The Echo Remains, the song won't fade

Is it so wrong hanging onto your song?

Was I just mad?
that time - the best ...?

And if not plain crazy
Was I just lazy?
How did I lose?
Did I just fail to choose ... ?

Of course I survived.
But
what stayed alive?

Deep in my head,
like a book I've just read
the story returns

an echo which burns
but
wont
fade
away

My grandmother said: Sorry? Three steps: the Mouth, Hands and Head

I'm Sorry - but am I really? Three steps to genuine forgiveness.

The Mouth, the Hands, the Head

We all learn it when we are very young: "I'm sorry Mommy!" "I'm sorry Daddy!"
And if you aren't saying saying it, then someone is saying to you "Say you're sorry now!"

What does it mean, all this saying sorry?
It's a sorry state of affairs that we don't look at the kernel of being sorry: Really, we want to be forgiven for something we did.  How to get forgiveness?. That's the crux of the matter.

Here's my Grandmother's take on it

After the umpteenth time of saying sorry (for the same old thing of course!) she took us kids aside and said:
"Look at me"!
"To be really sorry, you must remember the Mouth" (pointed to her lips) "the Hands" (clapping them lightly in front of her) "and the Head" (tapping her temples quickly). She then proceeded to explain:

The Mouth

The first thing you have to do to show that you are sorry for what you did is to say it out loud. Tell the person. As soon as possible. Its best to do it face to face, that works best of all because the other person  sees it, but sometimes it's not possible, so you send a message. And if you have left other people with the wrong impression with what you did, then they have to hear it too.

The Hands

Its not enough to say sorry.
We all know the phrase "Lip Service". Don't pay Lip Service:
Something is broken, its got to be fixed.
The hands are a symbol for that.
Spilled some coffee? Say sorry - and clean up the mess. Properly.
Spread some gossip? Say sorry - and now go to the people who you told the story to and tell them the truth. And say sorry to them for creating that bad impression.
Broken something? Say sorry - and fix it, or replace it, doing your level best to replace it with the same one.

The Head

But that's still not enough.
Why, you could be breaking someones cups, telling lies, using their stuff without permission and so on over and over again - would saying sorry work? Of course not. they would pretty soon get tired of it all.
No, the only way to show that you are truly sorry is to not do it any more.
In other words, you have to change your behaviour, and sometimes, even how you think.

So that's it.
You show that you are truly sorry by not doing it any more, and by talking and behaving in a different, better way.

And I remember it all by those three quick little motions she made, as she touched her lips, clapped her hands, and tapped the side of her head all the while repeating the Mantra "the mouth, the hands, the head"

The path to true Forgiveness is a 3 step process: and if you follow it, everyone will know that you are truly Sorry.

...

Its not personal: Value and Need

(prelude: I was thinking ...)
What I do not need: it has no value
unless
I have it, own it
then another's need imposes
but if
I do not need that offer in return
Then give away what has no value
Or be entrapped by that which has no value
(well, that  seems easy, doesn't it?)

I do not need her
Does she have no value?
I do not need her yet I have her
Will another’s need attract her?
Will I feel the need to keep her?
I do not need her
Yet I keep her
Am I possessed by that which has no value?

(Interlude ...)
time imposes value from the past
I did not need it then
I did not need her then
I did not see what was before my very eyes
I did not need yet there indeed was value
Will I now pay the price of careless loss?
Am I possessed by that which had no value?

Image (c) Copyright Cyril Souchon

The Pearl as a Symbol of Commitment

 There is a story told, probably apocryphal, about a wealthy couple, their wedding day and his wedding gift of natural black pearls to her. On the eve of the wedding, she caught him kissing one of the servant girls. Angry with him, but not angry enough to lose her love, they went ahead with the wedding, but she refused to wear the pearls. Instead, she left them unopened in their box, and there they lay for the 70 years of their marriage. The family of course knew about the famous pearls which were said to be both beautiful and extremely valuable.
 Thus it was with some considerable interest that the family gathered at the reading of the will to see them brought to the light of day for the first time. The box was opened: the flannel cover unwrapped and there was revealed ~ a small pile of dust. With no one to care for them, they simply disintegrated away.

The Pearl and Commitment and this little anecdote
What does this little story says to us? And why am I telling it?
A pearl is not like any other jewel. It is not a hard and cold crystalline mineral or piece of rock. You could say it remains alive, and it needs love and care throughout its lifetime. This is why it has so often been a symbol of love.
The gift of the pearl holds within it a message of commitment.

From the past to the Present to the Future
Ten years ago my good friends Niranjan and Nimi brought into the world a little baby girl: Nimesha.
Now she stands on the threshold of a Commitment: On Sunday the 7th of November she takes her confirmation vows.
And since Religion is itself a deep commitment, a commitment of faith in the face of a disbelieving world, this is the gift I have chosen for her ~a little string of freshwater pearls, and a locket.
Here is a note that I wrote her: maybe it says something to you too.

Nimesha's letter
Dear Nimesha,
Today is your confirmation, the day that you confirm your faith openly for the first time.
So here are some thoughts to take with you after the ceremony.
Of all the things that we commit ourselves to, Faith is at the same time the closest and the furthest.
Unlike your parents, or your friends, or even a boyfriend!, you can’t argue with it or confront it anywhere but inside your own self.
It must sustain you even at that time when it seems to be the furthest from you, and when everything in the world seems to be dragging you away from it, somehow you must find yourself returning.
But this is not something that happens on its own. To love a thing you must look after it, care for it, even, and especially, when it is furthest from your mind.
Pearls are like that: you can't just leave them in a box with all your other jewelry, they have to be kept separately in a special place and regularly taken out and kept moist and clean. You have to put yourself into them, and you have to do this all through your life: just as you have to do with your Faith. Always growing it, always looking after it, always including yourself in it.
With this pearl necklace, there is little locket. This is what you can do with it: whenever you feel that something important needs to be remembered, something that might be slipping away, either a person or an idea or a cause: write a little note about it, and put it in the locket and then take it out occasionally from time to time to re-affirm your commitment to it.


With love,
Cyril
 

all images (c) cyril souchon

Climate Change: From Mae West to Einstein

Somehow, from somewhere two delicious little stories, one about Einstein and the other about that Man’s Man’s Girly Girl Mae West, come to mind.

Mae West! She never invented curves, she just put them out there on show and nothing's been the same since.

You'll probably say this story is apocryphal. Whatever. It goes like this: somewhere out in the mid-Atlantic on one of those marvelous mid-war cruise liners that used to take people from New York to London, Mae ate something that didn't quite agree with her. The captain called for a doctor to come and assist. The medical doctor was beaten to it by a Dr. of Economics, one of Divinity, and three others hoping to play doctor-doctor! You see, when you have a deep interest in a thing, it doesn't matter how little you know about it: you're going to get stuck in.

Just recently, and to the bitter sound of his decreasing research funds, Professor Harold Lewis, the Emeritus professor of Physics at the University of California threw a hissy little fit and publicly stormed out Of the American Physics Society. Like the eager doctors who had degrees which were several degrees South of medicine, self-interest is not going to stop him from meddling in another discipline, even if the world comes to a sloppy slurping washed out end. Not when it means losing out on all those research funds.

Einstein

The sculptor Jacob Epstein tells the story: "when I was doing Prof Albert Einstein's bust he had many a jibe at the Nazi professors, one hundred of whom had condemned his theory of relativity in a book. ‘Were I wrong,’ he said, one professor would have been enough!’"

One would have been enough ...

Ironically, he would of course have had to be a professor of Physics.

Unlike, ... Oh what the heck! Just enjoy the pictures of the perfectly curvaceous Mae West

(Try to ignore poor old Albert stuck in the middle again!)

Oh, and Salvador Dali Designed and Built a two-seater Love couch in tribute to her lips

... who could resist that?

In the shadows of relationships: “Notafrend” and “Justafrend”

“Notafrend” and “Justafrend”
Such a world of difference between them!
I've been both, and I guess sometimes I returned the compliment.
So picture this in your mind for the moment:
You're walking down the road with him or her, and someone sees you.
Oh, is this your new boyfriend?
"No, no - he's just a friend".
You've just become a "Justafrend".
Someone's not ready to acknowledge the relationship yet, and a small pin prick of hurt might just find its way through. Or maybe they don't even notice that there is this budding relationship, and you wonder momentarily whether they ever will.
Any half decent soapy can spin this scenario out into several seasons :-)
Well in the movies and in the soapies things always work out, don't they?
And sometimes it works its way out in real life too.

What about the other one?
The “Notafrend” situation?
How do you know you're one?
Well actually, it's not that difficult.
Small things tell you, for instance:
You find yourself being bcc’d in e-mails.
(Now, this is not to be confused with a secret romance!
That's a completely different situation ...
Of course you're going to be under the radar there!)
No, this is something different.
You find it in the voice when you're with them and someone phones.
You sense the question being posed, and the answer comes out:
"oh, no one really! Who? ummm"
And as they drift away to somewhere a bit more private you hear the voice saying, somewhat quietly, "oh, no - he's not really a friend, just someone I know".
So there you are. You're a “Notafrend”.

Maybe cultures are clashing,
maybe it doesn't do to know this person better.
Maybe.
Maybe you were close to once, and life has brought you back together again. But he or she doesn't feel comfortable with acknowledging their feelings openly, maybe pride holds them back: the fear of looking foolish. Maybe, maybe you're even little happy to go along with it.
Maybe.
“Notafrendz”: when they're gone and you miss them, you wonder how it might have worked out.
Maybe, you think.
Just Maybe.

all images (c) cyril souchon