Reflections on the Rapture

(This was first written on May 20, 2011)

Folks,

Here, in California, there are a number of billboards posted proclaiming tomorrow to be the Day of Judgment, the Day of the Rapture, or the Day that Jesus Returns.  If tomorrow is the Day of the Rapture, and if Jesus chooses to take me to Heaven, then I will do my best to put in a good word for all of you to be taken up with us.

If Jesus comes tomorrow and decides that I should stay and that you should go, then I would ask that you put in a good word for me upstairs and that the powers that be be asked to reconsider their decision for all of us who are left behind.

On the other hand, if Jesus does not come back tomorrow, or in our lifetime, or ever, or if Jesus was merely a man and not the Son of God, then I hope to be with you again tomorrow (or Monday) and I pray that I will still be working towards bringing about the Kingdom of Heaven  -- to the best of my ability helping to make our Heaven here on Earth.

Peace, and one way or another, I look forward to seeing you again after tomorrow.

Wes Montgomery's Bumpin' on Sunset

Once upon a time, when my Dad and my uncles were younger than I am now, they would convene in Compton and gather around my Uncle Shag's Hi-Fi Stereo and listen to Wes Montgomery's Bumpin' on Sunset while drinking some smooth brand of firewater. And in those moments, despite what their everyday lives may have been, they were the essence of cool.

Hoping that you all are having a "Cool" day, here is Wes Montgomery to help you smooth your way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqn3PF_DcSg

Peace

John Coltrane, The Boston Tragedy, and My Favorite Things

One of my favorite movies of all time is The Sound of Music.  I have always enjoyed the music and one of the truly special moments in the movie is when all seven of the Trapp children find themselves in Sister Maria's bedroom mostly because the majority of them are frightened by a thunderstorm.  It is at that time of turbulence that Sister Maria calms the children's nerves by singing to them about how she deals with her fears by thinking about her favorite things.  Julie Andrews' singing "My Favorite Things" is a treasured childhood memory.  What a pleasure I subsequently had many years later to learn that one of the truly great jazz musicians had transformed "My Favorite Things" into a jazz classic long before Julie Andrews sang the song in the movies.  In light of the events of yesterday in Boston, I offer you John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" and hope that it helps you to similarly take your minds off your fears and that it takes you to a place of 

Peace,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWG2dsXV5HI

Chateau Montelena, Feng Shui and Me

I often find a spiritual component to music... and art... and the landscapes of life.  Yesterday, my girlfriend and I took an excursion to Chateau Montelena.  Chateau Montelena is a Napa Valley winery that produced a wine that won a 1976 wine tasting competition that was held in France.  It was the winning of this competition that elevated the status of California wines.  The owner of the Chateau, Jim Barrett, died last month from as his son put it "a life well lived."  We went there not so much for the wine but to learn more about the man and to enjoy the scenery around the Chateau.  I knew that Jim Barrett had been a successful corporate lawyer before purchasing the Chateau and I knew that the Chateau had a marvelous Chinese theme serenity garden and lake, so I wanted to find out if there was a connection between this man who died of a "life well lived" and the feng shui of his award winning winery.

What I found is that a 'life well lived" involved pursuing one's passion.  For Jim Barrett, making wine became a passion in his life and when that passion was infused into the wine, it became a masterpiece.  As for the Jade Lake, I learned today that the owners of the Chateau before Jim Barrett was a Chinese couple who somehow managed to parlay their radio repair business into enough money to purchase the Chateau.  Both stories are amazing.

As for our discussion, well, this is one of my 1000 Saturdays and at least on this day, I think I lived it well.

Our true home is in the present moment.

To live in the present moment is a miracle.

The miracle is not to walk on water.

The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment,

to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.

Peace is all around us --

in the world and in nature --

and within us --

in our bodies and our spirits.

Once we learn to touch this peace, 

we will be healed and transformed.

It is not a matter of faith.

It is a matter of practice.

                             Thich Nhat Hanh

Will write more tomorrow.  Have a great Saturday evening. 

Margaret Thatcher, Lao Tzu, and Me

Margaret Thatcher died last week.  In the movie, Iron Lady, she is quoted as saying that her father instilled in her some values with the following:

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

I wonder if she knew that those words were actually first said by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.  And, in light of what transpired in the last twenty years of her life, I wonder if she was introspective enough to see how true those words were.   

These days, I prefer a modified version of Lao Tzu's passage.  The Everett Jenkins version reads:

"Keep your thoughts positive because positive thoughts lead to positive words.  Positive words lead to positive actions.  Positive actions lead to positive habits.  Positive habits lead to a positive character.  And a positive character leads to a positive destiny."

Stay positive my friends and have a good Sunday.

The Parable of the Eagle

“The Parable of the Eagle” 

James Aggrey 

Once upon a time, while walking through the forest, a certain man found a young eagle. 

He took it home and put it in his barnyard where it soon learned to eat chicken feed and to behave 

as chickens behave. 

One day, a naturalist who was passing by inquired of the owner why it was that an eagle, 

the king of all birds, should be confined to live in the barnyard with the chickens. 

“Since I have given it chicken feed and trained it to be a chicken, it has never learned to 

fly.” replied the owner. “It behaves as chickens behave, so it is no longer an eagle.” 

“Still,” insisted the naturalist, “it has the heart of an eagle and can surely be taught to fly.” 

After talking it over, the two men agreed to find out whether this was possible. Gently, the 

naturalist took the eagle in his arms and said, “You belong to the sky and not to the earth. Stretch 

forth your wings and fly.” 

The eagle, however, was confused; he did not know who he was, and seeing the chickens 

eating their feed, he jumped down to be with them again. 

Undismayed, the naturalist took the eagle, on the following day, up on the roof of the 

house and urged him again, “You are an eagle. Stretch forth your wings and fly.” But the eagle 

was afraid of his unknown self and world and jumped down once more for the chicken feed. 

On the third day, the naturalist rose early and took the eagle out of the barnyard to a high 

mountain. There, he held the king of birds high above him and encouraged him again, saying, 

“You are an eagle. You belong to the sky as well as the earth. Stretch forth your wings now, and 

fly.” 

The eagle looked around, back toward the barnyard and up to the sky. Still he did not fly. 

Then the naturalist lifted him straight toward the sun and it happened that the eagle began to 

tremble and slowly he stretched his wings. At last, with a triumphant cry, he soared away into the 

heavens. 

It may be that the eagle still remembers the chickens with nostalgia; it may even be that he 

occasionally revisits the barnyard. But as far as anyone knows, he has never returned to lead the 

life of a chicken. He was an eagle even though he had been kept and tamed as a chicken, 

Just like the eagle, people who have learned to think of themselves as something 

they are not, can re-decide in favor of their real potential. Even if we have been raised to be something less than we are, we can still return to our true nature. We can still fly.

Skylar Diggins and the Coarsening of the Web

Once upon a time, back in the days when I was in high school, one would venture into a boys restroom and invariably find crude statements written on the restroom walls. Occasionally, those crude statements would be about a girl or two that happened to be at the school. For the most part, those crude statements remained in the restroom waiting the day when an enterprising janitor would come along and scrub them away.

However, today we live in the age of the internet, and the crude statements that once were confined to the boys restroom appear to be quite common on the medium of today. Most of the time, we simply ignore the crud that exists. But I wonder if the pervasiveness of this medium and the crud that exists on it does not ultimately affect us all.

Case in point is the recent controversy over Skylar Diggins. For those of you who do not follow women's collegiate basketball, Skylar Diggins is the premier player on the highly ranked Notre Dame Women's Basketball team. She also happens to be a very attractive young lady. Somewhere, some individual decided to post some nude photos on the internet that many attributed to be of Ms. Diggins. To her credit, she has categorically refuted that the photos are of her. But still, as the father of three young women, there is something about this sordid affair that enrages me.

Perhaps I am once again showing my age, but how can one have high hopes for this medium when it is so easily used for such antics as this? Is this a better world that we are making, or simply a world that is more profane?