The true patriot
November 27, 2005 by Bill
The date is December 7. The year is 1941. I am sitting in the living room of the Sigma Chi house at the University of Oklahoma. I am reading the morning paper when someone bursts into the room and yells, “the Japanese are bombing Pearl Harbor.” It did not take me many weeks to realize that I would be prime for the draft. I did not want that, so I thought that since I was going to serve in the military I would choose my own branch. I decided that I would like to be a Marine Corps pilot. I enlisted in the Naval Aviation Cadet program and after completion of that program I graduated as a 2nd Lt. in the United States Marine Corps. I flew through both WW 11 and Korea. for 12 years to be exact. That period of service included being decorated by the Commandant of the Marine Corps.
I ask you to remember those facts as I write about the phony hype today about that word “patriotism.”
We are daily accused of not being “patriotic” if we:
My favorite things
November 20, 2005 by Bill
One of my all time favorite songs is from “The Sound of Music”. It is “My Favorite Things”. I never listen to that without feeling joyful. It always brings forth a smile. As I write these words at the beginning of the month for Thanksgiving I let my calendar of the soul take over and my head and heart are filled with gratitude for so many of my favorite things…that make life so good and the days so sparkling.
# Great hugs from those you love…and who love you. (this also lowers cholesterol we are told. It beats Oak Bran).
# The wild flowers of a rainy Spring…and the grasses of a showery summer. The solitude and silence of the winter months when the mountains are covered with snow…and our Mother Earth sleeps a while.
# Choosing a great book for morning reading with the winter rain falling outside my study window…and a hush covers the earth.
# Sitting mesmerized at night in our living room before a wood burning fire that draws me like in the days of the Cro Magnon caves when the fire kept us secure and safe…I have never understood how anyone can have an artificial fire with fake logs.
A simple “thank you”…will suffice
November 13, 2005 by Bill
You must know by now that one of my heroes was that giant mystic Meister Eckhart (1260-1327) who was light years ahead of his time. He was the father of German philosophy and the sharpest thorn in the side of the Christian church. He told them “to go around looking for God is like sitting on an ox looking for an ox to ride.”
Seven hundred years ago he wrote this: “if the only prayer you say in your entire life is “Thank You”…that would suffice.”
To me that is one of the most profound statements in the spiritual literature of humankind. Put it on your fridge door in five colors. That has been my first conscious act of the day for more years than I can remember.
What am I thanking? Not a “him”…or a “her” or any anthropomorphic ‘God’ “out there”. But to the Ultimate energy beyond the Mystery…to the ineffable…incomprehensible beyond the Mystery…to the Wonder behind the miracles of existence…”thank you” is the only prayer we need as we begin the celebration of a new day. Every moment is a new arrival. How do we respond to this marvel? In the exaltation of existence. It is one of the rewards of being human.
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