go down in American history as a new generation’s Day of Infamy.
In my lifetime, it ranks up there with the horrific day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  Continue reading
On this Labor Day weekend, I’d like to offer the song “Joe Hill” to all my union-supporting friends and share the story of the man who helped me as a union organizer in what seems like another lifetime ago. Continue reading
Kids I grew up with in the tough section of North Philadelphia said that I had “a lot of heart.” I cherish that statement more than any I later heard as a teenager, a young adult, or someone older looking back on what made him the proudest in his short lifetime. You’d have a “lot of heart” if you didn’t care for the consequences when sticking up for a black kid when a white “friend” called him the “N” word and then classified you as a “N-gger lover” for coming to his defense.
Summer always served as a “new beginning” for me when I was in the US Army. I got drafted on the Third of June and did my basic training in the hot, dry air of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I can’t tell you how many push-ups I did during the two-month training session, as the meanest drill sergeant I ever saw brought fire to my poor soul by running me everywhere and cussing me out to force me into fighting shape. Continue reading
Much of what I know about War was what I learned while playing as a kid. You know, using a stick or a broken branch from a tree, I’d pretend it was a rifle to shoot the bad guys who were out to get me and the rest of the good guys in my old neighborhood. 
I’d get shot and then hit the ground, rolling over like a dog playing dead. I got really good at dying, but later I realized it was not something I could carry over into real life.
Getting really angry and wanting to hurt someone was another part of war I tried out when I was a much older kid.
I’d get into a fight on the playground or the block, sticking up for what I believed was something hurtful or threatening to me or one of my friends. I’d fight and usually end up with a black eye, but I wouldn’t care because I believed I had done the right thing.
The thing that a John Wayne or a Davy Crockett would have done if one of those heroes of mine somehow occupied my body and took a swing at a bully or someone showing disrespect to someone, I cared a lot for.
I remember the times that I’d go berserk while in combat. It only happened when one of my own guys got injured, and I would want to go after the enemy soldier or sniper to make them pay for the pain they caused.
I did something like this as a kid.
There was a certain thrill to it, I have to admit.
Even today, when I see someone showing disrespect to another, something inside sends a message via my nervous system to come to the aid of someone less prepared to defend themselves.
Like when a person fails to stop speaking on a cell phone while being served in a line and pays little or no attention to the person waiting on them.
The “fight or flight” physiologilacal stuff gets released, and I get a charge. I want to take action against the perceived threat, the disrespect. I know I should dial it back— this rage that gets me going from zero to 60 in a split second. But, it’s hard to change such a habit.
I’ve tried to force the person to be decent and caring by humiliating and even shouting at ‘em. I do it, even though I know my anger hurts me just as much as I want it to hurt the other person. Sometimes even more.
Someday, I guess that this child in me will find peace. Someday, he’ll not react with a club in his hand. Someday, he’ll be more compassionate toward someone so very ignorant.
But not today. Today, I am letting that kid rant a little!
All of my legal career involved defending someone charged with crimes or offenses against the law. I worked 20 years as a lawyer, trying more than a hundred jury trials, winning more than half of them.
But to be honest, my first taste of arguing the law came not as a defense lawyer, but as a prosecutor, one appointed by some colonel to bring charges against a buck private who broke a law and faced a summary offense for some minor infraction.
I knew the young man. He was in the company in which I served as a training officer in Fort Polk, LA.
I even liked the kid.
I was “Out of Order.”
I disliked having to “go after” him, but I took my oath to defend the US Constitution seriously. And I zealously presented the facts before a JAG lawyer serving as a judge.
I can’t tell you how many times the judge — someone actually trained in the law as opposed to me, a Second Lieutenant with no college degree not to mention no law degree — admonished me for walking around the makeshift courtroom, pretending I was a Perry Mason cross-examining a witness. I was ordered to remain within three feet of a podium.
That restriction initially chilled my presentation, but I used my arms to wave and point into the air to get my thoughts across.
I secured a conviction. Something I fought against some twenty years later as a Philadelphia public defender.
But there was no celebration. And if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have taken the assignment but feigned an illness, if at all possible.
And that’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, So Help Me God!
President Barack Obama may have raised an issue on all wars when he eulogized a fallen comrade on June 26, 2015, at the funeral for the pastor of the AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
While never detracting from the valor that Confederate Soldiers fought with in the Civil War, he offered a plain and simple truth.
The Cause they Fought For was Wrong.
The cause their leaders created to secede from the union was wrong. Wanting to uphold slavery as the economic foundation for the South’s way of life was wrong.
It was wrong hundreds of years ago in our nation, just as it was wrong thousands of years ago when Jews, Greeks, and other defeated people were enslaved by others. It was wrong in the time of the Moses as it was in the time of Lincoln.
Symbols like the Confederate flag, which support slavery, should be removed from all public places. They’re wrong to ever be displayed.
——-
What about other wars that leaders of powerful armies ordered their soldiers to fight in? Were any of them “wrong,” and can we as a God-fearing country ever admit to it?
I’m speaking about the Vietnam War in my time. I fought for what my leaders convinced our nation was the right thing to do. I never questioned their reasons or the basis for their belief.
But history has shown that they were wrong. The cause was wrong. And that the leaders of the resistance movement in Vietnam were right. Their cause was right. Admitting this does not detract from the bravery “our side” showed in the war. Nor does it prevent my prodigy from honoring my efforts in battle.
We can honor the veteran who placed himself in harm’s way at the same time we correct the mistaken belief the infallibility of a government, any government.
Just as we can honor the veterans of the Iraq War while agreeing that our reasons for the invasion and occupation of that land were wrong. Dead wrong.
It’s the right thing to do!
——-
(The Confederate flag flew for the last time at the South Carolina state grounds on July 10, 2015 when it was removed and placed in a museum following an order signed by the governor and passed by an overwhelming vote by the state senate and the legislature.)
(In addition, Mississippi became the last state in our nation to remove the Confederate emblem from its state flag in June 2020.)
Peggy sat at the table of the Blue Jay Restaurant, staring out the window and wondering where her life had gone and what she should do with her new condition. 
She had hoped that the signs she felt from her body were false and that she was simply sick. But she knew from what happened to her older sister that there was no getting around the truth.
Peggy was pregnant. The man she surrendered her virginity to had helped her to conceive a child. It was a dream she had had since childhood and nursed along since reaching puberty.
But he was not the man she had hoped for. He was much older than her. She was 21 years old and got to know him while working at the pizza store, he operated along Girard Avenue in the heart of North Philadelphia, where Peggy was raised and hoped to leave someday.
Romantic love discarded for the sake of child-rearing
Now her plans for the immediate future would change. She’d be forced to make choices that would alter her dreams and the bright tomorrow she had hoped to see on reaching adulthood.
No, she would not seek an abortion. Peggy was raised Catholic, and she would not consider such an action, which the church considered a mortal sin. Even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t know where to seek such a procedure, having little or no contact with any women’s movement that could possibly guide her with her situation.
—————
Give birth to a child out of wedlock? No. Place the child somewhere through an adoption agency? No.
She’d get married to a man who she knew could be a good provider and a good father. If all went well, he’d be a good friend.
So, what if she didn’t love him? So, what if she still cared for her old boyfriend, the one she and others believed would one day get married and settle down? He was in the Army awaiting orders to go to the Vietnam War, and who knew if he would ever return, or if he did, whether he’d still be the boy she had given her heart to.
No, she knew it was better this way.
Better for all concerned, better for all parties forever more.
Wasn’t it?
I met Abraham up close and personal yesterday, and I learned the universe had called me to study the Law of Attraction as voiced by Esther Hicks, the one who channeled for the spirits guiding us back to the Source within. 
Abraham then kicked me off the stage at the Philadelphia Renaissance Hotel. I never felt so loved for such a wonderful public rejection. I felt like Groucho Marx, who never wanted to belong to a club that would have him as a member.
Abraham knew — the Spirits knew — that I could take it, and it got a good laugh from the more than 500 people in the auditorium at the International Airport Hotel in my hometown.
“I don’t know why I am here,” I told the person used by Abraham to communicate. It was one Esther Hicks who called me to the stage, adjusted a microphone, and peered into my eyes as if seeing my very soul. I had bowed to Esther upon running up the steps to take what followers call the “hot seat.” I bowed out of respect to the person in front of me, as well as to the wisdom and compassion the spirits inside of Esther had provided a handful of us who visited with her.
I told her I was a member of the Philadelphia Abraham-Hicks group formed on Meetup, but was a newcomer, having only attended two meetings. Three or four of my fellow Meetup friends were in the audience, and I imagined I heard them saying a prayer for me.
The next thing I recall was this booming voice that came from this beautiful woman dressed in a black skirt and blouse with a silk shawl covering her shoulders and the top of her chest and arms. I was astonished when she looked at me and said in such a loud voice :
Utter silence echoed through the room. The only sound heard was the hum from an air conditioning unit attached to the ceiling. I felt a warmth fill me from head to toe. I became sated and felt as if I had finally come home.
I bowed to Esther and to Abraham while seated and was getting out of my chair when I thought I’d ask another question or two.
Stupid Michael J., you had your chance. Abraham answers questions with the precision of a scientist, using creatures like me to teach mankind to seek the “vibration” and to align one’s upper self with the Source, which I took to be the Creator — or for others, Allah or maybe the Supreme Being. (You can take your pick for whatever label you’re more comfortable with, or no label at all!)
“I do have another question,” I blurted out, trying to ingratiate myself with the powerful force behind the voice.
“Oh no,” Esther said. She indicated that they were done with me and tried as I might to stay, but the spirits were insistent. I gave in, stood up, and bowed to the lovely woman on the stage.
But turning to the audience, I raised my arm in a victory salute and smiled the biggest smile a Greek boy could smile from beneath his newly purchased straw hat.
I know what I want and where I’m going now. I hope to use the “Wisdom I was Born With” to return to the Source and share love and happiness with everyone.
Come along and get aligned with me!
I miss you. My God, how I have missed you!
It feels like forever since we’ve been together.
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I know that it’s my fault. I walked out on you, believing I could get along without you, without your guidance without your help. Without your Love . . .
I was a fool, and I know it now.
You knew it too, but you’re too nice, too loving to ever say “I Told You So.” There have been so many times when I tried to go it alone. I’d find small success and material gains here and there, but I’d always end up failing where it really counted. In my heart, in my dreams, even in my soul.
I didn’t know how much I needed someone like you until I hit rock bottom and experienced how miserable life could be without you.
I became the loneliest man in the world. I was too ashamed to admit I was nothing without you. That you were my reason for living, for breathing, for just “Being.” I realize now that I truly am a great big nothing without you.
And you care so much for me that you’ve always been willing to give me another chance at becoming the loving creature that the Universe had created me to be. I want to be more like you, to care more like you, to give more like you . . . to want nothing in return except the wisdom to know that it is in the giving that we receive, it is in the pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in the death to this world that we can truly find life worth living.
Thank you, my Divine One. I hope to be with you as one for now and forever more
This quote from the famous Greek of antiquity, Hippocrates, could be the basis for a new Golden Rule for the Road.  Continue reading
A Viet Cong sniper was trying to kill me. Some motherfucker hiding in the trees, the bushes, the triple-canopy jungle had just shot at my platoon. I thought he was shooting randomly, despite the debris from the ground, grassland and other tiny bits of rock that struck me from a bullet’s ricochets.
No, he was aiming at no one but me! It’s taken me more than forty years to figure that out. 
Now I must try to answer the question, “Why was I spared?” and what will I do now with my life after seeing I got a second chance to live it toward a more purposeful ending?
Christ Almighty! How could I not detect this assassination attempt on my life in 1970? We had heard all the stories about the life expectancy of lieutenants — especially the second lieutenants, the lowest of what are called “junior” officers.
Yeah, you read that right. Some “urban legend,” gave the new-in-country officer no more than the time it might take for a helicopter to touch down in a “Hot LZ,” a landing zone where guns were blazing. Sixteen minutes was all the time it took for an enemy sharpshooter — a gifted sniper — to beam onto the newbie leaving the chopper to get his first salute in a combat zone. The lieutenant would end up dead before he’d finish returning that salute.
Who knows where that story originated? But there was some truth to it.
————-
A sniper killed First Lieutenant Victor Lee Ellinger, the leader of the Third Platoon in my outfit, C Company. By all standards, he was a veteran, having been in the bush some three months before he was hit. The enemy killed no one else during the brief firefight.
When he went down, the platoon sergeant called the company commander, who ordered me to help Vic’s troops, only to learn he had died while I force-marched my platoon. We had to medevac out two soldiers who suffered heat exhaustion during the long, hard, fast slug I put them through. A forced march is a journey in “quick time,” a fast walk just slightly below a jog.
Throw in a 20-pound backpack in sweltering heat over a distance of half a click (500 meters or half a kilometer), and it could be quite grueling to breathe, let alone march quickly.
I didn’t bargain for this shit! Growing up in the city, I’d gotten into my share of fights, but no one ever shot at me.
But there I was, the man in charge. I never thought of the chaos a sniper could cause by shooting at the leader. He was out to get me, and he had me in his sights. I did not know that then. (I thank God for temporary stupidity. It’s kind of like temporary insanity, but that won’t get you off in a court of law.) I never put the shooting together with the target of the shooter. I thought the sniper was simply pinning down the squad I was leading, not shooting directly at its leader, me.
I moved forward but fell back when another round of fire rang out. Again, I felt some dirt and whatnot spray over me. But I still thought it was us as a group that he was shooting at.
The entire time I served in Vietnam, I never saw the enemy up close and only got glimpses of him in the distance as we’d approach one of his encampments. I’d shoot in the direction of that glimpsed object, hoping I’d hit something or somebody. But I never knew whether it was me or someone else in my platoon who’d end up killing someone. We’d come across a body, and that would be the only time I’d come face-to-face with “Charlie,” the nickname we gave the enemy.
No one I knew in Vietnam ever engaged in hand-to-hand combat. We used no fixed bayonets, and I threw only two hand grenades the time I was in the field, because we hardly ever got close enough to heave ‘em. We’d probably end up hitting a branch and have the explosion backfire had I tossed any more.
Had I known then that a real person was “gunning” for me, I think I would have acted differently. It would have shaken me, instilled more fear in me. I’d be more cautious and more tentative in my actions, following orders, and passing on orders.
Oh, I’d still go a little “berserk” when someone got shot, and revenge sparked a fury that made one’s actions foolishly heroic. I’d charge like a madman when going to help a fallen soldier, as I did when learning that the third platoon had walked into an ambush and needed help from our platoon.
To hell with my safety, there were others worse off, and I believe I speak for every man I ever fought with by saying that any bravery we might have displayed arose from the love and compassion we had for the other guy.
I survived the war in Vietnam. I was never wounded, although I developed a hearing loss from artillery fire and claim it as a disability with the Veterans Administration. There are lots of psychological scars that flare up when stress triggers a traumatic memory. It’s called Post Traumatic Stress. But I am pretty much intact. But what’s keeping this vet alive all these years?
Today, however, I have a question that only a higher command can answer. Why was I spared? Why was another killed and not me? Is this just survivor’s guilt? I could have, perhaps I should have been shot. But why was I not?
More importantly, what have I done with a life that was given to me by Fate or whatever power in the universe you want to name? What am I to do with myself now?
————–
The following is a conversation about this Blog post shared elsewhere:
Holy crap Michael, I just got the message here and I have to reflect on the story some… what I feel though, and the perspective I take now on “why life” is that it was your choice to live, to survive, and yet only to realize this so many years later. You helped those souls in you charge survive … it all has meaning, it is a free will universe, yet so many abdicate their natural rights … Do you ever speak to the men in your platoon?
I have had no contact with any of the guys I served with except for a fellow lieutenant from Arkadelphia, Ark. He was Charlie Ellis. I spoke to him on the phone a few years ago after getting his number from his mother, who was still alive.
He had a Degree in Economics when I knew him in Vietnam. He was a tall southern boy with a lazy drawl to his voice. He came up through ROTC while Victor Lee Ellinger — the other junior officer — and I went to OCS.
I learned that he had “Found God” and became a lawyer just like me, serving as a public defender somewhere in Arkansas. We talked about our buddy who was killed by a sniper and commented on how moving our visit to the Vietnam Veteran Memorial was for both of us.
— A damn public defender. Still practicing. Still journeying on his spiritual path.
The Universe is amazing, and you can never truly understand the wisdom that is out there!
I felt a lot of healing when I read the following quote from the feminine deity: Moor Jani:
“We all have the capacity to heal ourselves as well as facilitate the healing of others. When we get in touch with that infinite place within us where we are Whole, then illness can’t remain in the body. And because we’re all connected, there’s no reason why one person’s state of wellness can’t touch others. Elevating them and triggering their recovery. And when we heal others, we also heal ourselves and our planet.
There is no separation except in our own minds.”
————-
Healing is one of the topics for my newest project, a retelling of Jesus’ life as a carpenter’s apprentice at age 20 in the Land of Palestine. I wrote it in less than thirty days as part of a challenge by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) to complete a novel during the 30 days of November. I completed it today, November 30th, 2014.
The quote above is taken from a book by Anita Moorjani, from whom I just sent an e-mail telling how I used her words to explain the healing process that she described in “Dying to Be Me.” I thought it was appropriate to quote what I imagined a Hindu deity would say about healing. I named the deity Moor Jani. It is spoken by a Buddhist lama named Lobsang, who has taught the young man from Nazareth the secrets of healing through the Reiki process. (I hope to all that is holy that she’ll grant me permission to use her words)
I enjoyed writing this work of fiction.
It may take a while before I can edit it for a full viewing. I would love to send excerpts to anyone willing to offer a critique of the writing. Simply address me here at this site. Your e-mail will appear in my Gmail account, so there will be no breach of confidentiality. (You can even create a fictitious name to use, but please, do not use Donald Duck unless you’re prepared to quack about it.)
Here’s another taste of the manuscript. It’s from the Oracle of Delphi where Jesus and his Greek sidekick, the former slave Michael, have just gotten a prophecy delivered.
Michael stood with eyes wide open as the oracle looked him in the eyes. He blinked and had difficulty in keeping eye contact with her. She spoke two words that seemed to blend together. “Conto . . . Veros,” the young and beautiful woman continued. “You will speak the truth. You will be called the “Singer of Truth.
Conto-Veros. The words rang in his mind as Michael felt a chill and then a warmth overtake his very being. He rolled the words around in his mouth, trying to savor the feel of them. “Con . . . to . . . Ver . . . os,” he whispered to himself, slowly pronouncing each of the four syllables. He liked the sound of it. He liked the feel of it.
But what about “writing well” or “not writing at all“? What could that mean? Only time would tell and that was not to be revealed until many years later.
“All can heal and help facilitate the healing in others.” — Moorjani
I am looking for the type of cover for my latest book, my son. It tells of a Mystical Journey I embarked upon several months ago, arriving in Ithaca, New York, for a three-day retreat. There, I met a teacher who explained how I could understand my life and its meaning.
Provide a cover for this book, Nicholas. And I’ll publish it for the entire New World to see the Spirit of ancient Greece come alive once again. Let my Muse inspire others to see words and to hear voices of comfort and hope to and for the three times.
“Ithaca Mystical Insights” is what I will call it. I’ll tell the tale of a seeker lost for some 20 years fighting a war that doesn’t seem to end until he leaves the enemy’s land and re-enter his gates in a different form. Following war, he’ll search for meaning over land and sea trying to return home to Ithaca and the security he believes it will provide.
The protagonist doesn’t find his way until discovering answers as so many wanderers do. You’ll read about more battles, more glorious adventures as well as loves surfacing on the open seas. He never loses sight, however, of the main goal — and that is to discover the truth and the meaning of life.
Provide me the cover and I will open this book for all to see. The hero promises to shed his amour and never to go back to war, thus ensuring all new adventures will take place only in my mind.
———————
(For a look at an excerpt of the book, see https://contoveros.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/ithaca-insights-serve-up-peace-calm/
That’s the key to a happy life, you know. Learning to serve others selflessly with no expectation of a reward other than the knowledge you are doing unto others something you’d want them to do . . . unto everyone else.
It’s a different version of the Golden Rule, which I always thought had some sort of tit for tat attached. “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you” is one of the versions I remember growing up in a Christian household. My father was Greek Orthodox, and my mother Catholic. Mom had her way; she was in cahoots with the parish priest, and my dad actually “did unto others” but never saw any of his sons “do unto him” by following the Orthodox path. Well, there are always the grandchildren, right nephews Joe, Michael, and Rocky, and let’s not forget Nick, as well as any we don’t know about who may have entered this country out of wedlock.
No, serving others is just like serving yourself. You want to end all the suffering in your own life, and the best way to start is to turn your focus away from your woes and zero in on all others, all the ones you might have the least bit of contact with or upon, and can do something, even the slightest thing to make them more comfortable, less tense, and feeling that at least one person out of 8 billion really does care.
I didn’t know it, until “awakening” during a three-day retreat in Ithaca, NY, when the veil of illusion was slowly removed from my eyes and I saw like a Mystic. It’s no big deal. I view things as I believe they should be, not the way they are. My goal in life is to try my best to get others to see things this way, the ideal reality, and not the conventional or illusory way.
Insight showed me that I have served others one way or another in most of my adult life. It showed in the jobs I held, the positions I sought to take for a “Right Livelihood;” the beliefs I adopted while discarding bits and pieces of what didn’t “feel right” or those I might not be ready to fully adopt at this moment.
I worked as a printer when I was 18 years old. I studied the trade while in high school, and learned what is called the “offset process.” It has to do with oil and water not mixing and how ink, an oil-based substance, would somehow adhere to another substance. I can’t tell you what waters got to do with it, but I think one washes away the other, and an image that had been burned into a metal plate “grasps” the ink while all mass around the image or “type” is washed away. What is conveyed to paper is what you see: Black Ink on a white background.
I was pretty good at developing negatives for burning images into plates. I could make a plate with just the right amount of muscle, rubbing the flat metal not to tire myself out. When the plate was completed, my job ended. The plate would be sent to a “pressman” (or woman) who’d adjust it into the large printing presses and run off a couple of hundred thousand copies of something or other. (Actually, I think plates at that time were only good for tens of thousands of copies, but who’s counting?)
Someone was expected to read the printed matter. A copywriter created a series of words and graphic arts to draw the attention of a reader. (I worked as a copy-writer for a short time and I know I tried to “serve” the consuming public who’d be choosing between one product and another for an acquisition. I also “served” my boss in providing him with the best job I could.)
(This is an excerpt from the first book I wrote, still unpublished, called “Ithaca Incites Mystical Insights.”)
Printing has always been a two-way street in my book. You engage in one effort for the benefit of another. Take the patron saint of the printing press, a German fellow named Gutenberg. If it weren’t for him, the Christian bible would never have been distributed so widely, thereby helping all people. (Actually, Western Civilization only. The East was doing pretty well without having to suffer through such growing pains as the “Dark Ages.”)
I provided a service, and I felt fulfilled in doing my small part.
Ithaca insights incite a Mystic to write inspirational illogical idioms!
It is truly “better to give, and not receive,” particularly when it costs so little to bring about such great joy in anther’s life. That joy starts out as a tiny smile that barely breaks through into a smile until the truly needy accepts the small offering and whispers a thank you. Even if you give anonymously as most of us do, we can use our imaginations to “visualize” the reception our gift is greeted with. Sneakers will fit and the poor can give away or throw out the ones filled with holes. That little dress will look great on my 6-year-old; Tommy can play catch with the baseball (or glove); we can have heat in our apartment for another month.
————
————–
I expected to try to get through the day today without my morning cup of meditation offering from Deepak & Oprah. I figured the 21-day journey had ended yesterday, August 31st. Yet today, the American holiday called “Labor Day,” they gave us a gift — an extra day. And boy, did I need it. Continue reading
(Question 2 on Hope)
You may also have experienced this kind of hope, (See https://contoveros.wordpress.com/?p=12505&preview=true) but not thought of it in those terms. Think of a time when you felt sure you were going to attain a lofty goal, even though the path to the goal was not apparent. That is the hope that comes from your being. Describe this feeling of certainty in your journal. – Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Experience (Feeling Hope) I was a buck private in training as a soldier in Fort Dix, NJ, when I had a vision, or what Zen Buddhists call a “satori” or moment of clarity of what I needed to do with my life.
I was a buck private in training as a soldier in Fort Dix, NJ, when I had a vision, or what Zen Buddhists call a “satori” or moment of clarity of what I needed to do with my life.
I needed and wanted to write a book.
Not just any book, but one where I was the hero. Well, hero may not be the right word. In the book, I was to be the center of attention, while everything I’d write about would involve me and things that I had some sort of contact with. I used the model of the Bible as a guide.
I figured that the greatest book that there ever was should be the map and framework for my book. I’d be just like Christ, but not face crucifixion or circumcision. There was a driving force behind this idea. The idea stayed with me from the moment I was nineteen years old until I finished working for a living and found the leisure time to write about what I had discovered over the years.
I didn’t know that I would write a book when I started dabbling with a Blog. I started writing on WordPress the same month that Uncle Dom had died in 2009, and I guess I haven’t stopped since then. The blog became my way of expressing what I was seeing around me and what was happening to influence me. I learned that most of what I was learning was something I already knew, but had forgotten.
I think that much of spiritual knowledge is like that. We don’t get our “smarts” from someone or some book out there. We get it from inside, where true wisdom, love, and hope reside. It takes some of us a lifetime, however, to realize that. All we needed to do was to become as silent as Dominick, smile, and hope to visit that wise child inside who has never left us. The child becomes the guide and offers us the inspiration to set goals and to eventually achieve them.
You’re reading this right now, and that goes to show you that I achieved another step toward my goal. You can do it once you identify your goal and stick to it as if your life depended on it.
Your spiritual life will depend on it for you to follow through for your salvation.
We introduced a new understanding of hope today. We want to build a sense of hope that is a force of change that comes from a feeling of certainty and well-being within, rather than an anxious kind of hope that vaguely wishes for things to turn out well. Write about an experience you may have had with this stronger kind of hope. – Deepak Chopra (Day 6 — Feeling Hope)
I don’t think you can have a future or any type of “end product” without hope. I see hope more as a process, a living force that flows from day-to-day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. We hope for something that will come into existence in some future time. Yet the feeling we get through the act of hope occurs in the present.
It’s like living. No, it is living, which is living in the present moment while expending energy in a real certainty that there will be answers for what we hope for tomorrow. For instance, I hope to publish a book. Actually, I have five books in which I hope to publish over the next several months. That’s ten hopeful wishes, so to speak. I am in the process of self-publishing, and I hope to obtain an end product sometime later this year.
My hope is that the books will be well-received and, more importantly, that someone reads them. I hope that they will inspire others and reveal truths that I’ve learned through a mystical journey I started some six years ago. That’s when I retired from “regular” work, and I found my true passion in writing. I like to say that I traded in a legal career to return to a writing one, this time, not as a newspaper reporter, but a reporter on and about life!
Since September 2009, I had hoped that I could offer as much compassion and love as the monsignor did at my Uncle Dominick‘s funeral. Uncle Dom was the last surviving blood relative from either of my parents’ sides. He was the baby of the family and had babysat me when I was sent to my grandmother’s house to avoid any harm. My mother, Dom’s half-sister, had suffered from postpartum depression, and I was shipped off to Mays Landing, NJ, from Philadelphia, PA, to prevent any danger to me and to provide the much-needed help for my frail and sickly mother.
Did someone see some hope in me? I like to think that Grandma Hagel did. Whenever someone asked me if I knew who provided me with unconditional love, I automatically think of her. Yet, I remember very little about her. I guess there was (is) a feeling about the times I had contact with her that lends itself to such an impression.
Uncle Dom was the quiet type. He served in the navy during World War II and “inherited” Grandma’s house after he got married and began raising his own children. He married one of the toughest women I have ever encountered, Aunt Frances. She was the bossy type who always seems to control every situation. And if she couldn’t control it, she found a way to influence it by getting to the guy or girl in charge!
I got hope for my spiritual path when the cleric at Uncle Dom’s funeral butchered Aunt Frances’ name. No one messed with Aunt Frances, and I took it as a sign for a drastic change in my life. I figured that I was as spiritual as that priest, and that I could prove it.
Of course, I had meditated for more than a year, having learned mindfulness meditation in a Veterans Administration clinic and at a weekly meditation session with a Zen teacher. Hope infused in me after I prayed for Uncle Dom, meditated, and rose to the standing position with the others in the church. We stood to exit the pew where we had been either seated or were kneeling. It was time to receive Holy Communion.
Communion is something I can’t receive anymore. You see, I got married “outside” the church, and I would have to get a dispensation from the pope or get remarried “in” the church to take on that sacrament. It is one of the worst sins the Catholic Church has imposed on its faithful, and I’m sure it has driven out — and is still keeping out — many Catholics who are good people. These are people like me who had simply met other good folks of different religious backgrounds and agreed to accept the spouse’s choice of where to get married.
I got married in a Presbyterian Church by a Methodist minister named Michele Wright Bartlow, the sister of my soon-to-be wife, the former Wendy Wright.
I hope that someday a pope like Pope Francis will grant a blanket absolution for those of us who chose to say our marriage vows somewhere other than in a Catholic church. I’d “go back” to the church if he waved a magic wand and said all was forgiven. I would be able to receive communion again and not have to pretend like I did during the funeral for Uncle Dom.
————–
So, I marched backward and then made my way around the church, checking out some of the statues on display at various sections of the House of God. My hope was that no one would take offense, and from what I noticed, no one did. No one has ever commented about it, and I guess my hope helped to create a happy ending of sorts.
I became more spiritual and have not really looked back except to reflect on how far along this path a sinner like me has been able to travel. See, there is hope for everybody if they seek it out. It freed me up to write, and I haven’t stopped since that fateful day.
Stay tuned for more hope in tomorrow’s post. That’s when I’ll try to “wright a wrong“, so to speak. Or just click the post at right below.)
Despite always having a smile on my lips and a laugh at my tongue, I found it hard to think of anything to write about for the latest meditation round for Oprah and Deepak. That is, until I picked up my son at work this evening and we joked and laughed until I almost did you know what in my pants. It hurt so much that I started crying, that’s how good it was and how great it felt to just let it all come out in front of one of his 22-year-old buddies and our 25-year-old female traveling companion.
(Part 1 of 2)
Recall a time when you felt calm and peaceful, even though the circumstances were not peaceful. Write down a description of that event, and describe how you were able to be calm in that situation. What was the source of this peacefulness if it didn’t come from outside? — Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Experience (Day 3 — “Feeling Peace”)
I had led my platoon in Vietnam for several months. We had encountered several firefights, but no one was killed or injured, thank God. But you never knew what the next day would bring, and so we were on edge, on the ready, so to speak, for anything that might have endangered us.
And then one day, I lead one of my two squads into an area where we came across a humongous crater that had been carved in the earth. I don’t know what kind of bomb had created such a massive hole. It looked as if it had been done several years before the ten or twelve guys I was leading had approached it and, circling it, decided to make our overnight “camp” there.
It was broad daylight, however, when we got to it, and there were still several hours of light left. I’ll tell you I have never felt so much peace as I did when settling in at that moment. I don’t know what it was that gave off such calm and relaxing vibrations. Perhaps there had been a monastery or some sort of temple there at one time.
Perhaps spirits from those prayers offered up to whatever gods existed at their time were still lingering in the vicinity.
Peace of God found in the middle of the Vietnam War for some lucky Grunts
———————–
I felt secure and comfortable. I felt I could rest and not worry about any type of attack, even though we didn’t let down our watch through the evening and overnight. It just seemed as if God had gathered us in his arms and was protecting us.
I hadn’t felt the Presence of God since I was twelve years old. I didn’t recognize it as a “presence” until recently, when I reflected on the more peaceful times in my life and determined that, strangely enough, it was right smack in the middle of a war.
The peace came from within but also from the birds and critters that had returned to what must have been a burned-out shell shortly after the massive explosion. Bushes and small trees had started to grow along the sides of the crater. There weren’t that many flowers, but the foliage was pleasant to look at and comforting to believe it could conceal us from outside forces. Maybe it did.
And maybe that is what peace is all about, being able to go within, protected from outside forces.
— Michael J Contos, former US Army lieutenant, responding to meditation question posed.
(For part 2, please see: https://contoveros.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/explosion-shatters-peace-but-calm-prevails/)
(For more on meditation see Chopra Center Meditation Experience)
I had a dream with a wonderful happy ending just a few minutes ago. It woke me, and I made a cup of coffee, brushed my teeth, and began writing while the memory was still fresh on my mind.
I dreamed about my dog named Willie.
I was walking with him, as well as my old office mate from the Defender Association of Philadelphia, when Willie broke away from us, crossed the street, and joined in a chase of something that a pack of dogs was following at the Philadelphia Art Museum. You know, the one that Rocky Balboa ran up the steps before raising both arms in victory motion in the movie.
I called to him several times, but he was too busy enjoying the chase as I saw him run up one hill and down the other. Boy, was he having fun.
But I knew there could be trouble with any traffic should he decide to cross the street or follow the dogs should they chase after the prey they were seeking. I whistled my special whistle but got nada in return.
I couldn’t wait. My office mate and I had to catch a bus. I guess we were going to work near City Hall in downtown Philadelphia.
In any case, we had gotten on a bus, and I immediately felt pangs of guilt. I also saw Willie running with the dogs in the distance, and I waited until I got the bus driver’s attention and asked him to please stop.
My office mate chided me.
“You never had a dog,” I said to her. “You never experienced true love,” I added, not really knowing what I meant by that, but feeling it kind of meant something like “unconditional love,” the type I got from my dog, Willie.
This was not the first dream I had of him. He appears regularly in my dreams. He’s never on a leash and always seems to be having a great time.
This time, however, I felt I couldn’t rest without “getting him back.”
I got off the bus and somehow got transported to the back of an open dump truck that belonged to one of my brothers, Johnny. There were a few items in the bed of the truck, including a rifle, which I grabbed before leaving on my quest to get Willie.
I had no idea where the bus driver had left me off at. It was somewhere in Philly, but I wasn’t familiar with South Philadelphia and none of the places I saw seemed as if they belonged. Hey, this was a dream, after all!
(Note: This is an excerpt from a book entitled; “Contoveros Sings the Brewerytown Blues” scheduled for publication in late 2015 or early 2016)
I began walking a straight line in the direction back to the art museum. In order to do that, I had to walk into and through houses and offices. I’d say hello and pretend that I worked at the places I breezed through. I had taken no notice of the rifle I was carrying, and neither had anyone else.
Too soon, I found my way blocked. I then climbed a roof hoping to get over one of the buildings, but couldn’t get any further, and I was forced to retreat to where I had just climbed from. All I kept thinking was what someone would say to the police upon seeing my little Greek butt.
“Man on a roof with a rifle.”
The next thing I knew, I was inside a factory laboratory. Two men were walking in the same direction away from me, and I called out to them. The one fellow turned out to be a really Good Samaritan, agreeing to take me to his house and help me on my search for Willie.
Oh, by the way. Before I had left the bus, the bus driver pulled out a sheet and began writing answers to questions he posed to me about Willie, should someone with SEPTA, the regional transit company. I told him the dog would eat about anything and, yes, he was partial to biscuits!
My newly found friend and I were joined by a few others in his house, and we made our way out. We had to pass through one of two gates to get to the street. One gate had been guarded by a fellow who was looking the other way when we departed, safely reaching the street and the avenue outside the compound.
Once there, we had been walking up the street for a few minutes when one of the members of our group started to shout and point. I had no idea what he was referring to until I noticed a small black and white critter come racing in our direction, making a beeline right towards me.
Willie had found me. He was never lost. Neither was I.
And of course, we lived happily ever after!
————–
“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.“
— Josh Billings
Fuzzy was a Fuzz Ball that wanted to give love to whoever he met. It all started when he felt a point in the heart materialize, and a wish to bestow came over him.
He’d give love here, there, just about everywhere, every day to everybody he came into contact with. After all, he had thousands of tiny fuzz balls to give away. He’d pluck ‘em from his round little body and pass them on, trying to ease pain here, create a smile there. Continue reading
Him: God, I miss being in love. I guess I could say I miss you.
You helped me tap into the feelings I usually only get with Shekinah, what the Kabbalah says is the feminine side of the divine. She’ll always be with me, and I see now you simply took her place for a little while here on Earth. Love is still there, but only redirected now.
Thanks. Continue reading
It took several hours for the effects of the Sweat Lodge ceremony to kick in, but when it did, I realized the control I always thought I needed was not in my hands, but in what the Greeks called the Fates; the Christians, God; and the Buddhists, Karma.
A Divine source, referred to by some as the “Force,” the Divine Feminine, the Creator, has dealt a hand to play with our own free will. We get to choose which cards to keep and the ones to discard. By standing pat or by seeking new ones to “change our luck” or to improve our hand, we cast our lot to the future. None of us expects to lose or to face tragedy or a financial crisis. We hope for improvement, to enrich ourselves through our card-playing skills and years of studying the game of life.
In the end, the winner is not necessarily the one who drew the highest hand – a royal straight flush versus a pair of kings and deuces. It is the player that can place the bet, and deal with the loss or win with equanimity, that emerges the victor. There is no win, there is no loss. There is just an awareness of the game and how to view it from a state of grace, the right frame of mind, the right attitude. All disappointments arise and end.
All roller-coaster thrills must end. In understanding that everything that comes into my existence must someday leave, I can live with its impermanent nature more easily. Treat it the same whether it is good or bad, foul or fresh, holy or unholy. The moment of pleasure and the moment of dissatisfaction will pass. Each will arise and reach its crescendo of joy or sadness, and then each will fall, dissipating and returning from whence it came, leaving naught but a memory we can choose to relive or to drop if similar conditions arise to trigger its recall later.
None of this was clear when the sweat poured out of me as 10 men and women crawled on hands and knees into the Sweat Lodge outside of Pottstown, PA. We took part in a ceremony honoring the “Great Spirit,” while offering prayers to the four corners of the earth and beyond. We sweated as the lodge leader spread bits of sage, tobacco, and other herbs onto the red-hot coals, causing an eruption of tiny flames that shot upwards and out of the stones but remained safely in a pit dug earlier to contain a total of some 15 hot, glowing rocks.
Each one had been baked in a much bigger pit built a slight distance outside of the lodge, where a stone-bearer had been heating them over a slow-burning fire for several hours. Two to four rocks were requested for each “sweat,” or prayerful focus in a given direction. We offered three prayers each for the West, the South, and the North.
Then just as the sweat seemed to be unbearable for the likes of me, the number of prayers for the East increased to five, six, seven, eight, and beyond . . . I lowered my head to the floor of the lodge, taking in the cooler air and praying a silent prayer that all the prayers would stop so that I could get the hell out of there!
The prayers did stop, and we offered a blanket thanksgiving for all. I believe, however, that my silent prayer even helped to cleanse and purify me, removing and burning away the hellish traces of lower, base nature.
Hours later, I revolted against a group of Born-Again Christians. All of them were what I called “lily whites.” The men wore handsomely tailored suits, and the women gorgeous dresses with just the right amount of jewelry. All appeared with the greatest tans that money and lots of free time at the beach could offer.
“I don’t belong here,” I cried to my partner in crime, Melanie, a young Hispanic woman whose mother was raised in Colombia and passed on the natural shade of tan we ethnic types have acquired — her from South America, and me from the southern European countries like my father’s Greek homeland. She had left the sweat lodge and agreed to go with me on this next leg of my spiritual journey
“They’re too white for me,” I said, pointing at their pale faces, their blonde heads, and the white hairs of their elderly wise ones. “I haven’t seen one Black,” I added. “We’re their token brown-skinned people.” Eventually, she helped me to overcome my resistance, and we entered the church even though Melanie was still a little wet from swimming in the pool after the sweat and unable to change out of the bra and other underthings that had gotten soaked!
There we were. Two “Recovering” Catholics, walking into the Valley Forge Baptist Church to take in the solo performance of the daughter of dear retired friends I had made while breakfasting at an IKEA restaurant in Conshohocken. They waved to us, and Melanie and I parted the sea of white folks and sat in a pew behind the proud parents. Their daughter played divinely, and despite an apparent ban against applauding in such a refined church of God, the audience cheered her and I whistled as loudly as the most boisterous fan at a Phillies/Mets game.
A wonderful choir next offered every one the Sound of Angels. That was followed by a group of teens who had recently attended a church-sponsored camp in North Carolina who explained to the thousands of congregational members how Christ had entered into their lives and changed them forever. Each boy reminded me of a miniature “preacher-in-training” with the fervor of zealot for God, while the girls talked of the gentler side of a divine forgiveness, unconditional love, and spiritual camaraderie. Then Satan raised his ugly head.
No, Lucifer made no appearance, although one of the adult preachers brought up his name while chastising the youth for listening to the foulest of foul music provided in the world today. He asked for money to develop Christian music as an alternative to evil sounds my generation had been warned against when Ed Sullivan chose not to show Elvis Presley’s lower parts on national television and “race songs” — those performed by Black artists and Doo Wop groups years ago got banned in Boston.
I couldn’t wait to escape, bid farewell to the lovely white-haired couple who invited us, and put a distance between them and my sinful self. It was while I was drinking water in my car and reflecting on the day’s events that divine insight struck me like the proverbial bolt of lightning.
God and the Divine Spirit of the Cosmos are the same one we all talk about, but we use different languages to praise and worship. He or she is the clear light, the Buddha Nature existing in all that we can tap into when we want to live a life that Jesus lived, or that Mohammed said was possible if we but give up our will and let a more powerful Will control the major part of our lives. Yes, we still have free choice, free will.
But we know where our internal moral compass is directing us to go. It tells us what is good or bad at the moment and that all we need do is seek the stillness and silence where a “Shekinah” — what the Hebrew language calls the “Feminine Side of God” — dwells. She is always available to guide us. Seek her out, this great spirit, this energy, this Great Vibration, and give up all resistance.
You’ll find out you can do it with no sweat, and with no loss of anything God hadn’t planned for your personal purpose in life.
What is a monk to do when he is lonely? When he is blue?
When you reach that low point where you feel you are the loneliest person in the world, who or what do you turn to for relieve? 
The Dalai Lama says, “Don’t scratch the itch.” Better still, he cautions, “Don’t have the itch in the first place.” I paraphrase His Holiness‘ words, but not their meaning. * Don’t have the itch in the first place.
That may be easy for a virgin entering monastic life as an adolescent. But what do you tell a grown man or woman who had not entered their spiritual path until experiencing the warmth, comfort and love in the arms of truly caring and compassionate mate?
Something so good could not be so bad.
Even years later when one has only a dim memory of giving oneself completely to another so that both could share the ecstasy that Buddhist say comes only upon death — and in sexual union! It can be an out-of-body experience that unites, shattering the dualistic mind, if only for a second or for a lifetime.
Should I give up this yearning for the mere touch of another? Should I mark it up as just another depravity on my part, a defilement that my mind causes in my dreams and my waking hours?
Why has such an overwhelming sense of sexuality come over me as I draw nearer and nearer to spirituality?
(By clicking on the following sentences, you will be linked with my book “Ithaca Insights.”)
I’ll return to my cave after the verdict.
* * * *
*(If one is itchy, then one scratches himself.
Better than any number of scratches
However, it is when one does not itch at all.”
— His Holiness the Dalai Lama quoting Nagarjuna, the Indian scholar, with a three-line thought on the question of Erotic Love.
Too often I hear someone talk about an “out-of-body” experience as if it was the greatest thing since, I don’t know, the invention of peanut butter. Astral projection is another feat people speak of in hushed tones as if their trip from one place to another meant everything in the world.
Well, I’m here to tell you there ain’t nothing like the good old-fashioned “In-Body” experience to get the blood rushing and the ecstasy flowing. ” It’s your body now, stupid.” You don’t have to go chasing some Holy Grail to find the answer “out there.” It’s here and it’s now. 
I was reminded of this when I suggested to a novice of the *Middle Way to try the “Body Scan” method of guided meditation. She sat for 25 minutes in a group and grappled with one thought after another. It was tough, she told me, but this dear child had taken her first steps toward enlightenment. They were baby steps.
With a little guidance, she made it through a sitting meditation. A brief walking meditation followed, and if her experience was anything like my first walk, she probably felt awkward, unbalanced, and out of shape. (See: Why must this path hurt so much?)
The body scan can help with the concentration needed in meditation, I realized when I was giving advice to her several hours after our one-on-one talk. Find an instructor or a CD where someone could “guide” you through a scan, I suggested. Follow the guide’s instructions and focus on the part of the body the scan takes you.
The scan is nothing more than an attempt by a meditator to be acutely aware of one’s sensation of touch as it relates to, let’s say, your right foot. Upon hearing “right foot,” you make the foot the single-minded object of your attention. Feel the toes, focus on the big toe, now try to “sense” the toe next to it, and then the group of toes. Can you feel the pinky? The tip of the pinky?
It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out where the guide will take you next. Choose another part of the foot, say the insole, the ankle, or the heel, and allow your mind to hover there, being aware of each chosen part. Eventually, you’ll touch on all the parts and be amazed at how much easier it was to nudge thoughts out of your way!
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call an “In-Body” experience. But don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself. If you’re like my new novice friend (is that a redundancy? A “new novice friend“?), you’ll probably need a little help from a friend, or at least, a friendly voice. That is, until you’re able to gently move your meandering and invasive thoughts “out of the picture,” and become one with your body.
I experience a tingling sensation, an effervescent feeling while “in focus.” It’s generated by some low-level motor-like engine running constantly throughout the body. A warmth blankets me, while providing a coolness at the same time.
All needs and desires are gone, save one. A wish to stay where I am – as I am – for as long as the peace and calm will effortlessly carry me. Amazingly, I am totally aware of everything around me. I am much more than this body “chilling out” in this space, this time. There is no past, no future, and the present stretches from beginningless time to endless time. My consciousness feeds off some Mother Entity that is all around me and in me.
I bow to this power, this Divine Energy. Make me your water bearer, O Divine Mother. Let me be the instrument to share your unconditional love with others. Let them sip from your wisdom and the body of knowledge that’s stored inside their empty vessels. Be still, I will tell them. “Be still, and know that I am God“ is the Bible quote that can help us Be Still with the Divine.
I’m so scared because I don’t know what to do, nor who to turn to. Flashes of insights, intuition, and a “knowing” that borders on the Psychic have arisen in me and I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse.  Continue reading
There’s a passage in Mark’s Gospel in which Jesus’ disciples complain that someone — one who is not one of them — is casting out demons in Jesus’ name. It seems that fundamentalists of all ages have held a belief that there was only one way to get to the kingdom; only one way, and that was through Jesus.  Continue reading
When I was a child, I’d feel sorry for anyone who appeared less fortunate than myself. That would include the white-haired elderly who was stooped over with age, as well as the infirm, a word I didn’t learn the meaning of until I was much older myself. 
It’s hard to describe this feeling; saying you feel “sorry” sounds like “pity,” but it’s not; at least, not in my case. When seeing a person with an obvious disfigurement, walking with crutches, or being pushed in a wheelchair, an overwhelming feeling of concern would well up inside me. I’d wish I could ease their pain, even if they had no pain; I wanted to help them get over their discomfort somehow.
This feeling came from within. There was something innate about it. I knew it was the right thing to feel when I saw the suffering of others. No one could have taught me this. Oh, my parents shared the Golden Rule with me and my brothers. They told us to be kind to other people and to animals.
But you couldn’t teach me to “feel” what I now realize was “compassion” and “empathy.” It came naturally to me. I believe it comes naturally for all children; that it’s part of our basic good nature to “feel sorry” for others. All of us at some point wanted to help others and ease their pain, even if it was just by offering a smile, saying hello, or asking with loving-kindness, “Can I help you?”
I’d get so much out of helping someone else. I’d feel good inside, a quiet, happy, silent type of joy. I’d never expect anything in return, and I’d feel I was doing exactly what the nuns at Catholic school would later advise me was what the Almighty One wanted all of us to do: to care for each other, particularly the down-and-out.
And then one day, someone older than me said I was a fool to feel this way; that I shouldn’t give to someone begging on the street because he’d just “drink it up.” Another person who I thought was wise said that the unfortunate “got what they deserved,” and that their illnesses or maladies probably were their own fault because of the way “they” lived — never explaining what was meant by “they.” You’d understand that it was that person’s way of putting down another because of his race, religion, sexual preference, or orientation.
I’d be a sucker to care for them, “smarter” adults would tell me, and the child inside would ask how something that made me feel so good could be so bad. You can’t get ahead in life, achieve your goals, or make lots of money by offering loving kindness and compassion to others who are suffering, they said. “Grow up,” they all told me.
And I did, quashing these feelings, and challenging the world with a determination to compete, to get ahead, and to succeed no matter what the cost. I’d get awards; see my name and achievements engraved on wall plaques in halls of higher learning and in business. And I’d make a comfortable living, providing for a future where there’d be few concerns or worries.
Something was missing, however, and it wasn’t until I connected with the child inside did, I realized I had been missing it during my adult life. Giving freely to others was and is “life.” Sharing with those with little or nothing provides me with all that I could ever want. Putting another’s needs above my own offers me a joy that I’ve missed since silently cherishing it while much younger.
Offering love to others is a good way to receive love back, but only if it’s done with nothing expected in return.
The child inside me had the right feelings all along, I realized. Now that I know this again, let me make it right for all the years I missed not helping you.
May I Help you, Please?
It would be My Pleasure.
Thank you.
(A recent study found that the pupils of infants’ eyes widened when they saw someone in need—a sign of concern—but their pupils would shrink when they could help that person—or when they saw someone else help, suggesting that they felt better. (Babies as young as four or five months will try to help their mothers pick up something dropped on the floor.) They seem to care primarily for the other person and not themselves. It was calming to see the person’s suffering being alleviated, whether or not they were the ones who did it.}
On February 5th, 2012, a friend who calls herself, the Frugal Xpat, commented:
I didn’t respond to the comment until now, but I want to share how everyone could enjoy this exercise the Frugal Expat spoke of in Daily Meditation Desperately Needed. As she describes her life’s quest, she is on “An expat’s journey in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.” Continue reading
Dealing with the Vietnam War becomes a little easier each time I write about it. I “desensitize” myself. I now see my actions as separate from the emotions I felt while a young soldier, as well as the feelings of guilt many veterans like me, imposed on ourselves while readjusting to civilian life. It’s helpful when a high school student asks questions and you try to be honest and direct.
Continue reading
Shifting into cruise control, I let myself glide through many of life’s activities nowadays. I relax, take several deep breaths, and seek a place inside where there are no thoughts, no worries, and no frets.
I’ve already done all the heavy lifting. I planned the contours of my day, knowing when I could go on autopilot and when I needed to let the left hemisphere of my brain take over. You know, when I need to calculate, navigate, and/or investigate, I turn to the so-called “thinking” process. But I don’t let thoughts interrupt my breakfast while I eat.
I awake with no problem and shave, shower, and dress myself, making only minor decisions in these efforts, particularly choosing which clothes to put on. Who needs to think while running water, flossing teeth, or flushing a toilet?
After getting into the car and driving to my preplanned destination of work or play, I need not think of the future or the past, but just the moment in front of me. This is my time, not someone else’s time, who would use it as unwisely as I used to by daydreaming, recalling past events, or projecting a thousand possibilities of things that could happen in the future that I had absolutely no control over.
A soft calm spreads throughout my body. Stiff and sore parts start to loosen up and relax. I have no need or wish to be anywhere but where I am at the moment.
I seek this plane of awareness when I read intently or listen deeply. When I’m in this “zone,” I retain more from a book or article, and hear not only spoken words from a speaker, but more of the meaning someone is trying to say without words.
When I free myself of the noisy thoughts and outside interferences, I become more present for the environment I’ve chosen to focus on, be it reading or writing, laughing or crying, or simply standing or sitting while I wait to engage in my next series of “actions.” I am more “there” than ever before because I purposely “let go” of all that has little if anything to do with the “now.”
I focus better on the job, finding more clarity on what’s needed and what’s superfluous. There’s a great word for you, superfluous. How much of what we do, say, and think is just that? Superfluous. How easy life could be if we eliminated more and more of the unnecessary add-ons that we thought so important at one time, but discovered never added one iota to our overall well-being.
Breathing in, I am at home with myself. Breathing out, I am at home with you and all the love, compassion, and sense of equanimity that the best families could ever offer.
I send affection to motorists cut off by a speeding car that winds in and out of lanes. I feel for the driver who was never told by the operator of a car in front that that operator was going to turn, despite what appears to be working lights that turn on and off when you press the turn signal lever up or down.
My heart goes out to you who have observed the speed limit, inching no more than seven miles an hour over a 55-mph limit when someone in a pickup truck rides your tail even though the driver can simply pull into the open right lane and pass your car on the left.
I used to curse out those I believed were inconsiderate drivers. You know the aggressive types that always seemed to have more important business to attend to than you did. Too often, I’d let anger push me to the extreme, and I’d speed up to show ’em what a speedster they had met on the road. It was road rage, pure and simple. The more I focused on how I’d been insulted, the more the rage would become inflamed, causing me to see red and not care about the defensive driving skills I swore I would practice just a few minutes earlier when I was feeling more level-headed.
Then it dawned on me. I could feel compassion for the so-called reckless driver. I know what it is like to be in such a hurry. I’ve been there. I’d feel the world would come to an end should I miss an appointment, be late for a job, or fail in the impression I wanted to make by arriving early enough to greet someone.
I always had a reason to speed. There were so many important things I had to do, to finish, to check off that “to-do” list to feel my life was worthwhile, that I was accomplished, that I am accomplishing . . . something.
I try to understand how the person traveling in the car trapped himself or herself by his or her own expectations, the desires and attachments to concepts and ideas that were no more real than the make-believe “deadline” they have imposed on themselves. No, there has never been a line that we needed to reach to prevent someone from falling down dead.
We’ve created this illusion. We’ve invested much of our lives into reaching certain milestones, destinations, and goals. That is all well and good, until we enslave ourselves to becoming totally “outcome-focused.” How you get there doesn’t matter, just as long as you carry out that task wherever it might be. Too often, it doesn’t matter who we hurt or cut off on the road we have traveled.
The process itself, I have learned, is just as important as, if not more important than, crossing the finish line. We spend the greatest part of our lives in some sort of “process” to get something.
We are squandering away that time if we focus on nothing but the ending. Why not learn to enjoy the road while we’re riding? Enjoy the lay of the land, the smooth macadam where the tires roll on following a bumpy part of the highway. Breathe in the air, the scented smell of that green-tree air-freshener of mint or the dark brown one that smells like brand new leather seats.
Sip from your cup of hot coffee or cool water. Listen to music or the beautiful sounds of silence that help you to still the mind so that you can live through your senses now, not at the end of the road. It is in the moment that you can find true compassion. Seek it inside, and, if you’re lucky, you can pick it up as a hitch-hiker on a road less traveled.
I’ve done what I have done and everyone can be satisfied with my efforts, including — and most importantly — me. Continue reading
While Neil Armstrong was taking a giant leap for all mankind, I had taken a small step toward adulthood one month after the moon landing, and I had no one to thank for it except my brother, who encouraged me to aim for the stars in becoming an Officer and a Gentleman in the Army of the United States of America.
I had weathered the worst six months of my life – worse even than my later combat duty in the Vietnam War – as I underwent the rigorous training in Officers’ Candidate School. We ran everywhere we went, and when we couldn’t run anymore, we’d run in place, waiting in line for chow outside the mess hall, or to use the latrine.
I was the second-youngest in a company of some 200 recruits – carrying a minimum rank of Specialist Five (E-5) – who learned tactics and survival skills and how to endure under the harshest conditions while developing leadership qualities. The youngest ones were targeted for even more physical and psychological drills because of our age.
The company commander once ordered me to do some 400 situps in a sleeping bag, relenting only after he got tired of counting, and I tore parts of my butt apart from sliding it back and forth against the ground so much. I’m surprised I didn’t tear a hole through the bag, but instead of forcing me out of the program, it encouraged me not to quit and to take whatever he was willing to dish out. At age 20, with nothing but a high school diploma, I earned the respect of several with college and graduate degrees who might have changed their minds about my leading troops.
Those of us who made it filed out of the auditorium at Fort Benning, Ga., having been addressed by some old, weathered colonel who appeared to be in his 70s and was still jumping out of airplanes – his latest count reaching more than 600 jumps! He looked a little crazy, “gung-ho crazy,” if you know what I mean. His eyes seemed permanently fixed wide open; he was jumpy and alert to the smallest sound or movement nearby. I would compare the hyperawareness and sensitivity I’d get from post-traumatic stress years later to his demeanor and makeup.
But on this day, August 22, 1969, my oldest brother had prepared a ceremony to take place outside the doors of the graduation hall. Dressed in his regular working uniform as an E-6 (Staff Sergeant), he carefully removed two metal bars from a cardboard box. We called them “butter bars,” the yellow metal bars symbolizing the rank of Second Lieutenant, the lowest rank in the Army’s officer corps.
So many things went through my mind as I stood at attention, looking straight ahead, hoping my dress-uniform hat was affixed properly. I didn’t want to be out of order in any way, shape, or form at this time in my life.
My oldest brother, six years my senior, was about to pin the bars on my shoulder, officially welcoming me to a world where I would become an officer and a gentleman. I did not know then what the designation by an Act of Congress would actually mean. That would come later in Vietnam, when I’d see mortar fire hit and wound half a squad I was leading; when a Viet Cong sniper would shoot and kill Lt. Vic Ellinger, one of only three lieutenants in our combat infantry company; or as two soldiers under another lieutenant’s command would forget where they had placed their claymore mine trip-wire and walk into it, killing themselves.
That was all in the future, along with the PTSD that would raise its ugly head some 25 years after the war. It wouldn’t be all bad, particularly right after being discharged, when this young veteran would use a sense of failure to achieve success in academics, getting degrees in journalism and history before finding his other life’s calling years later as a public defender trial lawyer after obtaining a Juris Doctor Degree.
I knew none of this as my brother George S. Contos fastened the metal bars to my uniform jacket, stepped back, and brought his right hand briskly to his forehead, saluting the superior officer that I had become.
Nothing in my life could compare to that shining moment.
A tattoo can readily identify someone, and sometimes one can become the key to the guilt or innocence of a man facing the wrath of a woman he may have wronged.
A tattoo figured prominently in the last case I tried as a public defender in Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was to be my final court battle. Post-traumatic stress (PTSD) had taken its toll on me, and I thought two weeks of treatment at an inpatient veterans’ clinic would cure the rage and anger that had led to three near-brawls in the courtroom. Turns out I needed the full 10-week course and a complete resignation from 20 years of stress as a trial attorney.
The Philadelphia District Attorney had charged my client with robbery as well as harassment and stalking in a case we were to try before a judge hearing the facts without a jury. The police report said he had repeatedly called his ex-girlfriend at her place of work and eventually stole a cell phone from her.
I wanted him to plead guilty when I got the charges lowered to just misdemeanors. In addition, he would have had to pay for the phone. He refused the offer, demanding to go to trial and get a chance to walk out of court free with only probation.
Violent, ugly visions popped into my head. I saw myself pushing my client’s head through the flat-white-colored wall in the tiny conference room cut out of a section of the courtroom. I yelled at him and asked whom he thought the judge would believe, him or the articulate girl who would have all the sympathy in the world when she told her story as outlined in her statement to the police?
I told him that a misdemeanor conviction would not keep him from getting a job. Most employers ask only if you’ve been convicted of a felony, the more serious offense. “Hell,” I said, “you could tell them the truth if you pleaded guilty to a minor offense to get away from an ex-girlfriend who was out for revenge for breaking up with her.”
“That’s exactly what happened, Mister Contos,” he said. “And I won’t plead guilty to something I didn’t do.”
The trial went as I expected. The young, attractive African America woman was not only sympathetic, she spoke with a ring of truth while testifying. She said he had constantly called her house and her place of work. Despite her pleas with him to stop, he’d increased the calls and even threatened to confront her at work, she said, if he couldn’t get his way.
However, her story started to unravel under cross-examination. She produced no evidence to support her allegation. There were no phone records, no recordings of a castoff or angry ex-lover, no other witnesses.
It turned out that the defendant did confront her at work, and that he did take the cell phone from her. But she said it was his cell phone that he had given to her when their relationship was healthy and loving.
I knew we had raised reasonable doubt when I asked a question my client requested, I pose when whispering to me at the defense table, and she was just about to step down from the witness stand.
“Yes, I do have a tattoo,” she answered. “Yes, it’s his name,” she added, nodding in the direction of the man she accused.
My client testified persuasively that she was the real “stalker” after he broke off the relationship. I introduced “good character” evidence, which, in and of itself, could raise a reasonable doubt for a not-guilty verdict, and the judge acquitted him of all charges, explaining that he could not decide who was telling the truth and that, therefore, by law, he must find in favor of the defendant.
The tatoo provided the basis for some other truth to be analyzed.
One of the most wonderful moments of my life occurred without my knowing it. Had I the presence of mind to be more present for things that mattered, I might not have missed it. Recalling what this once-in-a-lifetime occurrence must have been like, however, is the second-best way I know of memorializing it. Continue reading
I didn’t want to go back to Omega Institute this year. Each time I travelled to this land of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, I’d get high from the holistic experience. But then I’d change into an Ichabod Crane feeling chased by the Headless Horseman, who’d tell true-life stories that caused so much pain I couldn’t hold it inside. Continue reading
After serving in the Vietnam War I turned my back on anything having to do with the military, and so I was totally surprised years later when, requesting my medals, I got one that I still don’t believe I earned. Continue reading
Cleaning a pot can be very meaningful, particularly if you block out all thoughts and concentrate on nothing but you and the instrument that has helped provide you with so much nourishment. Continue reading
Death entered my life recently and I’ve felt so alive with its presence. Continue reading
When I heard the song “Still in Saigon” the other day, I could have sworn a Vietnam veteran had written about his flashbacks and a need to process what was unprocessed as a young man.
Little did I know that the writer never set foot in Southeast Asia, let alone serve in the military. That got me wondering about the performing arts and how someone who never experienced war could capture its long-term effects on those who faced combat. Continue reading
There’s something in it that resonates with me. In my private moments, I try my best to connect with it, but once I start to analyze it, it vanishes. Continue reading
I get such a high while exercising that I can’t imagine why I haven’t done this more often in life. Continue reading
There is a tradition in Eastern philosophies where you’re taught to view each person and other sentient being as if he, she – or it is your mother. I never knew how nurturing this could be until I allowed the child in me to reciprocate and bask in the most secure and loving place. Continue reading
But only those who nurture it can fully appreciate its magical transformation.
I liken it to a mineral or rock that resides within, undisturbed by the daily thoughts and busy lives of quiet desperation. It can be uncovered only when one stills the mind and releases preconceived notions of what creation is all about.  Continue reading
I don’t understand all the fuss that Catholic universities and hospitals are raising over providing health care for women that includes mandatory birth control provisions. Why not let “Practicing Catholics” follow the teachings of their church to “opt out” for the coverage, while permitting non-Catholics what doctors and women’s groups say is a health benefit?  Continue reading
Actively seek out someone in your church, synagogue or temple and befriend him so that what happened in Philadelphia last week never happens again.  Continue reading
I was seething when I saw my former US senator decry Blacks receiving food stamps from the government. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania told an Iowa audience this week that he would tackle this “race problem” if elected president, thus echoing the sentiments of his old congressional colleague, Newt Gingrich, who suggested poor students in city schools clean the bathrooms for their more affluent ones, rather than grow up to be pimps or prostitutes.  Continue reading
With these three words, the defendant buried himself, and no matter what I did to rehabilitate a self-defense claim before the jury, we were sunk. It showed that no matter what one plans, sometimes something can, and always will, go wrong.  Continue reading
Ever wonder what life was like for ancestors living fifty, a hundred or even 200 years ago?
How would you like to read a journal of some great, great, great-aunt forced to raise a family alone after her soldier husband had been killed in the Civil War? Like to see your great-grandfather dressed in Irish kilts speaking to you from the old country, or view a relative wearing a straw hat toasting you from America’s Roaring 20s? 
Well, I’d like to tell my offspring what life was really like at the end of the 20th Century and this new millennium as we kick off the Year 2012. We have the technology to share our thoughts and our knowledge if we simply take advantage of it.
You should be honest about difficulties you faced and how you learned to overcome them. Talk about the failures for them to truly appreciate the successes. Pull no punches, but don’t scare the hell out of their need toward risk-taking.
What I’m suggesting is journal writing with a twist. Why not tell your story in a webcast? Write about a subject you feel strongly about and video tape it (“Webcam” it!) Turn on the camera, look into its lens, and announce your intent to shake hands across time. Tell them what angers you about the world today, with the focus on making a buck at any cost.
Give them an earful of how the religions we grew up with failed us until finding spirituality inside and not in someone else’s building. Speak of how you still get a chill when hearing the national anthem played on baseball’s opening day.
————
And smile as you discuss your first job, say, at age 15 working as a messenger boy traveling from one downtown business to another, walking instead of riding the bus to save a 20-cent token. Tell how you couldn’t cut it as a door-to-door sales rep of some product or other when discharged from the military and willing to work at anything to help pay your way through community college.
It’s all of whom we really are, and they can hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Webcast yourself! Sit in front of a fireplace or a row of books and practice your presentation before making it. Entice a family member to ask your questions to get you started but
Now all I have to do is comb my hair, get comfortable, and find the confidence to practice what I preach. If I do, I’ll see you on U-tube or some other place in the not-too-distant future.
I can think of many ways to stop a bad habit without having to suffer a stroke that goes untreated for years and years.  Continue reading
How’d you like to go back in time and correct mistakes made in the past? No, you couldn’t go back to the moment before you were conceived, or any other time in your far distant past. Go back to more recent moments – say in the past year or two — when you believed you knew so much about life and how to live it without doing harm to others.  Continue reading
I can think of no worse place to be than in a church, a temple, or a synagogue when an unbidden and involuntary giggle would invade my psyche and take control of me. A “giggle” is too mild a word: uncontrollable laughter would rise to the level of guffaws and downright knee-slappers, right at the most somber parts of a religious service. Continue reading
————————-
The answer is: because I have to. I need the therapy to look deep inside to provide me. I’m not talking about surface writing. You know, the kind a reporter might type when covering some disaster, a meeting, or a political event that might include both. I write only after communing with some sort of truth that bubbles up from within.  Continue reading
It snowed along the East Coast of the United States today (October 29, 2011), making it the first time in more than 30 years the white stuff appeared this early outside my Conshohocken, PA, window.
I remember the last time because it was so life-changing, and I wonder if today’s gift from above will have the same effect on me and my world.  Continue reading
Eight Tibetan Buddhist monks set themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of their country. They took their own lives when soldiers of the army set up quarters in Tibetan monasteries.
How could anyone do such a thing?
They must have been in intense pain. Or they were offering overwhelming love.  Continue reading
As my world started to close in on me, demanding its immediate attention toward responsibilities, affairs of work, and needs in my house, I found an oasis inside of myself and in the thoughts of friends in my group.
Now, this ain’t just any ordinary group. It’s one where members have placed the concerns and desires of others above their own. It is a group of men and women, old and young, rich and poor, who have made altruism their guiding principle.
They — myself included when I can pick myself off the mat where I feel I’ve been beaten to time and again — give no advice but simply listen deeply to the concerns of another.
By opening our hearts, we let another pour out what may seem an insurmountable problem that somehow develops a miraculous solution once it is aired in the light of day. Some say it is the light that shines on our suffering that causes most predicaments to shrink in size, to be placed into a larger picture, and thus become more manageable.
————-
But you don’t know that when walloped to the side of your head by something that you did not see coming and want to fight against in the only way you know how: ferociously with no concern who you end up hurting. In most cases, the worst victim of your rage becomes yourself.
- That is why silence and a retreat from those worldly battlements are needed for replenishment. It is when I close my eyes to the chaos and uncompromising world that I begin to see hope and a cure for such destructive powers. I focus on naught but my breathing, mindfully nudging out thoughts of the moment until I can rest “in the moment” with no intrusions, save the golden silence broken only by breathing in and breathing out.
Then I visualize a friend or two from the group, a friend whose mere touch had lifted my spirits, one whose soft smile eased my heart and guaranteed — a mutual guarantee — that life is better than what our limited five senses can sort out.
———–
Tone it down, America. You are cutting off your nose to spite your face. The face of the body politic, that is, we are creating needless hurt for the countrymen we’d like to lead to our mutual goal: the pursuit of happiness.  Continue reading
Contoveros 