Category Archives: Surrender
Letting Go to “Let God” for under $19.95
Got inspired by a glimpse of another’s soul the other day and it cost me Nothing.
Nada. Zippo.
Not a Penny.
Acupuncture calms stress, a veteran’s woes
Needles punctured my ears for the first time in my life this week.
Acupuncture was being offered for one free session to veterans on Veterans’ Day, and I appeared at the WON Institute in Glenside, PA, to take advantage of the procedure. The practitioner, Ed Cunningham, was kind, offering me some cheese and crackers as we made small talk and I got ready for the event.
Why mishaps plague me today of all days
Footsteps pounding on the steps woke me this morning. My teenage son was running down the stairs. I heard him as I lay in bed.
Continue readingCan’t Writing Just Be Enough For Ya’ll?
Green Eyes demand attention, love and you
Seeing life in another lane, in another person, at another time and place, can bring out something inside of you that was there all along, but was unable to surface until a precise moment developed.
Looking back, you wonder, how could I have not seen this before? Where was my mind, and why did I overlook it when it stared me straight in the eyes, begging me for just the slight payment of attention?
‘Sliding Door’ let’s roads merge right now
Only the Now Exists Right Now!
Only the Now Exists Right Now!
Was it Gertrude Stein, the early 20th-century poet and writer, who said, ” There was no ‘there’ there?“
Could we not be on a path, but in a circle?
No beginning? No end? Only now!
Continue readingMeditation caps TBI conference in Philly
Meditation rewarded me with what Buddhists call “Nothing” at the end of a traumatic day Saturday.
I was at a conference involving brain injuries when I noticed on the day-long schedule that mindfulness meditation would be “discussed” for survivors and their caregivers at Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. Unable to talk my loved one into “taking” a “seat,” I went alone, and was surprised to see so many of the newly acquired friends I had just made while attending previous workshops earlier in the day
Continue readingBirds play in ‘carefree flight’ above me!
A scene from a Hitchcock movie rushed before my eyes as I saw a half dozen birds fly toward me while stuck in traffic this afternoon.
Continue readingTorn between ‘Writing’ and ‘Meditating’
Despite Road Rage, Light Shines on PTSD
Unable to curb my road rage today, I finally grasped a thread of my PTSD and traced it back to its source.
Continue readingWalking Meditation Nearly Takes a Dive
Bumping into the wall and walking to the edge of a swimming pool with eyes firmly shut is not the best way to do a Walking Meditation.
Continue readingHope Floats On Bubbling Spa Waters
Close your eyes, and you might see.
See the weightlessness that your body becomes as you float on the waters of a nearby spa.
‘One Step Back’ leads to ‘Two Forward’
Ever learn about yourself while giving heartfelt advice to someone else?
My kid served as a mirror this morning, as I discussed why he should not quit on his “tech” teacher at school.
It ain’t easy admitting that you, the parent, may need the same sage advice as the child. Worse yet, is trying to reason with a 17-year-old. They are so smart, they know practically everything to know in this world.
Longing Creates the Love for Ever More
A Sufi approach to life has grown on me, particularly in its Spiritual view.
Love, according to the wise ones, is both masculine and/or feminine. “I love you,” is clearly masculine, while “I am waiting for you; I am longing for you” suggests the feminine side.
Continue readingThree Positives Trump Anger Every Time
Eating could be my next great challenge
Here’s a Little Food for Thought:
Why is text messaging confined only to a hand-held devise?
When you come across something so beneficial, why can’t you just send it to as many friends you have found along your path, along your new journey? Force an alarm to go off at the other end, raising the alert level a few notches higher. That’ll get some notice. Get someone to at least glance at the text.
Well, I guess I will just have to rely on this old-fashioned approach to providing info: Putting it out on the ‘Net.
Hence, I am providing everyone — Meat eaters and non-Meat eaters — the following post that originally appeared in an article on western Buddhism. Enjoy it. Better yet, try the practice. Whether you follow a Zen approach or not, you could help yourself be a more enlightened self:
HOW TO EAT WITH A BUDDHIST PRACTICE
How I lost 20 lbs. in a month through Buddhism!by dragonflydm
- When you eat, always be aware of what you are eating.
- Continually remind yourself that food may be pleasurable, but it is fuel not entertainment or an emotional substitute.
- Never reward yourself with a food treat. If, every time you accomplished a goal, you rewarded yourself with a $1,000 shopping spree how long would it take before you stopped and just allowed the joy of accomplishment be enough?
- Never eat something until you had time to think about that choice. Do you need to eat it? After you have finished eating that pleasure food, will you regret it?
- At the start of daily (or weekly meditation) take a minute to reflect on your relationship with food. “Meditation develops your concentration,” says Megrette Fletcher, RD, cofounder of the Center for Mindful Eating in West Nottingham, New Hampshire.
- ————-
- Keep a calorie journal. My journal was an application on iPhone, but you can just as easily buy a book that notates the calories of every food and recording everything.
- According to the Center for Mindful Eating, think of eating as scale with “starving” on one side and “stuffed” on the other. In Okinawa, there is a cultural tradition called “class=”hiddenSpellError” pre=””>hara hachi bu” which means “eat until you are only 80% full.” Okinawa has the largest population of centenarians in the world.
- Chew your food! It can take 20 minutes for the body to register what you have eaten. Taking time, allows the mind to catch up to the mouth. In addition, chewing gum before a meal creates the mental sensation of starting the meal early and the mind—thinking it has been eating for a longer time—will lessen your appetite.
- ————-
- Avoid ice cold drinks when eating! Cold drinks push food through the stomach, but hot drinks also loosen up the stomach muscles and give the sensation that you are fuller.
- Do not eat on autopilot. (“Don’t eat where you … !”) Eating while driving, working, watching TV are all very convenient. They are also distracting. I can eat an entire large pizza without noticing or enjoying the experience. Move your eating time to a separate location where eating is the primary mission.
- Food is only a reward when training puppies! Did you finally get your five mile run finished in 40 minutes? Fantastic! But don’t make that an excuse to open up the pint of ice cream. When you find yourself “treating” yourself to food, stop and investigate those feelings and cravings instead. Then put the spoon down!
- ————
- Don’t measure yourself to who you think you should be. Just as in meditation, we must be in the moment. Phrases like “only if I …” will demotivate and discourage progress. Buddhism teaches that there is the conceit of thinking we are better than others and also the conceit of thinking that others are better than us. Craving for a “self” concept and a permanent image of what our impermanent bodies should look like creates suffering.
Many thanks, and a bow of the head (as well as the heart) to my friend dragonflydm.
Look him up! His message hits home!
Eating right can be such sweet sorrow
Life’s Ultimate Prize Goes to Those Aware
I admit it. I cheated. I rushed to a finish line and cheated myself. I thought I could complete the course as quickly as possible to move on to the next life event. But it took me but a moment to realize my mistake.
I had cheated myself of real improvement, real growth and I now know that the true challenge in life lies in the smallest detail.
Unable to get into the pool for my morning swim today, I exercised on Nautilus equipment, killing time until the water aerobics class would end. I punished my legs, arms, and torso, pushing and straining my muscles on various machines. I then came to the exercise equipment to work on the abdomen, that part of my body that resembles a watermelon in a well-watered garden, when I read the instructions for what seemed like the hundredth time, only this time the words sank in.
Slow Down to Fully Appreciate the Moment
Instead of pounding the bar that tightened my stomach muscle and quickly releasing the tension, I realized that I needed to “hold” that tension — that pressure — to gain the most benefit from the exercise. In other words, I had to “slow down” instead of “speed up” as I have done. Not only at the LA Fitness Gym in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia, PA, for the past two years, but my whole life.
I drew a major lesson from this rather mundane exercise. I have rushed through life, always looking toward the end product, the completion date, the finish line. I rarely took time to be aware of my surroundings, my environment, myself as I speeded ahead. Looking back, I see that my life was nothing more than starts and finishes, starting and getting through college, studying to get a masters’ degree, and then that first, the second and then a third job as I rushed to arm myself with a good reputation and a chance for prospering in the future for my Social Security.
Products for a Later Time Puchased Now
Save money for a future “rainy day,” place weekly deposits in a company-matched 401-K, and then set up an annuity as quickly as possible to ensure an income years down the road.
When had I ever taken time to stop and pause, really be in the moments of my life that truly mattered? Sure, there was a wedding (two for this once-divorced fellow!), not to mention the birth of my son. Getting out of a war zone called Vietnam makes my all-time list, as well as speaking at a graduation class, and jumping out of an airplane (not recommended for the faint of heart!).
But these are only highlighted moments of a life that I now look at and wonder where it was all leading to . . . what has been the purpose . . . and if I could do it all over again, would I have made the same choices?
Few Changes Now Sought for My Past Acts
I can’t answer any of those questions, except perhaps for the last one. I’m a “Stubborn Greek,” and I don’t think I would have changed anything. (Well, there was that night with Peggy McPeake, when we were all alone . . . in her mother’s living room . . . on the couch, well, never mind about that).
Life zipped by without my notice. It was only yesterday, I feel, that Uncle Sam’s letter announced “Greetings …” and the government drafted me, forcing me to live away from my parents for the first time. Law school graduation could not have been 20 years ago, could it? (Actually, 21.) Where has the time gone as I moved from one career to another, one accomplishment after another, one of life’s goals after another, then another… and another?
Where has my life gone? And why couldn’t I have stopped myself from this forced rush to complete a project, to finish a task, to get to that “end result” Even if I had to cut corners to get there, get to that final result.
Cutting Corners.
We all do it.
We find ways to solve a problem once, and we start to speed up the process the next time, using our experience to push us over the hurdle and to run to the next task. These are all highly commendable achievements that we hang on our trophy walls. Many are laudable and admirable when viewed in our halls of fame at home and at our workplace.
But what have we given up to get here, to this place where the “there” is hardly any more special than the starting points of most of our endeavors.
If we had only slowed down. If we had but looked at where we were as we ran along our path, we might have seen signs we missed. Signs advising us that life is far more than that next accolade, the next award, the so-called “crowning achievement.”
Enjoy and Truly Live in the Moment
We would have lived. I mean truly lived in the moment, cherishing it for all its worth, living it to the fullest as we consciously see — perhaps for the first time — how much beauty a single moment has to offer to one who has made themselves aware of that instant moment in time.
That “precious moment.” The moment when you slow down enough to read the print (I wish I could lie, get off the hook, and say I couldn’t read the “fine print,” on the abdomen machine, but hell, I am a trained lawyer. No one would buy it), and realize that you have exercised the wrong way for years. That you . . . I mean, that I . . . have not been getting the true benefit that a pause and a slowdown in my life could offer me.
“SLOW DOWN.”
Sounds like an old labor tactic we used to discuss when I worked as a union representative and later, a union organizer. Had I, myself, been a little better organized, I would have learned a true prize would eventually go to the slow and sure-footed man or woman “aware” of and “in” the moment.
Maybe there’s still time for me.
PTSD alert: don’t squander away your life
A Teutonic Plate shifted inside of me.
I felt someone had thrown water at my face, had “hit me upside my head” and looked me dead in the eye demanding my fullest attention. Have I been squandering away my life?
Wasting my life?
Why even ask this question now, when my most productive years, the salary-producing ones, have ended as I have “gone on disability” and live from the benefits provided by the Veterans Administration and not from my labor?
This question shook me to the marrow of my bones a few days ago. I was attending a workshop for veterans and their families facing PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) when I felt a Greek Chorus address me with its multiple groupings of male and female voices, advising me not to squander away my life.
Later, I asked myself what it actually means, this “squandering” business.
What’s there to Really Squander Away in Life — Life Itself
And does anyone intentionally set out to squander a life away? Squander. Most people only use the word sparingly, and usually when money is the focus of the inquiry. We all have heard examples in our lives: “He’s going to squander away his inheritance,” or “she squandered away all the money raised for little Jimmy’s operation,” and one of my favorites espoused by today’s pundits, ” George W. Bush squandered away all the Good Will America generated right after 9 – 11.”
“Squander” hardly ever appears alone. I normally see it used with the word, “away,” as in the loss of some unique skill. “We had so much hope in his potential, but he seemed to have ‘squandered away‘ his (fill in the blanks) . . .”Natural Ability” . . . “Writing Talent” . . . “Singing Career,” etc.”)
But I’m not talking about forfeiting some achievement, great wealth, or some future thing.
I’m talking about Life.
How does one squander that away?
(See Part II, Squander)
‘Infinite Mercy’ May Set my Teacher Free
My son’s favorite teacher killed herself.
She was depressed, they said, when she took the life of her three-year-old son. Then . . . she committed suicide, leaving a note for her husband and the child’s father.
Tibetan Book Winds its Way Thru My Life
I got a chill when I saw the word “Tibet” today because it took me back to the late 1960s when I was a newly minted second lieutenant trying to make his way in the US Army. The words that impressed me then, however, had nothing to do with the military. It had everything to do with life. Nearly 40 years later, I see that the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” called out to me, though I may not have known it then. Continue reading
When Is Using God’s Name Blasphemy?
God damn it. I forgot the lead I wanted to write here.
It was on the tip of my tongue (pen, key board key, etc.), and Christ, I lost it.
Jesus… How the hell can I ever be a successful Blogger if I am this Stupid?
Well, let’s hear it. Is this blasphemy? Am I taking the name of the Lord In Vain? Has what I said (wrote) been the basis for sin? Should it?
When Your Helping Just Isn’t Enough
Music (mantra) melts the mind madness
Release Me; I Swear I’ll Never Sin Again
Hey. Please get me out of here.
How the hell did I end up here, this empty place where no one can see me, touch me, or, more importantly, hear me?
Why am I locked up, away from the world outside this jar-like existence. Who did I piss off? What was my grievous sin?
Identity Loss Leads to New Outlook on Life
I lost my wallet.
And found a new freedom that only the loss of identity could possibly grant me.
Continue readingGoodbye Love; I’m Off to Find the Wizard
Can aspiring to be “God-like” be heresy?
I felt so inspired by Robert Terrell’s guest column for Confessions of a Mystic that I penned a response that asks if we can ever become “God like” in our daily lives:
* * * * * * * * *
* On reading Robert’s excellent article, I was reminded of a philosophy espoused by a fellow named Sartre, in a play called “No Exit.” It dealt with life after death and how a man living with two women in one room viewed existence. “Hell. . . ,” the man said. ” . . .is . . . other . . . people . . .“
Continue reading
— Who’s to Blame For War After War? —
I Blame God for War.
I blame the Most Powerful Force in the Universe for not using its Almighty Abilities to stop war dead in its tracks.
“I may be a descendant of someone’s slave”
“Ever Hear of Nat Turner?” Sheriff Joe Wilkens asked me?
“Sure,” I said. “He’s a famous black man who led a slave uprising before the Civil War.”
You’re right, my friend Joe said, adding that he was a direct descendent of the leader of the most notorious revolt during the US slave era. Nat Turner lived on a North Carolina farm and was secretly taught to read by the son of his master, Joe recalled. Slaves were discouraged from learning to read, and some were severely punished when their scholarship was discovered.
Nat Turner’s master, however, permitted his “property” to learn to read. But he could only read the Bible.
And that’s exactly what Nat Turner did, reading that book from cover to cover, back and forth, and even in in-between, realizing there was a message there for all men, no matter the color of their skin.
Spreading Anti-Slavery Message as a Preacher
He also realized that he could express that message in the form of a preacher. A preacher who became so good at spreading the Good Word to fellow slaves that free Whites and other slave owners soon came a-visiting the nearby slave household to hear the Gospel According to Nat Turner.
Something happened following one of Nat Turner’s evangelistic presentations. A vision appeared to him! Something mystical occurred, some say. Something that changed Nat Turner’s view of the world from that moment on:
Slavery was not good!
That simple notion took on a life of its own, and Nat Turner led slave after slave out of their bondage, tearing them away from years of forced servitude. Historians are mixed about the impact of that revolt.
Nat Turner’s followers killed more than 80 people on a flight away from slavery and toward the path of freedom.
Of course, the slave revolt did not last. A militia came to the fields, captured, and killed Nat Turner. And all that’s left is the story of the most daring slave rebellion this country had ever seen.
“That’s quite a story,” I told Joe, setting him up for the next line. “But I may be a direct descendant of another slave who led a revolt,”
“Who?” Joe was quick to ask, wondering how some White guy whose was Greek could try to match his story about slavery. My reply quickly followed:
“Ever Hear Of Spartacus?”
“I Am Spartacus” and other Greek Wariors also claim “I Am Spartacus!”
Joe and I smiled at each other, understanding that good friends can often have so much in common once they share a bond together.
— Some Wounds May Never Ever Heal —
The Vietnam War changed Joe.
It stripped him of all interest in leading people in any official capacity. Forever.
He has never been the same since coming Home, but he didn’t know that until years later when he was shaken awake to this harsh reality through a PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) session in Vietnam.
They called him “Philly Joe” in the US Army squad he commanded. The City of Brotherly Love was his home, and many like him took on the name of their state or city while in the service. He was a sergeant, in charge of a squad of “grunts,” infantry soldiers who canvassed the “bush,” the jungle of Vietnam, helicopter flight after helicopter flight.
Joe was the type of leader that men loved to serve with — honest and compassionate, yet firm with a no-nonsense approach when a crisis called for it. More importantly, Joe’s men followed him because each knew from experience that Joe would not ask you to do anything that he would not have done himself.
Joe Trains a Recruit to be a Machine-Gunner
That’s why Harris, a young recruit who heard of Joe’s military savvy, had asked to become a member of his squad, his “fire team.” “I made him my machine-gunner,” Joe recalled. In addition to carrying the heavy weapon, Harris packed a .45 pistol, a weapon generally handled by those not carrying an M-16.
And it happened one day that Harris had quietly approached Joe and told the sergeant he had lost the handgun. The squad was flown in by helicopter to a section where they all dismounted and slowly spread out, marching nearly half a “Klick,”(half a kilometer or 500 meters) before Harris discovered the loss and approached the sarge, confiding in him.
Joe did not want Harris to get into trouble for losing the military-issued weapon. More importantly, Joe said, he did not want the enemy to get their hands on it and use it against some GI.
Return to Enemy Territory to Retrieve Gun
And so, Joe ordered his squad to stand down and wait, as he and Harris made their way back through an untrodden path, making their way back to the landing zone (LZ).
- They found the gun!
- And the VC (Viet Cong) found them!
Joe and Harris came under fire, being shot from some small arms from some unknown direction. They moved quickly, trying to retrace their steps away from the now marked area and get to the safety of the other men.
An unseen enemy sharpshooter, who had apparently lay in wait for the Americans, hit Harris. Joe saw Harris take the shot and the sergeant propped up the “younger man.” (Joe was all of 18 years old when he directed the lives of the “kids,” those “new in-country.”) Harris struggled, but with Joe’s help, both made it back to safety.
Million-Dollar Wound Way Off Base
“You got a million-dollar wound,” Joe remembered telling Harris, as he helped to attend his wound. “You’re going home,” he added, trying his best to keep the injured soldier calm and relaxed, focused on something other than the pain that could too easily force him to go into shock. It worked. The young man’s injuries appeared to stabilize when a helicopter crew flew in to medevac him out of the field and to an Army Hospital.
. . . Where Harris died from his wound.
. . . Thus, injuring a major part of Joe’s psyche, Joe’s soul, and his outlook in early adulthood.
————–
Oh, Joe finished his tour just fine, getting out of the war zone one month short of a 12-month rotation. But he never felt the same way as he did in giving orders before the loss of Harris.
Never Give Anybody Any Orders Again
It haunted him in a way he only recently realized. You see, Joe has never sought advancement in any of the jobs or career paths he chose to follow after the war. “They wanted me to be a supervisor,” Joe said of assembly line work he once performed in a factory. Joe turned the position down cold.
Years later, while serving as a correctional officer in the prison system, Joe smiled and simply refused to follow the advice of others, urging him to “put in” for sergeant. The same thing occurred while working as a sheriff, handling prisoners to and from the courtroom where I had met him.
Why doesn’t he apply for a higher rank, a higher position? Courtroom employees wondered about Joe’s refusal to try to get more money and become a sergeant. He was qualified, and sometimes, he was actually doing the job of a superior officer.
Can’t Even Give Orders to Others at Church
The members at his Baptist Church in Philadelphia asked similar questions after Joe, time and again, politely refused to be named a deacon. He could not give an order from any official position, he said.
He could not bear the loss, the pain, the hurt of a person following his order who could fall prey to, no matter how minuscule the risk.
One will never know what life Joe would have led had he not be stricken in war. You can only imagine coming in contact with a guy like Joe.
You won’t see any of Joe’s injuries at the first meeting with him.
But they are there. They’re part of his PTSD.
And some wounds may never ever heal.
— Why Must This Path Purt So Much? —
Pain; What Good Is It?
Sometimes, it works. But sometimes it tears into my psyche, bringing with it a fear that this discomfort, this thorn will continue to haunt me, raising its head more and more as I feel the aging process more keenly and with it, an unwanted sense of my mortality, my deterioration and the inevitable end that I will someday meet. When the pain increases and I can’t steer my mind away from it, I know deep inside that the end is not so very far away!
“Thank you” for letting me serve, somehow
- Ever get more out of doing something nice for someone than that person ever expected you could possibly get?
Banner bird brightens boy’s breakfast
A little bird brightened my day today.
The bird recognized me out of more than a hundred people sitting at tables eating breakfast.
I had not noticed until after I had gotten my free breakfast, sat down, and began munching half of a piece of bacon. I chewed and chewed and methodically relished the taste with my eyes closed and my mind “forced“ to stay “in the moment.”
I felt calm and “in tune” as I glanced up, feeling that I had just been watched, was still being observed, being singled out.
“Don’t like this love…(crap)” she told me!
“I don’t like this love shit,” a woman I was about to meditate with whispered to me while in the circle of our six-person meditation “community.”
Veterans find joy in their own backyards
Meditative dining offers food for thought
Eating sausage in the morning helps me “Be in the Moment.”
I dine at an IKEA store in Conshohocken, PA, the North American headquarters for the Swedish furniture company. It offers a restaurant serving good food for prices that beat the costs of diners and even fast-food places. (99 cents for scrambled eggs, home fries, and a choice of bacon or sausage. Coffee is free from 9:30 to 10 a.m. with refills.
Dream reveals a key to unlocking Paradise
I dreamed I wore a dress to a training class for new lawyers learning to defend criminal defendants. No one noticed my garb. None of the other attorneys said anything, and I never felt “different” or out of place as a brand-new public defender awaiting to argue his first case in Court.
But when I left the room and took a break, a supervisor removed the dress as he and others tried to run off with what they said was “inappropriate” clothing for a man’s courtroom appearance.
Serving others helps to serve you as well
The purpose of Life is to know, love, and serve the Creator.
But how do you serve an All-Giving Entity?
I believe that “to Serve the Creator is to Serve Humanity”
What’s Love Got To Do with PTSD?
Angels Appear as Earthly Messengers
It’s just like heaven . . . Being here with you . . . You’re like an Angel . . Too good to be true. When You are near me. My heart skips a beat. I can hardly stand on. My own two feet. Because I Love You; I Love You, I Do. ‘Angel Baby’. My ‘Angel Baby’. Oh, Ooh, I Love You, Oh, Ooh, I Do . . . No One Could Love You . . . Like I Do!
— Rosie & the Originals
Angels appeared to me through a synchronicity of dreams and later, a conscious meditation, where I realized that certain people that I had met in my life served as agents of change, directing me through the hills and valleys of my present journey. Yes, I call these “messengers” angels, thank you, Dr. Carl G Jung. And you will see why!
First, let me tell you about the dream. A white-haired man dressed in a three-piece suit spoke with another man also dressed in a suit. They stood in an aisle of a train, near the seats where I sat, along with another man and a young woman.
No one appeared to know the other, but the seated passengers, myself included, were deeply engrossed in the conversation the two standing men were having. “Don’t you know me?” the taller man spoke to the white-haired, older man, who had identified himself as Socrates. I forgot if he mentioned his last name.
—————-
“I’m sure you will recognize me,” the second man, who called himself Plato, added. This man was slightly bald and started challenging the elder speaker to recall an earlier time the two spent long hours together. I don’t remember any details of their discussions, but they were profound, enlightening, and mesmerizing.
The men looked toward us, the seated passengers, as if they had interrupted some activity, but I spoke for the three of us, stating that we were keenly interested in what they had to say, and to please continue with their discourse.
Moments later, I was alone with the white-haired man. I noticed that he had a slight beard, trimmed neatly, and had a cherub-round face. Was the face German? Nordic? Or was he from some other nearby European country that provided red cheeks and a rugged look among its dwellers, I thought. He told me he had finished one book and was writing a second. He seemed cautious and concerned about my reaction when he told me about the first one, claiming some people would not warm to the subject matter or believe in its content.
“What’s the name of the book?” I asked, curious and interested in his story as I looked into his eyes to get a clearer view of this man. “The book is about Angels,” he said, initially glancing to the floor and then directly towards me, his eyes lighting up. “Those I Know, have Known, and will be Knowing,” he added with a smile.
- Before I had a chance to ask him more, whether that was the name of the title or something else related to the writing, the scene had shifted, and we were near the front of a bus, not a train, and I was getting up to exit the front door where Mr. Socrates and his fellow conversationalist continued their discussion. I nodded goodbye to all, stepped off the bus, and only realized hours later that the white-haired man was some sort of messenger, perhaps the real Socrates, and his sidekick was none other than another philosopher from 500 to 400 BC. But I wasn’t sure of his name. Until days later!
Contoveros 