“There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes,” wrote the recently departed John Prine in one of his many songs that illuminate the landscape and humble those of us who attempt to speak by written word.
That sliver of Prine puts him among those generous souls from whom I have received a gem of light––the kind that cuts the dazzle of nonsense and penetrates the familiar reach of meaning.
Such as my beloved, and her unerring measure of well-being: “Energy doesn’t lie.”
Or the wisdom of an old, dear friend: “No one is who they think they are. No one is that small. Our capacity for self-discovery is immeasurable.”
About as close as I come to knowing something for sure is this: the universe is as tall as the Empire State Building, and my understanding of it is the thickness of a comic book.
Thankfully, some gems remind us we don’t need to be thick to be happy.
Walt Whitman: I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.
Yogananda: All paths lead to God, for ultimately there is no where else for the soul to go.
When the king of TV talk-show hosts, Johnny Carson, died in 2005, comedian Steve Martin wrote an op-ed commemoration in the New York Times. Noting Mr. Carson’s thousands of guests over some 30 years, from celebrities and oddballs of every stripe to animals that might poop on his head, Mr. Martin celebrated that his friend gave each guest the benefit of the doubt, and in this way exemplified an American ideal: You’re nuts but you’re welcome here.
Imagine riding that silent mantra like a magic carpet through every worldly encounter, with special excursions over the back roads of our own choices.
A gem of light burns forever, leading us as deep into ourselves as we ever want to go.
To me, today, that line from Mr. Prine’s song titled “Sam Stone” is about a lot more than a returning soldier’s shattered nerves that led him to drug addiction and death.
Echoed is the core of all addiction: an attempt to escape pain. The pain of a hole within us we’re unable to fill. Not because it can’t be filled, but because we haven’t yet learned how.
Covid-19 has something to teach us about such things, if we let it.
It is chilling, yet useful, to contemplate that when it comes to weighing the harm of various addictions, drugs are small potatoes compared to beliefs. For so many of us, our biggest, most destructive addiction is the belief that the world out there is responsible for how we feel.
How often we say, “This makes me________.” And every time, we’re mistaken and don’t know it.
Or maybe somewhere we do know it, and fear the pain of acknowledging that our anger, for instance, is always self-created.
Covid-19 might set in motion all sorts of feelings, but doesn’t cause a single one.
The cause is a gem of light that, I feel fortunate to say, has prodded me for years since I received it from the late global visionary, Danaan Parry.
How we define our world actually creates our world.
Covid-19 may take my life. As it took John Prine’s. How I feel about that is on me.
Just the right thing for me to read today and pass on to someone I dearly love. Thank you,
Brilliant, as always, Steve!!!
Thank you.
♥️