Tag: Spirituality (Page 3 of 4)

How Beautiful You Are

March 31, 2013 / Tom

I wonder if you realize how beautiful you are.

How the gray, mundane world bursts alive with color at the dawn of your smile. How the bored silence of the routine jumps to life with the sound of your voice. Can you see the cracking dawn within your soul? Do you know what your very existence does to a man only half of who he is without you? I sit, and I stare, and I remember.

I wonder if you realize how beautiful you are.

Naturally, without the fine tuning of an artist’s pen upon your skin, you are beautiful. Found in the subtle power of your touch, of the simple yet overwhelming grip of your gaze, is the defined knowledge of beauty born in the chills that run down my spine. Seen in the calm pools of your eyes and known in the sure intelligence of your voice, it is there. It begs me forward to a better part of me. It asks nothing more than the best of who I am, and I in return, often fail in the quest to get there.

I wonder if you realize how beautiful you are.

As the morning light gently caresses your form the breath is drawn out of me. My heart beats to that spot where your hand touches my face and your mouth reaches for mine. The hardest parts of me dance in the soft, moist pools of promise as the sanity in which I once believed vanishes as if it were some gifted hallucination of gods who could have only hoped to have been here, now. I smell you as your hair tickles my face as you climb on top of me. I look “up” although I’ve lost all sense of direction as gravity loses its grip upon my soul. And…

I wonder if you know how beautiful you are.

How the moment I enter you all things cease, how our bodies disappear and how time and space cease to exist. I wonder if you feel the waves of pleasure as I do, if you are hearing the same song as I reach for you, never getting deep enough in this endless pool but always trying. I gasp for air I do not need, and I search for things found the moment of this union. Then I feel the puddle we have created, and like a vast river on which I ride I know I will one day find the ocean. We will find the ocean.

I wonder if you know how beautiful you are.

I seek to show you the gift you are to me. I stretch my arms out wide as if some sacrifice upon an altar, grasping at the fabric on which I lay but not wanting to feel any part of it. I’m not holding on, I’m letting go despite what my hands would cling to. I give all of me to you in this moment. Every bead of sweat, every sound, every breath, every beat of my heart is yours. Take it, my love, and hold in gently in that space where your deepest treasure can be found. Take it, my love, and forget the moment before and do not seek the moment after. Be with me here, now, and never let me go.

In the orange flicker of Heaven’s great candle we lay. Out beyond the veiled glass doors of our space resides a place where our minds will go even as our souls remain. You turn to me, and in the glow of love and of the morning light you say,

“Do you realize how beautiful you are?”

I kiss you gently as the angel’s wings surround us both. In the mirror it is I see, and it is in the silent surface of our river that I know. Sing to me, my heart, and bless this moment in eternal memory! We close our eyes, embraced to sleep awakened in love’s sweet harmony.

The Space Between (Songs of Inspiration #2)

February 22, 2013 / Tom

The space between

The tears we cry is the laughter that keeps us coming back for more

The space between

The wicked lies we tell to keep us safe from the pain

I sit in my car at a stop light with the laughter of my little ones behind me, tears streaming down my face. Tears sometimes are the echo of the heart not specifically pointing in any direction but somehow facing inward, reminding us that there is something warm beating within us. Tears are not always tales of sadness or remorse but are sometimes stories of healing, of potential, of a glorious birth that is about to take place.

In my mind I stop and look forward yet behind me. I see the desolation, the destruction, the wreckage of what could have been. I see the wisps of black smoke rising above the moments in my life where fear had sheltered me from one storm only to create a far more destructive one. I see the litter strewn about my life and the burned out shells of books that could have been so beautifully written and read. I see the partially burned out pages moving with the dust devils of my memories, roughly being jostled from one resting place and swirling upward violently before coming to rest in another.

These swaths of living hell are not all I see even if they are the first things that have captured my attention. Wounds will do that to you. Those pieces of yang will distract you from the pieces of yin that also lie in this path. In order to see them you must learn to look beyond what time and conditioning have taught you to see and then you must open your arms to embrace it all. This isn’t about rejecting the periods of darkness that have kept you company in your nights, it is about embracing the light that comes in the spaces between. It is then about realizing that the darkness truly comes only in the spaces between the light. It is then about accepting both as a part of your day, part of the moment that is you.

I then saw the fields of flowers interspersed in the charred remnants of my moment. I began to hear the singing of birds above the crackling of burning embers and the life dancing about in my story. I could begin to feel the love above the ashes, and smell the fragrance of the roses, the carnations and the orchids. I could feel Life in it all and I smiled through the tears as the laughter of my little ones echoed around a mind no longer dulled by the numbness of a dream only I could create.

I could see the black clouds adorning a full, blue sky and realized that yes, the moon does shine during the day too. The tides go high and then low just as life ebbs and it flows. We don’t measure the tides by the height of the sand yet I have chosen to measure my life by the abundance of sadness. What if I was to measure it by the presence of love; focusing on the area of flowers and of the mellow beauty in the songs of the nature around me? What if instead of seeing the patches of destruction I saw the vast areas of loving awesomeness that made them so noticeable? What if I changed my focus, changed what was the space between?

The space between

Where you smile and hide

That’s where you’ll find me if I get to go

What if I choose to let go? What if I chose to act on that feeling I have when I look into her eyes? What if I chose to smell the roses instead of running from the dying flames of a past that is no longer there? What if I simply held her hand instead of thinking about then? What if I decided to dive into her, to walk that distance that separates us and erase that space between? What if I kissed her into a smile, coaxed her from her hiding place or simply went there with her? What if I…

…acted a little less like a boy beaten and a young man faulted and more like the being I want to be?

The questions mount, filling up the space between the gaps in my breath. I look at my empty hand and I wonder what it would be like if her fingers filled the space between my own. I wonder what would happen if there was no space between our lips, our mouths, our bodies. I can imagine the beauty in the space between our footprints in the sand as we walk hand-in-hand kicking the foamy surf forward. I wonder about the beautiful realization that occurs in the space between our eyes as we look into each other’s soul, and in the space between the heartbeats we share in a long, loving embrace.

I wonder about the words we could write in the space between our story of now and our story of tomorrow and, yes, I wonder about the space between my story of then and the moment we are sharing. My mind circles around the space between the rising and the setting sun, and the darkness that comes in the space before the sun rises again. I also wonder if I would ever know the sun if it wasn’t for that darkness, or notice the beauty of my life without the ugliness. I wonder if I would ever know the beauty of a loving hand in my own if not for its absence.

We’re strange allies

With warring hearts

What a wild-eyed beast you be

I can hear the endless fights and the countless debates about things. Things. I can feel the intimacy slip through the spaces between wrong and right, of listening and talking. I can hear the striking of the arson’s match setting the artist’s canvas on fire and the writer’s book to flame. I can hear the tears as the breath escapes our very mouths, and hear the fingers part as our hands fall to our sides and our gazes turn from what could have been.

I can sense it coming. Isn’t the testament of devotion and of love the beginning of the storm? Isn’t the wounded mind wracked by what it has seen surely cursed to war with the very heart it seeks to know and to love? Isn’t a bruised heart like the broken mast of a floundering ship in a raging storm sure to sink in the sea of its own devices? Isn’t a tired body sure to burn in the fires the mind has set?

Or are those things the very beginning of rebirth we seek? Isn’t it just a matter of awareness, of seeing the opportunity to embrace the beauty and be reborn? Is it just a matter of seeking something different?

The space between the stories of my life gives me enough room to experience it just as the space between the sky and the ground gives us enough room to fly. A horn blows from a car behind me allowing me to realize that the space between the red and green light at this intersection has allowed me to find some clarity in an otherwise hectic morning. I look in my rear-view mirror at my little ones in the back seat and notice the space between the tear on my cheek and the smile on my lips.

Perhaps we find our greatest experiences in the space between. Perhaps we find our wisdom there. Maybe we begin to realize our own truths as we begin to realize the spaces between. Maybe the greatest parts of who we are resides in the spaces between the illusions and delusions we have created about who we are. Maybe my soul has always been singing the words I now hear in my mind spreading across my soul like the light from the Sun cresting above the morning horizon.

The space between

What’s wrong and right

Is where you’ll find me hiding

Waiting for you

Give to Live (Lent Post #1)

February 14, 2013 / Tom

So I’ve made this commitment to write something every day of lent as part of my “Give Something, Don’t Sacrifice, for Lent” thought. Rather than sacrifice, say, ketchup for lent, I decided to share my ketchup with you as a way that I’ve decided to celebrate lent. Yet, I used to be Catholic, so perhaps this is one way to assuage my conditioned guilt complex while, at the same time, not give in to it completely. Actually, it truly seems to me to be just something that lets me honor the tradition of lent while doing so in my unique (but not completely different) relationship with the Universe (what some of us call “God”). Maybe the parts of me that want to attract the positive have decided that sacrifice and rejection only breeds suffering and more rejection whereas the embracing attracts the very things we are searching for. In the immortal words of Sammy Hagar in the song “Give to Live”:

If you want love you’ve got to give a little

If you want faith you just believe a little

If you want peace turn your cheek a little

Oh, you’ve got to give, you’ve got to give, you’ve got to give to live

And let’s not forget that you will always get what you ask for. So, if I want you to laugh at me, I have to be first willing to laugh at myself. If I want you to love me, I first need to love myself. The beautiful art of giving is not about rejection or sacrifice, it is first about being willing to accept it all. You can’t give what you don’t have, so you first must gain the very thing you want to give and that only happens when you are willing to ask for it, accept it and, yes, expect it. I can’t feed the hungry if I have no food, and I can’t love you deeply and passionately if I have no love within me.

So the idea of sacrificing something as a method of honoring Love, God, Universe, Being (whatever you want to call It) seems silly in my unique (but not completely different) relationship with It. I need to EMBRACE and ACCEPT things even if my non-attachment to those things means I can easily give them away. The idea is to not focus on the “sacrifice” but on the acceptance. Don’t “sacrifice” chocolate for lent, instead readily accept it but then give it away.

Therefore, I decided to not “sacrifice” writing for lent but to readily accept each and every moment of inspiration and then give it away. I know, that is not something unusual for me, but it is evidence of the beautiful dynamic between the acceptance and the sharing, of the getting and the giving, that makes the gift and the giver One. In order for the Universe to bestow Her wonderful gifts on us all we must not only be expectant of such gifts but must also be completely willing to accept them all. I must be willing to expect these moments of inspiration. I must then be willing to accept them. Then I must be willing to not have them flow to me, but through me. I can take what I need and then let the rest go to those who can use it.

Maybe that is what the season of lent should be about. Maybe it should be about not sacrificing anything but rather about practicing the letting go of attachments we have to things we don’t need. Maybe it should be about the flowing through, not to. Abundance should not stop with me, it should come to me with whatever I don’t need making its way to others who do have a need. Well, I am wondering what would happen if 4 billion people all did this type of practice. Stop sacrificing things as if having them is some kind of negative to begin with. Instead, accept those things and then give away what you don’t need. Hhhhhhmmmmmm, that sounds like an idea Jesus himself could certainly get behind. At least the Jesus I know.

Peace.

I Am Home

December 25, 2012 / Tom

What, I wonder, could I have seen to have been left so blind.

We know that we cannot look directly into a solar eclipse as it will render us blind. That’s how I feel now looking back at my period of blindness and insanity. I was staring at something so completely unusual that I was blinded by it. Fear blocked my Sun and, as a result, only allowed me to see Her edges, Her corona, and it blinded me.

The Sun should be left to freely roam across Her lover’s sky. She should be freely left to follow the laws of a Universe shared by those who love Her. The mindless fears of man do not change who she is, it changes who man is. It was me who thought this world was flat and feared to sail to Her in the horizon. She did nothing. It was I who believed She would sink beyond my sight into the darkness when it was me, so stuck in the spot of my own creation, who choose not to follow her to keep the mornings close. She was just being Her, it was me who saw that as something other than what it was.

It has been said that a man is but a sum of all of his experiences. That is a choice and while it may be hard to make other choices in the throes of conditioning, it is not impossible. It’s overcoming fear to set sail toward that horizon not just to test your world’s flatness, but to reach a place you want to reach beyond the grip of fear and doubt. There will be fear in getting there. There will be doubt. Yet, when you land on the New World and press your lips to virgin sand you will know the reason you set sail to begin with. You love Her, you need Her, and you will risk great peril to get to Her.

If you’re lucky She will be shining brightly when you arrive. She will grasp your face and caress your lips with Her own. She will not leave you. She will create winds to press your sails toward your destination. She will crack through the mightiest of storm clouds to remind you that She is there and exactly what it is you are fighting for. She will burn your skin and crack your lips and then create the rains that will wash it all away. She will remind you that you are a man, a fierce and unbeatable man, and you will rise to every occasion just knowing that She is there. You will growl in Her presence and somehow, in some way, She will bring you to the height of your soul and show you a view that proves you that you are alive.

When you truly love a woman you will face your demons and even yourself. You will find those parts of you that darken the skies and cause you to shut your eyes and you will defeat them. You will beat back the winds and the rain. You will stand taller even in the throes of weakness. You will fall, pick yourself up, wipe the blood from your brow and sweat from your eyes. You will growl again and keep on coming for more. The fire in your heart will drive you forward, toward that horizon where your Lover sits and begs you onward.

Now, I will close my eyes and sit in stillness and know the truth. I will feel the heat rise up into my crown and be ready to share it with Her. Feel it baby, and know it where you sit. Do not let go of it, and hold it tightly to your breast and let it consume you. Your man is here. Your man is back, and he has found the world that you have shown him to be as you said it was. He will be that man you can’t take your eyes of off. He will be that man that makes you sweat at the slightest touch. He will be that man who so captures your gaze and steals your imagination. Yeah, I am home.

Go There, Be Happy (Poem)

November 11, 2012 / Tom

Who you turn to

In your time of need, that’s the One.

When lost in your sea of emotion

When the mind takes over

And proves to be an absent friend

The arms that comfort you

Are the arms where you should remain.

Who you talk to

In your moments of turmoil

When the world closes in on you

When the journey seems its longest

And peace seems some distant dream

That mind is the one you need know

The thoughts that should be cherished.

Comfort is not an illusion

It is a message.

A message from one heart to another

From your heart to the rest of you

That tells a simple story of love

and of where you need to be

And where you should return.

Go there, and be happy

Know it every day, every minute, every second

Even in those moments when very ground you tread

rumbles with its dissatisfaction.

Go there, and be happy

Knowing I go there with you

Sometimes with tears, sometimes with a beaming smile.

Go there, and be happy

Like flowers and grasses, bow your lips to the stream.*

And quench your thirst within the River.

I will see you there, someday.

*Rumi “Eternal Joy”

Our Love Heals

September 13, 2012 / Tom

Photo by: David N Cooper

When I met her I felt I must be dreaming. I had to blink once, twice, a million times or more before I finally saw her as real. This great dream came true before my eyes, in my arms, now, then, forevermore. I still, a lifetime or two later, have trouble believing what I see, feel, or want to be true. I need to heal.

She smiled and the Sun rose above the horizon, exposing a fog lightly hugging the fragments of my life. I could see the firm ground where there was firm ground, but beyond that I could see a fine, white mist hiding parts of me I simply never wanted to admit existed. There was a fear there, a timely loss of awareness born as she slowly burnt away the veils that hid what laid beneath. Cracks in solid ground appeared as she dusted off those parts of me I had always felt and had always tried to forget. There would always be a shaky patch of ground in the otherwise solid earth, and she sought through no ill will to expose all of it. It was who she was, without excuse or apology.

Let’s not fool ourselves. There is a price to be paid for burning away the shrouds a man has donned in order to find security in this life. Fear shows itself to be a devil’s tool, a torture for the minds of even the strongest of men. Take me on physically, and I will stand firm. Challenge my fortitude and you will find layer after layer of a stone wall built by years of facing the shit thrown at me. Seek to find a trust from me and find a fear that can often create a Mr. Hyde running through the streets of our life. Even the most docile of creatures can become vicious when you touch their wounds, and I am no different. I don’t mean to react, I don’t want to react. Yet I flinch when the pain arrives and I suffer the moment I realize I have reacted.

These wounds are a strange thing. They are there, and they speak whispers whenever I flex the area around them. I’ve learned to ignore the whispers, but they become shouts the moment they are poked. There is my Beloved, running freely in the fields with me until she pokes unwittingly. I react, I pounce on my tormentor without ever realizing who is actually doing the tormenting. It is not her, it is me. I have not yet learned to ignore the wave of pain or the sinister thoughts that suggest she is somehow to blame for it. I cannot stop it, I cannot change it, I simply ride that wave as it crashes all around me often sweeping her up in the carnage. I try with all my might to stop it, but I am no match for the wall of water that has, by now, dwarfed even its creator in size. I simply stand by like a child as it destroys the landscape, ending the run and the freedom as the once-pristine fields become a muddy swamp of lost promise and torturous memory.

All of this because she unknowingly swept away the mist and touched the wound that laid beneath it. The ground shook and the wave came, and now if I am lucky we stand before each other locked in a steady gaze. A part of me feels grateful for her survival, for our survival, and a part of me seeks to protect her from further inundation. I want to take her to higher ground and leave her there, in tears, so that she may never have to swim for her life again. I am unsure and like a child again searching for her arms, her breast, her soothing voice. The tears I cry are hidden by the salty remains of the wave I let loose on the world, but they are there. Sometimes best cried in solitude, other times best hidden, especially from the parts of me that want to let them flow.

I know I have nearly drowned in myself, and I don’t want to take her down with me. I want her to leave, but I don’t have the guts to ask her to. I need her, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars as clearly as I need the breath inhaled upon rising from the wave’s remains. Where she stands is steady ground, and I want so desperately to be there. Yet my feet are stuck in the mud of my own design, and even as she demands me to “walk” I can’t even lift my leg. I stare at her, often hiding the grip of helplessness and fear that dominates my mind. “Please don’t leave me” I utter to her in words she will never hear.

She gives it to me. She gives me her embrace, her breast, her soothing voice. I exhale as if the air itself is burning my insides, but it is not. It was simply holding me up like the man I was taught to be, and without it I collapse into her completely. She accepts me. She loves me. And I am home.

I want her to love me, and soon I will forget this miracle. Another wound will be touched at some other time. Another wave may come, another time of reaching for her will arrive. I will touch her wounds, and a wave will hit me square in the face as she reaches for me. We both survive by loving the place where we stand together, strong and immovable even in the brutal face of human nature. The waves come so that we can experience each other after the crash, and in that experience we are healed.

I want her vulnerable even if she tries to hide it well. I want her to collapse into me after the storm as she exhales her strength into the void between us. I want her to need me, want me, and know that I am there. I don’t offer more than to suggest that I will be vulnerable if only to her. I will collapse into her waiting arms and embrace her with whatever strength I have remaining. I will need her, want her, and know that she is there. The power of that awesome place we stand is found when the waves come, and together we face the storm and survive it knowing something that most may never see. There is a safe place. There is a harbor here. There is a heart that beats for you and arms built to embrace you even when you are soaked to the bone. Especially when you are soaked to the bone. You will find warmth. Yes, you, too, are home.

Imagine such a place called “home”. Imagine even a single piece of ground so steady and strong as to survive all things. Imagine a Love so real as to know humanity and Divinity in the same place at the same time. Then close your eyes and see her and know that it is real. Feel it in the essence of the man you are embracing the woman she is. Feel its power. At that moment you realize that you did not choose it, it chose you. You are powerful and powerless all at the same time just as you are in all of this existence. You fight it in your humanity and surrender to it in your Divinity.

Now you see it. The scars begin to heal. The wounds no longer matter. You freely expose the tenderness that makes you the man you are. You allow the tears that form in the corners of your eyes at the sight of her to freely spill onto your face. You have found your true strength that goes beyond the physical prowess you have developed and the mental rigidity you have been taught. There is a firmness there, on that ground you share with her, and you will not relinquish an inch of it to fear. You no longer see yourself as “just a man” and you realize you can stand up to the wave. True strength does not show itself as that rigid, emotionless, tough man you were taught to be. Rather, it shows itself in Love, compassion, and an unbridled devotion to be who you are outside of who you were taught to be; who you have chosen to be.

Want to know what strength is? Cry in front of a crowded room. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Surrender to the woman who shares your love. Forget. Forgive. Love. That’s where real strength is shown. Remember. Don’t ever forget who you are in spite of what they told you.

Your love will heal you. You love will heal it all. Just trust, and you will see.

I See You

August 3, 2012 / Tom

I see you in my heart

I see you in my soul

I see you in the everything

In the glue that keeps me whole.

I see you in the morning

I see you in the night

I see you to the left of me

And I see you to the right.

Know this here and now

This simple truth of me

That when my heart is opened wide

It’s only you I see.

Is This the Forgotten Side of Aurora? A Firefighter’s Sacrifice

July 25, 2012 / Tom

Photo: Fire Rescue 1

Firefighter-EMT died shielding girlfriend in Colo. theater shooting

As a firefighter, I get to work next to some of the most amazing human beings I have ever met. I also get to work to assist some of the most amazing human beings I have ever met. I never met Jonathan Blunk, but I have met hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women just like him. It’s why most of us in Emergency Services shy away from the word “hero”. We know so many of them.

He saved his girlfriend’s life. He shielded her, he protected her, and he died for her. Many of us would do the same thing for someone we love. Yet, how many of us would do this for someone we don’t even know? I know hundreds, if not thousands, who would and some who have. I’ve lost friends and acquaintances; brothers and sisters who simply wanted to help another human being in their greatest time of need.

Jonathan’s girlfriend, Jansen Young, summed it up quite nicely.

Young said Blunk would have taken a bullet for anyone in the theater Friday.

“You know, the nearest person sitting next to him, he would have been like, ‘This person needs my help now,'” she said. “That just who he was and everybody knew it.”

Yes, that is just who he was and everybody knew it. Even those who have never met him. He’s part of an amazing brotherhood of sinners and saints who want nothing more than to save you; to help you, to be there when you need them the most.

You did us proud, my brother, and may you rest in peace having shown the greatness of Love in the most trying times of fear. May we have the courage, the ability and the discipline to do the same when called upon to act. Be humbled, my friends, because greatness like this doesn’t always shine from the darkness. If it did, we’d all be firefighters, policeman, EMT’s and in the military. I remain in awe of those I serve with, and of those who have paved the way before me.

So, while we get caught up in the mundane but necessary political debate over ways to keep us all safe, simple men and women are doing remarkable things to get us there. In my experience, tragedy happens in order that we may bring the best out of ourselves and in each other. Perhaps we need to focus on that “best of ourselves” in order to best honor those who have shown us the best of themselves. Maybe we need to focus a little more on the hero and a little less on the monster.

Peace.

There is No Rainbow Without the Rain

August 24, 2011 / tomgrasso

The winds subside. The lightning and thunder move on. The clouds part revealing an intense sunlight as you step into its embrace.

Through the destruction left behind you see the Love that remains. Trees stand proudly in their survival as remnants of those left fractured and splintered by the storm lose their grip. You are faced with a choice. Do you focus on the wounded or on the whole? Your choice is yours to make freely. Neither is wrong, and both are expressions of a deep and abiding compassion.

You move freely in the open air. With arms outstretched you embrace the sun. The invigorating smell of air cleansed by nature fills your lungs as you survey the departing clouds in the distance. You see your family and neighbors actively moving about. Some are cleaning up, some are helping others, some are simply staring in disbelief. You begin to walk over to do your part, whatever “your part” means.

You see the grass around you. It seems to look a bit greener than it did yesterday, but perhaps you are just seeing it a bit clearer today. Still, nature all around looks more alive to you. The birds are singing more clearly, the trees look more alive, and the breeze seems to caress your face more gently than it had before. Is this your own perception or is it a reality?

You smile in the realization that there is no difference.

The sky seems bluer today. As you stare into what is not truly blue, it dawns on you that “this too shall pass”. This wonderfully blue, not-truly-blue sky will again became enraged by the clouds it nurses to life. The winds will blow and the rains shall pour. Lightning will strike and thunder will roll. Yet, you sit still observing this storm as you had the blue skies that gave it life. “This too shall pass.”

A wave of peace flows over your Entirety. You are content in the mud that now adorns your feet, and in the sweat that now hugs your brow. You wish you could share this with the others who are busily scurrying around in one dramatic form or another. “STOP!”, you want to say with authority. “Appreciate the moment and rejoice in it!”

You blink and awaken to the moment. You don’t cater to the voice that wishes to shout. You go about your business as you cater to the wave that has given you sight. You smile in peace and with joy in the realization of this moment. A friend looks at you and shouts, “what are you smiling about? There’s nothing to smile about here!”

“See that?” you say as you point to a fully-formed rainbow in the distance. “I love rainbows, and without the rain there would be no rainbows.”

Peace.

Sister Assumpta – The Story of the Monk and the Scorpion

August 24, 2011 / tomgrasso

When I was but a wee lad (that’s the Irish in me) there were many difficulties facing me. Those difficulties translated themselves in tough times both behaviorally and socially. This was, of course, no more evident than in my school life.

Needless to say, the fact that I was having a very tough time was an understatement. Yet, through it all, there remained this tough old nun (I went to Catholic school) who was there for me in some of the darkest moments of my young life. Her name was Sister Assumpta, and although she was tough I have yet to meet a person who offered such unconditional love to me as she had. In some ways she was a savior to me, and although it took many more years for my savior to arrive, she was there to do her best in guiding me through a time when I was utterly alone.

So, in this post, I wish to honor her, and you, with a story and explanation. The story is one that she told me during one moment when I felt an intense anger and was suffering horribly from it. This moment was a harbinger of things to come, but in this instance she was there to try to light a different, truer, path for me. It is with tears in my eyes with love in my open heart that I offer you this memory in honor of a loving woman who will live eternally in my Soul.

♥

A monk was walking besides a river swollen with torrential rains looking to see if there was anyone he could help. As he scanned the raging river, he noticed a scorpion struggling to stay atop a boulder. It was surely going to be swept away as the river rose.

The monk noticed a tree near the river’s bank that offered a sturdy branch reaching out directly over the scorpion. Without hesitation, the monk climbed the tree, shimmied across the branch, and reached out to grab the scorpion as a large crowd gathered to watch.

Each time the monk reached out, the scorpion would sting him. Still, the monk persisted until finally, after many, many tries, he successfully grabbed the scorpion and carried him safely to the shore. The amazed crowd watched as the monk let the scorpion go, staggered, and fell at the base of the tree surely to die.

“Why would you kill yourself to save a scorpion?” someone in the crowd asked. “Surely you would know he would sting you and you would die!”

“Of course I did,” said the monk. “Yet just as it is the scorpion’s true nature is to sting in fear, it is my true nature to serve in love. We were just being true to Who We Are.”

And with that the monk died, a free man true to his Self.

♥

Now, I altered the end a little to more fit my current understanding. I simply added those seven words that, to me, sum up the moral of the story. What Sister Assumpta was trying to tell a young boy losing himself in sadness, anger and chaos was to not lose sight of the true Self. Even then I understood what she was trying to say, but at that stage of my life I wasn’t sure who my true Self was. It seemed my true Self was the one getting me beat at home, teased at school, and in trouble everywhere. I simply did not have the tools or the experience to take that understanding and do something with it. Frankly, those few moments with Sister Assumpta just were not enough to stem the tide of the raging river within me. I eventually changed from being the monk to the scorpion and back to the monk again.

Actually, in my current understanding, I have always been the monk, the scorpion and the crowd. Those experiences are “who I am” in this lifetime. Today, however, I understand I have a choice. I have no need to protect myself. I have no need to cater to fear. I have no need to worship the ideas of who you are or who I am; I simply have the understanding that we are truly no different except in those meaningless ideas. In those moments when my ego rears up I try to go back to that scared and angry little boy. I see the smiling face of Sister Assumpta as she grabs my cheeks in love to share some light. This time, however, I smile back and tell her, “thank you, I understand, and I love you too.” Those moments of focus are coming quicker to me now as the hold anger has over me evaporates with the ideas that spawns it.

See, the scorpion allowed the monk to be who he was in shining glory. “No greater love is there than when a person dies for his friend.” In return, the monk allowed the scorpion to be who it was. Both allowed the crowd to be who it was. All accepted and none suffered.

I love you. I can’t help it. Even when the scorpion decides to sting (both when I am the stinger and the stingee) I love. As my mind conjures up ideas about you and yours about me, we both love each other in ways we simply have yet to recognize. I have to find ways to recognize that love in myself and express it to you. That’s the light that needs to shine. If Sister Assumpta tried to do anything it was to shine a light for all to see, and I will be eternally grateful to a woman who can still inspire a warm feeling of love within me.

Anyway, I hope this foray into memory and love had some meaning to you. I look forward to seeing your light shortly. Peace!