Tag Archives: Presence

The Arc of Life

It was June, 1962.  I was in Grade 8.  We were playing a game of softball at lunch recess (the version that’s now called fastball).  The diamond was in a corner of the property, with the three-storey school at an angle, so that its left end was closer to us than the right.  Beyond the outfield grass was a wide cement strip that butted up against the building.

And so the stage was set for Roger Mount.  He scared me – all musclely, loud and aggressive.  I was a timid little kid, of the striking out variety.  Thankfully, Roger and I were on the same team, so I was standing near him when the moment cracked open my reality.  Roger was at the plate, waiting.  The pitcher was ready.  He zoomed a fastball over the plate, and Roger met the pitch with the sweet spot.  The ball took off, climbing and climbing towards left field.  My mouth dropped open.  The ball kept going up, impossibly high and far.  Left field was but a memory, as was the cement.  As was the three storeys of elementary education.  Finally the sphere started falling, and then it …

disappeared.

Onto the roof.  Roger had done something that most likely had never been accomplished in the history of Bedford Park Public School.  On the field there was silence as he rounded the bases.  We were in the presence of God.  Fifty-two years later, I’m still there.  Roger is right now.  Eternally.

***

Sometime in the 70s, I went to watch Jack Nicklaus play a practice round at a golf course near Toronto.  One of the best golfers in the history of the game.  And I got to be within ten feet of him, in the first row of spectators behind the tee of a par four hole.  A creek crossed the fairway left to right about 200 yards off the tee.  There was a wide stretch of fairway beyond, but then it turned sharp right and paralleled the creek till it reached the green, far to the right as we viewed it from the tee.  The kicker was that there was a row of tall deciduous trees on the far bank  of the creek, starting from the open fairway straight ahead of us and continuing all the way to the green, protecting the hole against any insane golfer who wanted to try a short cut.

Nicklaus took one look at the situation and said to his caddie, “Why not?”  He teed up a ball and pointed his body towards the green.  I gasped (very quietly – golf is a polite game).  My fellow spectators froze as well.  Jack waggled his driver, stared down the trees, tilted his head to the ball that was about to go for a wild ride, and swung.  The thwack of a real wooden club crushing a dimpled white sphere.  A climb through space as if seeking the Godhead.  Up and up and up and up and …

over the trees.

Jack’s ball came to rest on the fringe of the green.  He turned around, smiled at us, and said, “Don’t think I’ll try that again.”  His words were the only sound on the tee.  Maybe two hundred of us had witnessed the power of a deity.

***

I love the flight
I love the reaching up to God
I love the going up and the coming down

Home County

I drove into London today to listen to some of the workshops at the Home County Music and Art Festival.  It was a gorgeous sunny day in Victoria Park – ten acres of mature trees and wide spreads of grass.

Here are some moments from the folk festival that took me beyond the world of form:

***

A woman leaning back against a big tree, her head nodding to the music, and her backside caressing the bark

A young black singer deep into a gospel song, standing at a stationary microphone without an instrument, opening her mouth so wide as she sang, her fingers opening and closing in the air

James Keelaghan telling us that his dog died last Friday and then singing “Sinatra and I”, an ode to his four-legged travelling companion.  All in a deep baritone

Nathan Rogers moving forward and back in his chair, as he channelled the storytelling energy of his dearly departed father Stan, with words such as “The mountains moved inside of him”

A young woman guitarist, resplendent in a white fedora, Shirley Temple curls and an all-black outfit, sending the melody to heights unknown with the vibrato in her fingers

The audience clapping and smiling after each fiddle, mandolin and electric bass solo

Connie Kaldor singing a song about a nightclub in France for dogs, and a woman in the audience standing up, moving to the stage with her white terrier in her arms, and dancing big circles with her doggie

The fingers of a bass guitar player making love to his strings as he took over from the vocals

A woman crooning the lyrics “With my aspirin, my soul begins to slip” (or so I thought), when she really was saying “With my last breath, my soul begins to sleep”

And more words from elsewhere:

The way she sang was magic
Of the things we know are real

Riding the dark train to heaven

It was a winter of record-breaking lows for me

***

The music lies within us all, and seeks to open our hearts.  May we listen.

Just a T-Shirt

Jody and I were sitting in a breezy beach restaurant in St. Lucia in 1995, sipping our tropical creations.  Such fun.  The bikinis were scenic and colours were everywhere.  I glanced over at a black woman on the far side of the room.  She was wearing a classy black dress, and was sitting alone.  She was also looking at me.

We had just got off the sand after a major tanning and reading session, and were garbed in t-shirts and shorts, me with a “London Road Race” logo on display.  Whatever that cream drink I ordered was, it was yummy. And everything just seemed so … slow.  Perfect.  Sometimes Jody and I talked but much of the time we were silent.

I looked up again to see the elegant woman walking towards our table.  She smiled and said, “Excuse me.  Are you folks from London, Ontario, Canada?”

“Why, yes we are.”

“Did you graduate from UWO [our local university]?”

“No, but Jody did.”

“So did I.  You must come to dinner.”

We talked for a few minutes, with smiles all around.  The woman’s daughter would pick us up at our hotel at 5:00.  Fine with us.  I had a twinge of fear, but it floated away into the brilliant blue sky.

Five o’clock it was, and we were being whisked along the byways in a fancy Mitsubishi sedan.  Very talkative and friendly, the young lady.  Mom and daughter’s home was laden with art and soft leather.  Dinner was exceptional and our hostess offered us a fine red wine, vinted many years before.  The best though, was the talk.  Old friends reminiscing about London landmarks, party times and the rigours of study.  Turns out that our hostess was from a wealthy family and came to Canada to get an education.  We also learned that she was currently a member of the St. Lucia Senate.  Certainly a powerful woman but far more importantly a nice person.

Over dessert, there was a knock at the door, and in walked a tall, elegant black gentleman, dressed in a white suit.  (I sure wish I could remember these people’s names, but they’re not coming to me.  Oh well.)  He was a most gracious fellow, gentle and soft of conversation, and he clearly was good friends with the senator. Eventually, he got up to leave, and actually bowed to us as he bid us adieu.  “So I’ll be seeing you later.”  And he was gone.

What did that mean?  “It means that he’s invited us to his place for drinks,” smiled our new friend.  An hour later, we were back in that Misubishi, wafting our way to an unknown residence.  Miss Senator told us on the way that the man was the only importer of cars in St. Lucia, and as a result was extremely wealthy.  Okay.

Along the nighttime roads we rolled, finally making a turn onto a steeply uphill dirt track.  And up we went, seemingly on a spiral around a high hill, till we reached the top … manicured lawns, tropical trees and the white glow of a home that seemed to have no exterior walls.  After we had stopped, the woman told us not to get out of the car.  Soon there were three really big dogs right up against the doors.  Mr. Mitsubishi, still in white like his house, was strolling towards us.  With a snap of his fingers, the dogs were gone.  More smiles.

There were indeed no exterior walls, and filmy curtains floated within the sweetest breeze.  I remember a huge living room, vibrant with the white and the tropical colours.  This can’t be real, my brain poked at me.  Except it was.  More soft couches, more fascinating talk and mellow drinks.  Just little old me and little old Jody from Canada being welcomed to the Caribbean.

I kept looking at the grand piano in the centre of the room.  Our male friend noticed, and asked “Would you like to play?”

“Yes, I would.”

So the curtains stirred, the candles glowed and I got to tickle the ivories.  Simple stuff, but it made everyone happy.

That evening was nearly twenty years ago, but it remains vivid for me.  We never saw those fine people again.  And that’s okay.  A gift they had given.

Serendipity

 

Christ the Redeemer

It’s a 125-foot statue of Jesus that looks down on the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and its harbour.  If you go to Google Images, you’ll find many stunning photos of this wonder of the world.  For many years, its beauty has held a sacred spot in some nook of my brain, but TV coverage of the World Cup has moved it to front and centre.

Christ the Redeemer draws forth a spirit from me.  Words stop and I just look.  I don’t analyze and I don’t compare.  Having said that, I guess that what I’m about to say is creating words and suggesting an analysis.  But whatever I say will fall short of the silence.  That’s okay.  I’ll just point to something that’s very, very big.

Jesus stands tall.  He’s erect but without strain.  He’s reaching his full height.  I can live an upright life as well, neither swaying to the left nor right, as the world presses me to.  I can be morally true, responding to others in ways that honour their being.

Jesus holds his arms out wide, his fingers gently extended, apparently needing no effort to hold the pose.  Horizontal.  I too can be level in my life, treating all people with the same respect, compassion and love.  No one better and no one worse.

Jesus bows his head, not pushing himself forward.  Instead, “I bow to the divine in you.”  I am not inferior to you, nor superior.  I’m not even “equal”.  You and I are simply waves on the ocean, one no more wet than the other.

Although I’m not sure, I thinks that Jesus’ eyes are closed, so that he can touch a power beyond, and bring it back to us frail residents of planet Earth.  I  close my eyes in meditation, bringing forth something beyond space and time.

Thank you to Heitor da Silva Costa for designing the statue, and to Paul Landowski for sculpting it.  Their work is a gift to all human beings, of any religion or none.

Namaste

Mount Lineham: View from the Top

It was 1969, and I had just taken the train from Toronto to start work in the mountains, at Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta.  Every day off from the hotel was a hike – slopes that this Ontario kid had never experienced.  My new friend Vince and I decided one day to take the Rowe Lakes trail.  The turquoise waters of Lower and Upper Rowe Lakes beckoned.  Partway along the trail up the valley, the trees parted, and a scree slope presented itself on the right, drawing our eyes up and up to the top of Mount Lineham.  Vince and I looked at each other and knew what our next free day would be about – straight up the slope to the first mountain peak experienced by kids from Regina and Toronto.

And that’s what we did, not realizing that loose rock and gravel meant two feet up and one foot down.  So naive, and so eager.  Hour upon hour fell to our feet, and our breaks revealed the beauty of the mountain on the other side of the highway below us.  Each time we rested, that other mountain showed us its secrets – masses of evergreen yielding to scraggly pines, fields of scree, and tiny waterfalls.

Looking back up at Lineham, we wilderness virgins got to experience the “false summit” phenomenon.  What looked like the top from our angle simply wasn’t.  And it continued not to be … until …

The last hundred feet to the summit was an agonizing slog.  Breathing in loud gasps, we saw Alpine Forget-Me-Nots and orange lichen pass slowly beneath us.  And back the other way, we were just below the summit ridge of the neighbouring mountain.  I was nearly crawling, until finally the steepness lessened and lessened, till ahead we saw a plateau maybe twenty feet across.  Thirty steps to go … twenty … ten … three … and we stepped onto the top of the world.

A panorama of snow-capped peaks was suddenly all around us.  They stretched to four horizons, seas of white.

Silence from Vince.  Silence from me.  For many minutes.

***

In my todays, Mount Lineham remains.  Years ago, I read a description of “ah-ha” moments in a book.  The writer asked us to imagine being inside a tent, staring at the four brown walls.  Then some magical force grabs the ridgeline and hauls the canvas up and away, revealing a sublime beauty.  For me, it’s the beauty of the mountains surrounding Lineham on that sunny June day in 1969.   Whenever I want to, or really whenever I’m present enough to, the ordinary moments of my life are animated with white, and I’m welcomed to a vastness beyond words.