Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese monk who inspired spiritual awakening in his students and a more loving world for the rest of us.  He died in 2022.

He was known to his devotees as Thầy (Vietnamese for “teacher”).  One of these people is Kaira Jewel Lingo.  Her words on the 100th anniversary of his birth have touched me.

Kaira is helping me see one way to make a difference in my local world, and in the global one.

Will it be wise words?

Will it be loving words?

Will it be giving financial support?

Will it be a hug?

Perhaps all of these.  But Kaira pointed elsewhere …

One morning we were traveling from one city to another, and I boarded the bus full of misery, utterly dejected.  Thầy was sitting in the front row, as he always did, to make sure the driver stayed awake and that we would all be safe.  As I reached the top step, I lifted my gaze and our eyes met.

Thầy was looking at me most intently, with a compassion and love so huge I felt it physically.  I had never seen that depth of kindness in someone’s eyes before, especially directed at me.  It was as if a great being were looking at me through a magnifying glass of unconditional love.  The look was so focused that it burned away my attachment to my story and the seductive hooks that kept me bound up in the small self.  It was a moment of grace, and it took my breath away.

I had to keep walking past him to my seat, but inside myself I had stopped completely.  I was changed.  His brief look opened up a moment of timelessness in the midst of the pressures of worldly time, a moment of well-being and wholeness right in the midst of suffering.

That look transmitted to me a deep desire to look at people in that way, with boundless compassion and love that, without any words, can relieve suffering and inspire great confidence and joy.

I desire that too

Sometimes I don’t know what I’m talking about.  So I just talk.  This feels like one of those times.

I woke up in the middle of the night with these words in my mind:

Come into the world largely

Truly … where did that come from?

I felt into the words and realized they had nothing to do with being born.  Something else was here.

“Be large every day.”  Is that it?  Bringing a spiritual oomph to the moments?  That sounds closer.

“Large.”  As in louder, more forceful in the marketplace of human beings?  No.  How about more porous … as in lots of space inside and out?  Yes.

All of this is in the realm of figuring things out.  Do I need the analysis?  No.  It doesn’t contribute.

Maybe I should just notice the lovely shapes of the five words, of the twenty-three letters.  Nice curves and swirls.

Or … I could allow the words which so gracefully appeared overnight to float away in the light of day.

Bye bye

A fellow just walked by the window, supported by two canes.  He looked younger than me.  And my mind started flowing …

Perhaps a cane is in my future.  Even a walker.  And how about a wheelchair?

When I think of “Who am I?” I see an unencumbered human being, thoroughly vertical, brimming with life.  Perhaps I should widen my view to include varieties of physical deficit.  For this pain, this ache, this stumble do not define the spirit that I am.

The man outside the window is my brother.  I’ve never met him, and I probably won’t.  But I know him.  And “there but for the grace of God go I.”

***

May all of us walk together on this planet

Sometimes unsteadily

I walked into a small church today.  There were marble stairs up to where a priest sat.  A slow line of people lingered between ten and thirty seconds with him and then walked down on the other side.  It was a very short ceremony … person after person.

I sat a couple of seats from the aisle which most people used to walk to the back of the church, and then out into the sunlight.

There was silence throughout the space.  At the entrance, we were asked to keep cell phones in our pockets.

During my time, two experiences came and grew:

1.  I meditated with my eyes closed

To the recorded music of a choir chanting … and to the rhythm of footsteps

2.  I blessed the human beings walking by with my eyes open

Many decades ago, a phrase visited me and decided to stay …

Love them all

At least two hundred faces came near.  I loved each one.  Since I was at a slight angle to the passers by, very few of them noticed my gaze.  Even fewer made eye contact.  That’s okay.

Young/old, short/tall, skin light/medium/dark, happy/not so much.  I left no one out.

I walked out of the sanctuary after an hour or more … smiling in my heart.  Whether those folks realized it or not, I was with them.  They were in me.

And likely we’ll never meet again

It’s a lovely and sad story penned by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.  Gord died in 2023 … but he is timeless.

The song has lingered in the back of my mind for years.  Recently it’s been whispering …

Please, Bruce, bring me out into the light of day.  Have my words drip from your mouth in the presence of other human beings

Okay.  I’ll do that.

“Home From The Forest” is about a lonely old man, scarcely noticed by the upwardly mobile crowd rushing past him.

I sing songs so I can feel what the people in them are feeling … and to have the audience feel that too.

Old

Poor

Alone

Here’s Gord:

Oh the neon lights were flashin’
And the icy wind did blow
The water seeped into his shoes
And the drizzle turned to snow
His eyes were red, his hopes were dead
And the wine was runnin’ low
And the old man came home
From the forest

His tears fell on the sidewalk
As he stumbled in the street
A dozen faces stopped to stare
But no one stopped to speak
For his castle was a hallway
And the bottle was his friend
And the old man stumbled in
From the forest

Up a dark and dingy staircase
The old man made his way
His ragged coat around him
As upon his cot he lay
And he wondered how it happened
That he ended up this way
Getting lost like a fool
In the forest

And as he lay there sleeping
A vision did appear
Upon his mantel shining
A face of one so dear
Who had loved him in the springtime
Of a long-forgotten year
When the wildflowers did bloom
In the forest

She touched his grizzled fingers
And she called him by his name
And then he heard the joyful sound
Of children at their games
In an old house on a hillside
In some forgotten town
Where the river runs down
From the forest

With a mighty roar the big jets soar
Above the canyon streets
And the con men con but life goes on
For the city never sleeps
And for an old forgotten soldier
The dawn will come no more
For the old man has come home
From the forest

***

In three weeks, I intend to sing this song at an open mic session in Gent.  On to memorization …

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=8OijusL04LY&si=4_12ahl7fhQlzC5u

Huh?  Those words don’t make sense together.  Or so I’ve said.

Perhaps there’s something new here.  Actually there’s no “perhaps”.  A light is shining that has never before brightened my life.

I’ve had several ongoing conflicts with my landlord.  When I dial his number, I’m scared.  When I write an e-mail … same.  As I await his response … again.

Up until today.

The current issue is the money he’s owed me for months.  I woke up this morning dreading how Chapter 23 of this ordeal would unfold.  And then …

I found myself smiling.  I leaned forward.  I was excited about the immediate future: hearing his voice and mine on the phone.

What!?

This does not compute

This isn’t me

Except that right now … it is.  Strange.  Bruce Kerr rubbing his hands together in anticipation of a battle.  No fear.  Instead being eager.

How did this arise in me?  There was no conscious decision to be brave.  It’s a mystery that leaves my mouth lolling open.

***

How does change happen?

One more time these words emerge …

I don’t know

My friend Catherine in Canada posted this photo in Facebook yesterday.  It got her thinking.  Me too.

John … yet another human being I wish I could have a chat with.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Why should we feel locked into our answer being a profession?  Why do people look at us strangely when we venture outside of the box?

Most of the time I’m happy.  Over many years, as folks ask me “How are you?” my response has naturally bubbled up …

I’m happy

I can hear in their heads “But you’re supposed to say ‘I’m fine’.”  Gosh … who ever invented “supposed to”?

I knew a 12-year-old whom I worked with as a volunteer in an elementary school.  She was graduating, and at one point near the end of our time together she said:

Mr. Kerr, I like it that when someone asks you how you are, you say “I’m happy”

I like it too.

Imagine the five-year-old John saying to perhaps a forty-year-old adult “You don’t understand life.”  We older folks should be so brave.

On I go … happy

(If you care to ask)

Safiya Al-Sayegh is a professional cyclist from the United Arab Emirates.  She is Muslim, and the only one in the peloton who wears a hijab.

In her twenty-five years, she has accomplished much as a cyclist and as a person.  And now she is at a crossroads.  Her sport and her religion.  How to balance them.  Does she choose one … or the other … or both?

We all face moments where different values collide.  And there are no easy answers.

But now Safiya has decided.

Being a Muslim first

Being a cyclist second

She has decided to retire as a professional athlete

Hear her words:

The past couple of years have been tough mentally, not because this sport is tough, but because I found myself in an identity crisis.  Being a Muslim woman that fully believes in covering and dressing modestly, and a girl that just loved racing, riding a bike, and that loved sports.

Can you feel Safiya?  Can you see yourself in her, whatever your religion, or even if you don’t have one?

As soon as I heard about Safiya, she immediately joined my short list of human beings I’d love to have coffee with (or whatever she chooses to drink).

For a while I have thought deeply what I’d like to be remembered by and I hope it can be good manners, smiles, trying my best to spread joy to the people around me, and a Muslim woman that tried her very best to show, wherever she went around the world, how lovely Islam is and that it is a religion of peace, balance and obedience to our creator, Allah.

Well said, Safiya

Fare thee well

If you look carefully at the photo, you’ll see the word “Unsplash” spread across.  It’s a marvelous website that has paid a global copyright license for thousands of images, so that we members can rest assured we’re not breaking the law.  Yay!

***

I love the picture.  It speaks so profoundly, beyond countless paragraphs of “meaning”.  After all, my insights probably are different than yours.  So I won’t add to the world’s verbal outflow.  I’ll just tell you a story …

About forty-five years ago, I was climbing a wooded hill on Canada’s Vancouver Island, close to the Pacific shore.  The trees opened to a space of grass.  The peak felt close.

And then the sound, muffled but real …

What is that?

…

Waves breaking on a beach!

Close … closer … almost there …

There!

The Pacific Ocean suddenly spread before my eyes, rows of white disappearing on the sand, one by one.  And the sky was smiling.

Me too

In the aftermath of Saturday morning’s bedroom ceiling collapse, there was a lot of clean-up.  Bits of plaster had invaded the cracks of my old wooden floor.  I scraped and vacuumed and mopped.

My bed was piled high with objects of my affection.  And there was only so much room.  So my lovely green fabric chair ended up in the living room.  I placed it haphazardly near a white chair.  I’d return it to its rightful spot in a day or two.

In one of my pauses, I looked at the two chairs.  And strange words formed in my brain:

They can’t talk to each other this way

So I arranged the environment to allow for connection …

You may doubt that chairs talk to each other, but I don’t.  There are mysteries in this life beyond my puny mind.

“Face-to-face” seems like a fine life principle.  Not at a slight angle.  Direct.

***

I’m a strange duck