Cool Mind Warm Heart

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

Extravagant Humility

An eccentrically spiritual zillionaire of my imagination once asked me to design a “golf experience” on his private nine-hole course that comprised the backyard of his Adirondack summer cottage. 

The only direction I received can be summed up by his remark: “Anyone who thinks this course is about golf will think naked skydiving is about transportation.”

Ruthless Saints: A Sign of Life

[from the archives]

Here’s one measure of how the world is heading in a positive direction. 

Fifty years ago the epitome of the circus was Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey.  With its lion tamers, dancing bears, trick horses, performing elephants, monkeys on bikes, and seals bouncing beach balls on their noses, the implicit message was Man Over Beast.  Even the aerialists, tightrope walkers, jugglers, fire-eaters, knife-throwers and human pretzels were an example of Man Over the Beast Within.  Today, the epitome of the circus is Cirque du Soleil, whose implicit message is The Celebration of Humanity.  Indeed, Cirque leaves most churches in the dust when it comes to inspiring the integration of body, mind and spirit: the criteria for living as a whole person. 

Choosing Love When It Comes To Chicks

I’m not exactly sure what it means to be a feminist, but I assume it includes considering females beyond gender stereotypes.  If that’s reasonably close, then the first big feminist choice I remember making occurred when I decked Kathy McMinn as she was racing for home.

Death Ends a Life, Not a Relationship

Forty years ago my pop dropped dead while playing golf one glorious October Saturday morning on his home course overlooking the oddest of New York’s Finger Lakes, the one shaped like a Y.  At 65, it was a fitting exit for a guy who’d lived a charmed life.  That today I, too, enjoy no shortage of wild-ass blessings amidst the many pains of ignorance, reminds me how much my dad is part of me.

An essay for Father's Day

 

My Phone Call With Osama

[This essay, offered in May 2011 upon the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death, was first published in February 2007]

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I’d food fight the Dalai Lama on the back of a crocodile (prime time on ESPN, of course) if I felt the world’s love quotient would rise a tick.  So if Osama bin Laden were to ring me here at the farm and ask would I consider taking him on as a client, I’d say sure, I’d consider it.  In my imagination, the rest of our conversation might go something like this:

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Becoming a Whole Person

“So, Buck,” my grandson, Jacob Ring Johnson, 15, says to me, “I would really like it if you would give me your view on the impact women have on men.” 

Boy.

That I have lived enough, and died enough, to be blessed with such a question from a child I adore causes my heart to blossom into a big shit-eating grin.

The Price of Beliefs

One hundred fifty years ago this month (1861) our nation’s Civil War began.  More than 600,000 participants died because those with the influence to bring about such devastation trusted that they understood the mind of God––at least enough to create enemies and kill them. 

Seventy years ago this month (1941) in Annapolis, Maryland (according to John McPhee in his essay “Spin Right Shoot Left”), the lacrosse team of the United States Naval Academy refused to take the field if Lucien Alexis, Jr., of Harvard did, too.  Alexis was black.  Harvard sent him home.  Of course, both institutions, I’m sure, were convinced they represented the noblest ideals of our nation, and indeed of humankind.

Surely we can all think of examples today of how such ignorance manifests itself...maybe even in ourselves, if you can believe it.

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 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. 

Fear Number One

According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking.  Death is number two.  Does that sound right?  This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.
~ Jerry Seinfeld

Rabbit and the Butcher

From the great designer Milton Glaser, a story that teaches two things we all can use more of: persistence and the ability to ask the right question.

A rabbit goes into a butcher shop and says, “Got any cabbage?”

“Heck no,” says the butcher, “this is a butcher shop.”

Next day, rabbit shows up.  “Got any cabbage?” 

“What are you, deaf?” says the butcher, “No cabbage.”

Next day, rabbit calls from the doorway, “Hey, got any cabbage?”

“No, no, no,” yells the butcher.  “And if you come in here again with the where’s the cabbage, I’m going to nail your ears to the floor.”

Next day, rabbit. 

“You again,” says the butcher.

“Got any nails?” says the rabbit.

“No,” says the butcher. 

“Got any cabbage?” says the rabbit. 

Which Would You Prefer: To Win the Lottery, Or Become Paraplegic?

I actually saw a guy ask that in a presentation he was giving on happiness.

His point was that while, in the short-term, the answer is no doubt obvious, long-term it’s a bit trickier....

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For Pain and Laughs, You Can't Beat an AA Meeting

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A Clam Shell Is One of My Spiritual Teachers

When a clam, like the rest of us, heads off for its next incarnation and no longer needs its shell, the shell continues its own journey into dust.  A few of them travel by way of becoming anything from a treasure for the young at heart to an ashtray.  But most simply get pulverized by the ocean’s continual thrumming against the seashore.  Sooner than later there ain’t much shell left.  Before it disintegrates completely into the infinity of seemingly unrelated shards that make up ocean bottoms and sandy beaches, magic happens.  The part of the shell that is hardest to destroy, the part that once held the muscle that regulated the shell’s opening and closing, becomes a symbol of life’s essence: a heart with wings.

My guess is, all the great wisdom of holy books, saints and sages merely reflects the truth the universe has been whispering to itself forever: Only Love.

 

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. 

 

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Weeping With the President

I often daydream as I ride my tractor, especially when I’m mowing fields, a task deliciously low on intellectual sweat and high on the pleasures of nature.  In yesterday’s daydream I wept uncontrollably upon meeting Barack Obama.  Mr. Obama was the daydream, the weeping was not.

Reaching the Big Everywhere

Everywhere is within walking distance if you have enough time.  So observes comedian Steven Wright.  But do we have enough time to reach the Big Everywhere––our inner heart and its ocean of endless love, light and fire?

I Am All The People I Ever Met

 

“Who am I, you ask?  I don’t know, my friend.  I am all the languages I ever spoke, I am all the places I ever lived, I am all the people I ever met, I am all the women I ever loved, I am all the writers I ever read; I am all my ancestors – but at least they had the decency of never thinking of themselves as writers.  Who am I, you ask?  I don’t know, my friend; I don’t even know who is writing this page.”

— Jorge Luis Borges

When Our Real Parents Die

He said, “I used to meditate for two things.  But today my parents died and I am in sorrow, so I’m not meditating.”  His language was entirely mystical.

I said, “Your parents died?  You’re a swami.  You have nothing to do with parents.”

“No, no,” he said.  “You also have parents.  When they die you will understand.”  He continued: “Attachment was my mother, and anger was my father.  They both died, so I have nothing to do....”

~ Swami Rama

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?

Corky Burr and the Keepers of Awe

[a story for thanksgiving]

Thirteen words that shape the world.

His name is Corky Burr, age mid-sixties by my calculations.  He and I were high school classmates.  I don’t believe our paths have crossed since, and we really didn’t know each other well then.  I have no memories of him, just a single impression: a small sparkle of kindness.  By “small” I mean his physical size, not quality of light.  Recently we became Facebook friends, which, as millions of us know, means mostly we get to glimpse at whatever sliver of a person’s life they wish to share with their Facebook companions.  The very first statement of Corky’s I was privileged to read was this: “I have 16 more days before I marry the love of my life.”

The Rewards of Playfulness

“Stopped for speeding in LA.  The macho cop slowly swaggers up to my window and says in a somewhat 'gotcha' tone, 'I’ve been waitin’ for you all day.'  To which I replied, ‘Gosh officer, I got here as fast as I could.’  He let me off.” 

[Email from my friend and creative playmate, Tom Rizzo.]

Laughter Intervened

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

–– Laurence Durrell

Symbols of Friendship

The images of the stone sculptures I build and photograph on my Vermont farm are, more than anything else, symbols of my work in the world.  Symbols of friendship, you might say.  I help others take whatever life presents and create beauty, health and meaning––for themselves and their organizations. 

The same can be said for my essays, My Two Cents.  They are offerings to us odd socks who are willing to entertain the possibility that everything is a gift.  That willingness can transform our every preference, opinion and choice.  Imagine the power of moving beyond, if only for a moment now and again, the great human craziness of believing that people and circumstances outside ourselves are responsible for our happiness.  That belief, which we all struggle with, may be the single biggest cause of human misery––and thus the biggest obstacle to effective leadership.