What you feel is life, what you live is another story.

Category: Spirituality (Page 4 of 19)

Police attempting to talk man down from railing on bridge

Police attempting to talk man down from railing on Delaware Memorial Bridge

For nearly five hours, police have been attempting to talk a man down from his perch on a railing of the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

I’ve been on this bridge at least a thousand times in my life, both literally and figuratively.  I actually saw a man jump from one of our area bridges one morning when I was a teenager.  We were coming home from some work in Philadelphia when a man stopped his car in front of us, got out, and jumped over the railing of the Walt Whitman Bridge.  They dredged the Delaware River and found his body later that day.

I remember wondering what would drive someone to kill themselves.  I faced many bouts of despair in my youth and I could not imagine the depths one needed to sink into in order to end his or her own life.  Not only end their life, but do so in such a way that for seconds after they made the leap they knew there was no return, no chance for survival, and no remorse until they finally hit the water.  It was dramatic in that they knew they were dead for seconds before they died.  I often wondered what that man thought as he sailed through the air to his end.

Life would, invariably, provide me an insight into the very depths of despair I once questioned.  Now I have some idea, and I am happy to have survived to know such a thing.

Today it appears a man has reached his limit.  He is the face of countless others who, today, have reached their limit.  Some will end their lives.  Others will fake a smile at continue on.  Still others will seek comfort in alcohol or some other drug of choice.  Yes, some will recognize their condition and make a choice to change it.

*Warning: Soapbox is out and I’m stepping on it.  You have been warned!*

I know some who have said “pray for this man”.  I say “to hell with the prayer” unless your prayer is one of action.  Display compassion and Love to everyone you meet.  Empathize with them to the best of your ability.  Don’t be so mindless and unconscious in your daily interactions with others.  Work to come from a place of service and offer whatever you can of yourself to others in the best way you can.  I wonder how many people interacted with this man before he decided to sit on the ledge, and I wonder if even one random act of compassion could have kept him from it.  Even if it did so for just another day.

I believe as a culture we have to either change the definition of prayer or stop praying.

Why?

Well because we seem to rely on some self-serving idea that talking to whatever we talk to is somehow us doing our part for humanity.  Imagine if Mother Teresa adopted this attitude and simply muttered a few phrases to her God for the poor and hungry.  Imagine if Gandhi has simply uttered a few phrases to his God for the independence and equality of his people.  Imagine if Martin Luther King, Jr. had simply closed his eyes as asked his God for equality of the races.

Imagine if Jesus himself did nothing but spew off a few sentences about saving mankind from sin.  Imagine if Moses simply recited some proverb about freedom for the Israelites.   Imagine if Buddha has just “prayed” for enlightenment.  Imagine the gifts this world would have never seen.

Honestly, prayer to me is more about walking and less about talking.  Rather than utter a “dear Lord, please feed the hungry” why not simply feed the hungry?  Which is the more effective prayer, the talking or the doing?

Exactly.

If I want world peace, how about I be peaceful?  Does it not make sense that this glorious Universe we experience communicates much more efficiently in action then it ever could in words?  If the story in Genesis is true, did God actually utter those words, or did He DO those words?  Did He create the Universe or talk about it?

Exactly.

I certainly understand that the feeling behind the prayer is important.  I understand that we send out a vibration in our prayerful intention.  Yet, I see a much better statement of intention can be found in our action.  Yes, a hug is better than a prayer of love to me.  In fact, a hug is probably the most effective prayer of love we can utter for all of humanity.  Give hugs, not words.  That should be our new mantra.

Or at least it should be mine.  I can’t tell you what to make yours.  And so it is.

Ok, so my rant is nearly over.  I will send out prayerful intentions of love, peace, harmony and hope to this man.  I will also make it more of my daily work to say many “prayers” each and every day that involve absolutely no words whatsoever.  Who knows, that anonymous stranger I share myself with along my daily journey may be heading for a bridge of their own somewhere.  Maybe my prayer reaches them before they get there.  Maybe theirs soothes me before I reach mine.

Amen.

 

 

Thank You

I try to think of something witty to say
But there is nothing.
No words to describe the beauty
No nouns to describe what I see
No verbs to describe what I feel
Nothing.
 
I open my mouth to try in vain
But there is nothing.
Silence, sweet silence betrays my thankful heart
The lapse of sound portrays a mind in total awe
To this I can only offer a breath of gratitude.
 
Somewhere in the space between thought and deed
In this moment there is nothing.
I sit and stare at empty space wondering what it is
And I smile at the beauty of what I see
I finally find the words that seem to say it all
 
“Thank you…”
 
 
.

Yoga

I expect…no thing.
I feel…every thing.
In the stretch I find heaven
In the release I find stillness
In the practice I find unending light.
 
Tadasana…
I stand tall in your presence
Even when you are not here
I am a Mountain and steady in the movement
I am firm even as I bend in the wind.
 
Virabhadrasna…
I am a warrior who can endure
Who will stand along side you without fail
Who will offer a hand to help you up
And to be helped up as well.
 
Virasana…
I bow to you my Hero
And bow to the remarkable lightness of Being
My heart opens to it all
The great possibilities of Being in this place.
 
Salamba Sirsasana…
I invert to bring what is in my heart 
Into my head…to push out thoughts and memories
And to allow the Light of my Heart to fill this space
And to clear out the cobwebs of what once was.
 
Savasana…
I withdraw from here and go to Heaven
I know this place…I’ve been here before
Even as I visit if for this, the very first time
I release, I am still, I am One.
 
Peace.
 

A Not So Simple Truth

His heart was broken.  He looked outward at the horizon and felt nothing as he dove inward.  He just wanted to be understood and accepted while he underwent the transformation he so desperately sought.  He had seemed to fail his whole life despite what those who loved him most would suggest.  He could never meet the standard he had set for himself, and he could never meet the standard she had set for him.

He had felt horrible pain and she was oblivious to it.  In return, he had hurt her not only in the experience of the pain, but in trying to get her to see it.  He did not know any other way in his humanity even as he desperately sought a way out of it.  It was his burden, one given to him by his childhood and one he simply did not believe he could defeat on his own.

There was nothing but a void where she once stood in the aftermath of the Storm.  The hole was deep and wide, and the devastation was enormous.  He could not stand the thought of what he had done, and although he tried to reason his actions in his mind as just another step toward his destiny, inside he felt a wave of pain that was taking its toll.  He had fucked up yet again, and silently he cursed not only the bastards who had taught him such misery, but also himself for not simply being able to forget it.

He could not explain this to her as she did not have the experience necessary to understand it.  He wanted to desperately to be ready for this, but deep inside he know he wasn’t.  He could not understand the release of expectations from his time with her.  He could not release the experiences that led him to assume some things.  He tried hard out of love for her, but ultimately he failed as any child would in an adult endeavor.  He just wished she loved him enough to hold out while he moved this mountain.  He also felt there was no one who deemed him worthy enough to hold out for.

That, in effect, was his curse.  He could not feel worthy of her just as he could feel worthy of anyone in his past.  He fought that feeling with a rage that protected him.  He could muster up an anger that soothed his feeling of sorrow.  He could find great strength in that rage, and it helped him lie to himself long enough to feel worthy of respect, of dignity, of something other than the fucking pain he lived with each and every day of his life.  He always returned to the sad insanity that suggested he was a nothing.

This was a truth he lived with, that he was taught from birth.  He was never good enough.  He would never be good enough.  He would fail over and over again because he was not good enough to succeed.  He could not ignore the voices and he did not feel strong enough to defeat them without some light, however small, of love to focus on.

He had that light, but to use her words he “could not get out of his own way”.  Imagine existing in such a frozen world as he to have found that fire without an idea of what to do with it.  Imagine the warmth flowing over his thickened skin and is anticipation of its absence.  Imagine the absence and the return to the the cold.  Imagine the great desire inside of him to feel so much different and the sinking knowledge of failure time and time again.

He wanted to hold her, to get her to see him and not his fear.  He wanted to ask her to warm him while he learned how to warm her back.  He wanted the tears he shed on his pillow to be fuel for change.  Instead it fed the hole in his Being, and caused him to question each and every second he spent fucking around in this misery.  Perhaps, he felt, it was time to simply say “enough”.

This was his existence.  He suffered under it as much as he wanted to rise above it.  He struggled under the weight of it as much as he wanted to break free from it.  It wasn’t fair to her, but he needed her to destroy this prison.  She would never know how much, and she would never be able to know how much she meant to him.  He could not share that part of him yet, he could only bask in the darkness of his own shortcomings and know he would never feel her warmth again.  This was the price he would pay for simply having been born.

This was his not so simple truth.  He could not know hers, she would never share that with him.  He loved her greatly, and their time together would create a million moments of inspiration for him.  She would give birth in him a thousand dreams and a thousand moments of hope.  She would also give birth in him one moment of hopelessness.  This was not her doing outside of her own abilities.  He knew he was responsible for his inability to be more for her right now.  He had failed once again.

 

Why Can’t That be Me? (A Lyric)

She sings
What a beautiful mess he is,
Imperfect at his core
But that she wouldn’t change a thing
That she loves him as he is whole
From the bottom of her soul.
 
and I say 
Why can’t that be me?
Why can’t that love be 
There when I turn around?
I stand in the shadows
Pretend nothing matters
When I just want to matter 
To you.
 
They fight then they make up
Nothing forsaken 
Yet everything sacred
to them
She can’t help but find
that he is always in her mind
 
and I say
Why can’t that be me?
Why can’t that love be
There when I turn around?
I stand in the shadows
Pretend nothing matters
When I just want to be there
For you.
 
 

 

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother

This song still makes me cry as it brings out the love within me to the open (this video doesn’t hurt)…

You aren’t heavy, you’re my brother…

 
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Chb69kvQI&w=420&h=315]

The Mountain

I heard once that I was a Mountain
Beautiful and strong
Defining the horizon
Creating majesty in the valleys of life.
 
Beauty does not exist without You
You define it, You give it life
You set its value, You give it grace
You honor it with Your actions.
 
So, do I exist in this moment?
Or have I been weathered away into a pebble?
I stand as I always have
Loving, waiting, shining, trying my best.
 
I would not worry except that I care for You
And long for You in Love’s embrace
Just as I care not if the Sun is shining
Except that I love the warmth upon my face.
 
One you have tasted the Sun
The night can seem so cold
If not for the stars, those glimmers of Sunlight
The night would be the end of me.
 
Warm my face with the beauty
That is you
Lift me up with outstretched hands
Because that is what you do.
 
Warm my weathered peak
So that Love may melt and flow down into my tempered valleys
I am here, waiting
Not demanding anything but who you are.
 
I ask the Sun to be the Sun
Do not darken out of fear
Do not grow cold out of mindless wonderings
Just shine baby…shine.
 
If it’s there, let me see it
If it isn’t, let me know it
Tell me if the twilight I see is the Dawn
Or the end of this wondrous day.
 
This Mountain, this Truest block of granite
Bows to You, It’s Sun
And asks You draw from high above
The best of what It has to offer.
 
The clouds can only hide me
The wind will take forever to reduce me
As I am here, and I am now
Looking upon all you light for me.
 

Do?

Do my hugs comfort you?
Do you search for them?
Do you close your eyes and imagine them?
Tell me…
 
Do my words matter?
Do you pay attention?
Do they echo in your mind
when I am not near?
 
Do you think of me?
When I am not around?
Do you search for my smell
Or look for pieces of me in the dark?
 
Do you cry inside as I fade into the distance?
Do you look for one last part of me
as the light fades?
Or imagine your hand in mine for a minute more?
 
 Sorry…I just wonder
As I wander through this life
To matter, to be so important as to be the One
Do I…never mind…
 
 
« Older posts Newer posts »