Bearded (Or Not)

From Friday till Sunday, I was in an intense retreat online with the Evolutionary Collective.  My brain cells were mightily scattered – in a good way.

I woke up this morning felling pretty darned tired.  It became apparent that my commitment to life amounted to pressing the power button of the TV remote.  I decided to pig out on a few hours of coronavirus coverage.  Some of it was gloomy stuff but heroes of every ilk were also there for the viewing.

I’m fascinated with commercials, with what they say about our “modern” life.  After a run of four or five of them, I had a wee “Ah hah!”  It was about the men.  Some guy was peddling car insurance, looking sporty in his close-cropped beard.  Then a fellow was waxing poetic about dog food “with real meat and veggies” … also bearded.  And how about having a new car delivered to your home with no physical contact needed?  The delivery driver was smiling beneath his ample facial hair.

“Hmm … they all have beards.”  I flashed back to a visit in Alberta with Jody’s brother and his family.  Lance said something like “They’ll spot you as a tourist right away.”  Curious, I piped up with “How?”  >  “No beard.”

This morning, I pulled out a piece of paper and started a tally of men in commercials.  You’ll be happy to know that 92 of them pranced across the screen, trying to sell me something.  And 59 of those souls wore beards and/or moustaches.  64% in favour of facial hair.

I got to thinking: What does it take to be a man?  Clearly, marketers see hairy faces as highly desirable … but I think not.  My occasional days of not shaving just made my face itch.  I don’t need that.  As far as I can tell, the only requirement for manhood is the possession of a penis.  There’s no blueprint.  Not appearance, personality or occupation.  Not height or clothing.

I know I have the basics, and that’s good enough for me.  We men are patches on a coat of many colours.  And the garment shines!  Vive la différence.

Unbearded, I continue my walk in the world.

Letters and Words

This series of photos sits above my stove, to remind me of the miracles of life. I love letters. More accurately, I love how they come together into words. Numbers don’t enthrall me so much but I do enjoy analyzing the performance stats of women tennis players.

I enjoy stringing words together … into sentences, paragraphs and ultimately stories. There is a grace to the English language which sometimes allows me to ride on her shoulder. When the thoughts flow, I am supremely happy. This is my 1,218th post on WordPress. I think I’ve made a difference here.

There have been some long gaps between posts over the last six years. Was I still Bruce during those times? Of course. Other projects magnetized me for awhile. But I’ve always come back home.

I notice that I have no interest in a diary. Even if it’s only a few folks, I want my words to touch people. Could I be happy on my deathbed if only ten people over the years were impacted by what I said? Now I’m smiling because the answer is “Yes”.

There are times of mellow union when I let go of the words. They still rise up out of my mouth but then seem to separate in the air. Love becomes four letters drifting apart, mingling with other ones that have come floating by. What remains is shining dots of light … a celestial blessing.

I have my rhythms but may I return again and again to writing. I give. I receive.

***

And by the way, if you want to know the subject matter of the art work, Google “rhopalocera”.

God At Work

The word “God” holds so many meanings for so many people. For me, God is not a being who’s higher than us humans. God is not a he or a she or a supreme person at all. For me, God is the spirit of love that resides in each of us. The spirit may be hidden beneath layers of ego … or it may shine brightly for all to see.

I know a fellow who runs a tire store near me. I’ll call him Rick. He doesn’t preach from a pulpit or meditate in a monastery. He sells tires, and stores my winters when it’s time for my summers. Anybody with a basic knowledge of tires could do the job, I suppose. But only a few could turn the waiting room and shop into an arena for love.

Rick’s voice, in person or on the phone, has a lilt – a lightness, a welcome. He speaks softly and pulls me in. It’s like he’s beckoning me to join him. It’s just so easy to feel connected in his presence.

I’ve watched Rick talk to customers who are in a hurry. Rick and his staff are very efficient but each job takes the time it needs to. I can’t even remember what he’s said to these folks but invariably the car owner mellows. The voice transforms from staccato to ballad, from harsh to easy. “How did he do that?” I ask myself.

Rick loves the classic car that sits in his garage. He’s spent many hours renewing the old girl. And he gets a faraway look in his eyes when talking about her. He’s beholding the beloved.

It’s been said that God works in mysterious ways. So true. And sometimes he hangs out in car bays … in the world of lug wrenches, tire gauges and hydraulic lifts.

Who knew?

An Unbounded View

I’m sitting in my red man chair, looking across my living room and out into the world. The sun is preparing to say goodbye. The field of winter wheat beyond stretches to trees bordering the faraway creek. It’s home I see.

The tall panes of glass reveal a young tree in the foreground and a slope of newly-mown grass. It’s quiet out there.

Awhile ago, the windows showed me the soaring of a hawk … such lovely curves in the sky. I stared. Then my airborne friend flew to the left and out of my world. I was sad. “Come back, new companion!” I cried inside my head, but it was not my call to make. I know the hawk is somewhere nearby, and his path through the air is still etched in my mind. There is “hawkness” here, the remembrance of gracious flying. And that’s enough.

On the left edge of the photo, you’ll glimpse the dome covering my nyger seed feeder. Birdies come and go in search of the good stuff. The male goldfinches are so yellow! Sometimes the feeder (and its nearby sunflower seed cousin) are frantic with the wings of visitors. Sometimes the feeders hang limp and alone. Such rhythms.

Way to the north is the left and right expanse of Harrietsville Drive. Cars are so tiny from my living room. And they look so slow. I wonder who’s going where, who’s happy and who’s tormented … all brothers and sisters of mine.

See the glass on the window sill? It’s full of little pebbles of couscous. I see them as the citizens of Belmont, my village of 2800 souls. It’s convenient to wish them all well in one spot. The glass is dead centre in my view.

It’s nice being home.

Across the Divide

“In every friendship, hearts grow and entwine themselves together, so that the two hearts seem to make only one heart with only a common thought. That is why separation is so painful; it is not so much two hearts separating, but one being torn asunder.”

***

“Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.”

***

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness.”

***

Love is hard work. In tough times, the temptation is to turn the back rather than meet the eyes. Everyday life presents us with challenges to our union. For the last month this has not been everyday life.

Today was to be their wedding day. But Savannah lives in Abbotsford, B.C. and Ryan lives in Bellingham, Washington. Two hearts in two countries, and for the time being “never the twain shall meet”. No cross-border travel.

Facetime is lovely but more was needed. Savannah and Ryan found a stretch of Canada/US boundary that was not defended by customs agents. On each side ran a little road … two parallels. Ryan and Savannah find each other there – six feet apart – although their smiles and tears are closer than that.

One hundred and fifty dearly loved ones were to join them today. Four eyes were brimming this morning on TV as they thought about what could have been and what surely will be some day. Will it be some day soon? Looking at their love through the television screen, I sure hope so.

Welcome Everything

That’s ridiculous. How naïve do you think I am? And how Pollyanish I’m thinking you are. You’ve lived on this planet long enough to know that there are good and bad things, events, people. We work hard to keep all the good stuff and throw everything rotten into the trash. Get a grip with your immature inclusiveness.

Do you really want the ravages of constipation, depression and cancer to come knocking on your door? Do you want your loved ones to have shortened lives?

As for people, you’ve got to admit that some folks are just plain stupid. Some have weird customs. They weren’t even born here. How do expect me to welcome them?

I need to be safe, you know – protected. If I don’t tighten up to ward off evil, the bad people will run roughshod over us. They’ll take over. That’s why I carry a gun. Nobody’s going to get me.

Why are you so happy, so calm? You should be “mad as hell … and not going to take it anymore.” No namby pamby olive branches and hugs. If you get too close to them, they’ll knife ya.

I’m just so pissed off!

***

I don’t want the ball of iron in my stomach. I don’t want to be constantly evaluating the worth of something, creating endless lists of pros and cons. I don’t want my eyes to be glaring and staring. I don’t want to walk into a room and immediately be searching for what’s wrong. I don’t want to be looking down or up at you.

I just don’t want all this angst.

For there’s much to do in the world. There are gifts to give, smiles to be shared. Physical pain comes at times. For most of us, it passes. And we get to return to the work, the journey towards each other.

We rise above the small to the large
We rise above some of us to all of us
We rise above good and bad to the tapestry of life

Waving

On some of my walks along the gravel of Old Victoria Road, I come upon a swath of tall grass that stretches for two hundred metres. The tips rise above me.

As the breeze blows, the assembled beings awaken and sway together to a song unknown to me. There’s a sweet flow here – each strand bending to be with its neighbour. It’s a loving togetherness, not a forced squishing. And the rhythm in front of my eyes continues way to the left and to the right. The field of grass is alive.

I wonder what they’re thinking … these towering ones. Are they happy with their lot? Do they enjoy the red-winged blackbirds who nestle within? Do they worry that they’re not bright green? (I doubt it.)

As I stand before them, it seems that all eyes are on me. Are they waiting for me to say something? Can I let go and allow words to emerge from my mouth, without care?

And what is their message to me? I need to be still, waiting amid the breeze, for wisdom to come calling.

I have friends on Old Victoria Road.

Faces

I enjoy sitting in my den, looking over to my bookcase. You’ll be happy to know that I’ve arranged things. If I sit on the left cushion of the loveseat, many eyes are aimed right at me. I hope you can enlarge the photo to see what I mean. There’s a marble sculpture of a man and woman who aren’t really looking my way, but apart from that …

In no particular order, you’re likely to find two Buddhas, two lizards, two native American women, a snowy owl, a cyclist, a Senegalese goddess of fertility, a laughing wooden face, a downcast stone face, Jody and me on our wedding day, Jody at a tiny restaurant in Quebec City, two little kids under an umbrella, an owl with wings spread wide, me at a community dinner in Belmont, my nephew Jaxon’s grad picture, a jovial black kid, the haunting image of a sad peasant girl in 1885, and the Sun.

All meeting my eyes. All saying “Hello”. There is magic on this cushion. I feel radiation coming my way. I am being included in so many lives. Across time and space, we are together.

Eros and Agapé

I like reading about love because love is the most important part of my life.  In a book written by Ilia Delio, she and Teilhard de Chardin had immense things to say on the subject.  I wrote stuff down and now I can’t remember who said what.  Oh well … it was one of them.

When people hear the word “eros”, they tend to think of sex, as in “erotic”.  I see sexuality as an immense gift, meant to be thoroughly enjoyed.  But love as eros – is that what we’re talking about here?

The energy of eros is to accumulate for ourselves what we find valuable.

Eros is that ineffable longing that stretches beyond oneself for the sake of oneself.

I don’t know about you, but “me first” doesn’t sound like love to me.  It sounds like possessing someone, keeping them in a box, staying around as long as they meet your needs.

Love is the fire that breathes life into matter and unifies elements center to center.

Love is the fragrance that makes them hasten together and leads them, freely and passionately, along their road of unity.

That sounds much better.  You and me, creating something remarkable together.  That’s the world I want to live in.  It’s called agapé.

Agapé is love unconditioned, spontaneous, unmotivated.  It’s love indifferent to any type of reward or reciprocity.

A person spending himself freely and carelessly for the other person

The unconditional willing of the good

So … I have countless opportunities to pour love into you.  To want you to have a delightful life.  And in my better moments, it doesn’t matter what you do in return.

Friend and friend
Sister and brother
Parent and child
Grandparent and grandchild
Lover and lover

All different … but deeply the same

Just love
It is enough

Two Questions

I like questions.  The really good ones are far more interesting than quick answers.  Watching the science of coronavirus unfold, I’m fascinated as I see intelligent public health officials leaning towards “I don’t know” on the knowing/not knowing spectrum.  Some things are mysterious.

I like the question “Who am I?”  I’ve felt into it for decades, knowing that cool answers are far beyond the realms of occupation, gender, age, physical appearance and even personality.  How about that?  A question whose answer remains elusive after all these years.

And sometimes I’m even more deeply lost in a question.  Two of them have enthralled me ever since I was in diapers (okay … not quite).  The first one seems very strange.  The second one infinite.

How did I get in here?

The “here” I’m talking about is this particular human body.  I seem to be inside this basket of flesh and associated structures.  I turn my head to look at something and I swear that I’m behind those eyes, searching for the next new thing.  But why?  How come I’m not inside my neighbour or the host I see on the evening news?  Did someone flick a magic switch and insert me into this body?

Could it be that I’m not really inside this fleshed-out skeleton?  I see a tree out the window.  Why am I not embedded within those branches instead of in this shape that’s sitting on the couch?  Maybe all this interior viewpointing is a mirage.  Perhaps I’m inside you when I gaze into “your” eyes.

Hmm.  I’m getting confused again.  I feel so localized inside this head and chest, but could it be that I’m … everywhere?

However, if I’m willing to accept the consensual wisdom that I’m in this body, may I ask a simple question?  Who put me in here?

***

Okay.  Enough of that.  Time for question number two:

Does the universe end?

I look around at things.  Take that tree for instance.  I’m staring at it now.  No leaves yet so the branches are in sharp relief.  The wooden parts are “tree”.  The spaces around the wooden parts – grass and sky – are “not tree”.  Same with me when I look in the mirror.  I see Bruce and the shower curtain behind.  That curtain is clearly “not Bruce”.  There’s a point where I end.

Seems clear enough.  But what about the universe?  Does it end somewhere?  If so, what’s outside of the universe?!  The question stops my mind.  It throws me into a spasm of “Where am I?  Where are we?”  Doesn’t everything have to end somewhere?  (I don’t know.)

***

Woh.  Too much thinking.  Too many explosions inside wherever I am.  Maybe I should just hunker down with a Captain America movie … and a hot chocolate.  Much simpler.