Cool Mind Warm Heart

Death Reminds Us Not To Miss a Moment

Death is visiting, bringing reminders not to miss a moment.

My grandson, Sam, 14, lives in upstate New York.  Like countless other adolescent lacrosse players in his part of the world, he dreams of the day his blood turns orange as he takes the field for Syracuse.  This past week, at a local indoor sports complex, Sam was waiting for a game to wrap up so his team’s contest could begin.  A boy on one of the teams playing in that preceding game, a boy from a neighboring town whom Sam had competed against any number of times, was struck by the lacrosse ball on the chest in the perfect spot at the perfect moment in the heart’s rhythm to cause his heart to stop.  It is a rare, freakish event with the medical name of “commotio cordis.”  As almost always happens, apparently, resuscitation was unsuccessful.

Sometimes We Must Risk It All

You have to reject one expression of the band before you can have another.  And in between you have nothing.  You have to risk it all. 
~ Bono (of the band U2), in the documentary “From the Sky Down”.

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the essay

The Most Accomplished Person on Earth Has Nothing on Us

The rest of us may not be able to jump underwater on a pogo stick in the Amazon for three hours and forty minutes, but we recognize that what it takes to do so is no more than what it takes to meet each moment of our day with love.

the essay

The Root of a Lot of Laughter and Forgiveness

Some smartypants, who heard me pontificate that how we define our world creates our world, recently asked if I could define myself.

If I’d thought about it, I would have said what my beloved Yogananda once remarked: I’m a tiny bubble of laughter in the sea of mirth.  Thankfully, instead of searching for poetry, I simply opened my heart and found myself blurting, “I am a very gifted person.”  By that I didn’t mean talented, as many do when they use that adjective.  I meant, literally, a person who has been given gifts––in my case, beaucoup.

Embracing Messy

A man I’ll call Bob spoke of how choosing to discipline his kids by hitting them has changed his life...by breaking his heart.  The handful of us present, Bob included, took another step in understanding what it takes to love.

The Winds of Change

All Things Must Pass

(the winds of May 26, 2011)

 

Playful Reminders to Pay Attention

So the other day my inner guidance prompts me to take a single sheet of 8-1/2 by 11 paper and fill one side of it as quickly as I can with the names of everyone I can think of that I’ve met in the flesh who has contributed to my life.  In less than 10 minutes, the page was brimming: four full rows, 200 names.

The CEO Speaks of Heartbreak

My client, a CEO, opens his heart, and I dive deep to translate into words his meaning, his spirit.  Once or twice a month we create a message to his entire company.  I share this particular one with you because it’s about living up to our own ideals in the face of tremendous pain––a challenge familiar to us all.

The Only Dance There Is (Maybe)

The devastation and danger in Japan in the wake of the recent earthquake is distinct in its excruciating magnitude, but it is as ordinary as the sunrise in what it requests of each of us.

The Universe Has a Beautiful Sense of Humor

Take yesterday’s reminder (yet again) that the purpose of life is simply to wake up, to be ever more mindful of our choices. 

Spirit of the Past Year

 
 

A photographer is someone who can take a good photograph on demand.  That’s not me.  I need all the help I can get, including magic.

Seeing Compassion

I made connection with a pair of eyes, and I thought, "This is incredible; these eyes are penetrating me."  I went through the whole performance just relating to those eyes, giving the whole thing to those eyes.  When curtain call finally came, I looked in the direction of those eyes, and it was a seeing eye dog.... I couldn't get over it--the compassion and intensity and understanding in those eyes, and it was a dog.

~ Al Pacino

 

A 9/11 Story

In an unpublished novel, Mirror Man, a woman, pregnant with triplets, is aware that, in their most recent incarnation, all of her unborn children died in the devastation of 9/11.  One of them had been a New York City fire fighter.  One a terrorist.  And one an 89 year-old woman from Harlem. 

 

MORE

The Myth of Hard Work and the Gift of Baloney

“It can be a dangerous thing to marry someone’s potential,” a friend remarked about her relationship with a former partner.  That four-star piece of wisdom has saved my fanny a number of times.  As has the advice of a college art instructor who used to zip around the studio squawking: “Don’t marry your effort.”

More

Just Be Naked

 

I’m three years in age junior to the lovely Ringo Starr (who’s just turned 70), but like him I’m aware that, when it comes to the things that matter most––peace, love and the ability to rock-and-roll––life surely can get richer with age. 

I feel that, since birth, I’ve been in a school not dissimilar to Harry Potter’s (full of  weirdness, magic, heartbreak, inspiring friends and over-the-top teachers) and I’m just about at the point of having enough understanding, humor and humility to be of service in our strange world.  I’m nobody special.  Lots of us feel that way, and probably will no matter how long we live.  We see no finish line.  Our goal is more and better.  The tattoo on our heart says: “Just be naked.” 

Communicating As Beautifully As Our Dreams

A word about the power of exceptional communication and what it takes to create it: Communicating As Beautifully As Our Dreams.

The Power of Play

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

~ Plato

They Kill Us. We Kill Them. We Humans Have Just Got To Get More Creative

 

On HBO the other day I saw the last half of the Harrison Ford movie “Patriot Games”.  Ford plays one of his customary heroes: a modest, self-effacing family man of enormous intestinal fortitude who stands up to the forces of evil whether they be drug lords, mercenaries or morally bankrupt colleagues within the U.S. government––and of course usually it’s all of the above and a few more for good measure.   Plus, just in case there is a belly button of doubt that Mr. Ford’s character walks on ethical water, his mentor is played by (who else?) James Earl Jones. 

In general, I’m not a fan of films where you know the outcome before the opening titles and the only suspense is “how” the bad guy and gal will experience their just desserts.  And while “Patriot Games,” in my abbreviated viewing, seems to be such a film, predictability isn’t why I find it an unfortunate role model of what it means to be a healthy person.

Isn't It Great We're So Immature?

So a Catholic grammar school is choosing to reject the application of a prospective student because the student’s parents are lesbians.  Boy, it’s a good thing that rule wasn’t around when I attended St. Mike’s.  I’m sure I’ve had queer parents in any number of previous lives.  Heck, I’m sure I’ve been a queer parent myself, probably many times.  Which means, I bet,  so have the school officials who are today telling that kid that Jesus, Mr. Love Your Neighbor, doesn’t embrace the children of homosexuals.

Some say that God's middle name is Irony.

Isn’t it great we’re so immature as a species, with plenty of room for expansion, plenty of lifetimes to learn how alike we all are...how all that matters is love? 

We’d be in deep tapioca if this were as awake as we’re going to get.

Toil's Reward

The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get from it, but what they become by it.

–– John Ruskin

A Zillion of Us Are Just Like Tiger

I and my zillion closest friends are just like Tiger Woods, and boy are we thankful. 

We’re addicts of one persuasion or another.  More to the point, each of us is on a path of recovery: waking to the beauty of being an ordinary schmoe––doing our best not to bullshit ourselves. 

Big Love, Small Love

 The universe is full of beautiful irony.  Take love, for instance.

Big Love is among the rarest of human emotions because it is so pure and life-affirming.  Small Love is among the most common of human emotions because it is so messy and destructive.  Yet, it is only through Small Love, what you might call our humanness, that we come to treasure and embrace Big Love, our divinity, our true self. 

Pennies for Prejudice

[useful absurdity for a peaceful heart]

My latest idea to save the world came, as usual, while wearing glasses that prompt a view of life that is playful, loving and deep.  How else do you find an idea named  “Pennies for Prejudice”?

It begins with a little gizmo to be invented by a roomful of ruthless saints doubling as computer wonks.  It ends by serving anyone who wants to grow a more peaceful heart while also generating the heavy green needed to bankroll a bunch of those honorable initiatives the world cries for?

Grace and Gravitation

The bird attained whatever grace its shape possesses not as a result of the mere desire for flight, but because it had to fly in air, against gravitation.
~ T. E. Hulme

REMOVING YOUR BEAN FROM YOUR SIT-UPON

Think back about 12,000 years. 

Had Ben and Jerry’s been around, you can bet they’d have created a flavor the likes of “Glacier Granite Swirl.”  After all, the chief topic of discussion in those days was the block of ice two miles high that covered all of North America from the Arctic Circle to Pennsylvania.  (The tallest mountain in Vermont today is just shy of 4400 feet, so this glacier was over twice that high.)  Nothing stands still and a glacier is no exception.  On its underside, the friction created by its weight and movement reshaped a whole bunch of rock. 

You ask: What does this have to do with with the meaning of life? 

The Universe She Be Sneaky

One of my early wake-up calls happened when I was maybe 10, an alter boy daydreaming of God.

“Steve, a gigantic meteor is headed for China.  If you choose, you can prevent the death of the entire Chinese population.  To do so, you must dive to the deepest part of the lake and move a stone that covers a secret passage to the center of the earth.  Unfortunately, the dive will kill you.  Even more, your death will be painful.  Will you take on the job?”

“Gee, I guess so, why not?” I found myself saying. 

And with that, I could no longer get why anybody thought it was a big deal that Jesus died to save humankind.  I mean, who wouldn’t? 

A Few Good Funerals

“Divine perversity” (a term I made up) is when the universe asks us to teach that which we most have to learn.   If that weren’t bad enough, the best teaching can take place only with a few good funerals.

Since all we ever teach is ourselves, teaching the “real” us requires the death of whatever masks we wear.  Such as my old standby, Mr. I’ve Got My Shit Together.   Letting go of masks can be like the passing of a dear friend.  It’s tough for anyone, perhaps  especially those who play the role of leader in a world where image is everything. 

But that difficulty is actually a blessing, so far as I can tell.  It is the universe encouraging us to become more and more aware that, in every moment, with every choice, we are answering what some consider to be life’s most important question: “Who am I?” 

You can read more on the topic in my recent essay, Divine Perversity and the Death of Masks.

Laughter Intervened

Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.

–– Laurence Durrell