Rev. David A. Smith BCTMB (Retired)

In Search Of

I lost the one that I once loved,
so now there's something missin'.
It isn't she, its something else.
It is there when I listen,

to that place, where the longing lives,
the place that cries with thunder.
Where friends just can't touch, where we feel,
so much, including joy and hunger.

Still, I have much, of what I want,
as I go on day by day.
The love of friends and family,
and lessons learned on the way.

Those taught by ones who's love is giv'n,
ninety minutes at a time,
who lead again, where I have been,
who's lessons are truly mine.

And wisdom learned from deep inside,
melding the old with the new.
Gentle peace that follows pain,
"the only way out is through".

The joy of music, and the touch,
of lyric and poetry.
Good cheese and bread, a glass of wine,
and my friends in company.

I lean on my friends when I need,
and I give to them when I can.
It helps to know that they're out there.
It feels like part of a plan.

Work is alright. Money is tight.
I've got both sunshine and rain.
As long as I try, I'll get by,
and I really can't complain.

But still I feel there is something,
that simply is not all right.
It clings to me, yet subtly,
through both the day and the night.

It speaks to me of another,
Who's heart is both true and wise.
One who both, can see and feel me,
when she looks into my eyes.

Someone who has earned great wisdom,
from her own lessons well learned.
Who is tempered by trials of fire,
but who's spirit has not been burned.

Someone who chooses to believe,
with faith, the same as I do,
that through this life we are all meant,
to continue, two by two.

If we should chance upon to meet,
and learn beyone each other's name.
And come through time to see each other,
as both different and the same.

Then two with inner strength and hope,
will listen, think and feel,
with give and take and compromise,
that lets us both be real.

And with this care filled balancing,
one and one add up to three.
It is not hard to understand,
there's you, there's us, and there's me.

I lost the one that I once loved,
and there was something missing.
But we have found it, even more.
With love, and touch, and kissing.

The Woman I Should Have Married

Right from the beginning, it was mostly comfortable and easy, and we were very, very close.
It was the kind of closeness that many people just don't believe in.
Among other things, she could place her hand on my chest, and simply know what was true, for me.

Sadly, we intentionally used this blessing, in our own service, but once.
It was early on, in the budding stage of what was growing between us.
We were laying on her bed, early one evening, talking. Really, just talking.

We were trying to, for lack of a better word, decide, if we had a future, together.
As if we thought somehow, that this sort of thing was mostly up to our conscious selves.
We were both wondering, but it was she who was asking, me, what I thought. She was like that.

For whatever reason, I knew better, that time, than to try to offer her my assurances, in words.
I asked her to put her hand on my chest, and to "read me". She did these both.
As they were appearing in her consciousness, the ideas reemerged from her, as words.

What she said was partly "stream of consciousness" and partly what she took it all to mean.
As she spoke, her face was frequently serious, and she nodded quite a bit,
as if all that was then in her mind was so very significant -- as I am sure it was.

She would hesitate mid-thought, as her awareness evolved, never finishing her sentence.
She didn't need to finish. I knew it all. But this would be obvious, if you think about it.
The nodding subsided, and her face relaxed, and she announced her conclusion about what she had learned.

"You have some doubts, which I understand, but I know you sincerely want us to work out", she said,
or words to that effect. And this was entirely true. I did, as best I myself knew, want us to work out.
An uncountable collection of words could never have made real what we did, in that minute or two.

Now she knew, and trusted, what she wanted to know, at least about me. Now she could let herself go.
Now she could want, what she longed more or less consciously for, from, or I should say “with”, me.
And so we proceeded, with ever more earnestness, to pursue our already-begun togetherness.

We were both happy, even if I say so myself. Being together was easy, and correspondingly good, naturally.
As is so often the case, the forces of God, or nature, or ourselves, whether these be separate forces,
or merely different faces of but one force, changed the circumstances of our lives.

I was offered their choice of either moving away 700 miles, or being laid off, from my job. Now, at only 4 months,
we talked, unlike we had before. About how to deliberately keep, what had grown, so far, almost effortlessly.
We found it hard, each of us, to trust the genuine goodness of it, I guess because "we" just had not yet endured much.

Within adversity’s gaze, absent surety in ourselves, we wished to feel more confident than we did, each of the other.
There was nothing tangibly wrong. It was just that neither of us wanted the curse of a bad relationship, again.
This required cautious deliberateness. And our belief in the reality of our present, was dimmed, by past-born fears.

We are both practical people, very practical people. Which, for the most part, is a good thing.
It helped us be together well. We easily agreed how to schedule, and cook, and household, and spend,
and other things that often seem able to cause people trouble, one way or another. These little trials we were spared.

It seemed just too much, to risk the general certainties of a job “in hand”, in such generally uncertain times.
For a relationship, which was after all, no matter how sweet and precious, only a fledgling, really.
It felt, well, easier, to play it safe, and do the sensible and logical thing. To continue our togetherness, apart.

We were both committed. We would make it work. Via some unforeseen eventuality that would, develop.
Something would change, both how and when unknown, but we would prevail, in our pursuit of "us".
Shared desire, and collective resources and resourcefulness, would be, had to be, enough, surely…

We did what we could to both preserve and nurture our connection, and preserve and nurture our hope.
We talked every day. We traveled to see each other, a lot. But not nearly enough, at least not enough for me.
We managed to keep down the cost of separated connection, as if that were important. And it was, a little, I suppose.

Beyond living in a way that could not honestly be called “coupled”, nothing else was then pleasing to me, either.
I’m a person who finds it awfully difficult to adapt to newness, and nothing but the new, was with me.
Alone in a new city, I had come for a job that, for a variety of reasons, I liked less, and less, and less, and less.

Although I missed the sex too, I really missed just sleeping with her. The warm touch – in both senses of the phrase.
Hand in hand. Chest to Back. Knee behind knee. Holding, being held, never sure which was more the blessing.
I’ve since learned it really was a blessing, for us both to delight so, in such togetherness. Not everyone does.

Beyond both sexual and physical intimacies, I missed the emotional intimacy, of shared lives.
We did share with each other, as best we could. But our experiences, were separate, and not, “our experiences”.
“Our” experiences were each trying to find our way back, together. With none of it simple or obvious.

How we did it is not easy, or necessary, really, to explain. But we found a something to try. She made a change.
For us to be together. But we fell apart, almost immediately, over nothing important. And she went, back, home.
And I let her. I even helped her. Thus prevailed our fear of losing any bet on “us”, we dared try to make.

I now believe if either of us had had even just a little more courage, or faith, or gumption, we could have saved us.
I now believe we each were looking to the other, to ease our own fears. What we needed to feel in ourselves,
or see in the other, while not actually absent, was lost in, or muted by, the vapors of sad remembrances.

Her tender though tentative gift, of courage and hope, had failed. Our dilemma revived. Resolution, ever more obscure.
We conceived one more solution. But it carried the same risks, as any such intimate collaboration would, and did.
This too died, beginning with hesitation, and ending in impatience, as the nostalgia for what so glowed, was fading.

It was I who gave up. She absolutely meant no less to me. But I so needed what seemed to be impossible to have.
To be with her. If I could not be with her, well, then perhaps someone else. I had to find, someone, else.
It seemed sensible at the time, but it hasn’t worked out. An attempt or two seem worth mentioning. Well, not really.

In hind sight, I wish I had thought, to ask her, to touch my chest and read me, again, in those fading times.
When our efforts were about to capsize, and drown our hopes. When words were inadequate, to calm it all.
When our misgivings and doubts and insecurities, were bigger than our trust and faith and optimism.

If she had but known, how sorrowful were my circumstances, and how much I loved and needed her,
I can’t help but think her fears and hesitation would have paled, in the bright, unobjectionable, truth.
Then, also seeing nothing objectionable, I suppose my own fears and impatience would have paled, too.

And now, five years later, she would long have been happily married to me. Instead of someone else.

A pardigm is a belief system. And each person has one - their own personal paradigm. This is their view and understanding about how everything works - existance itself, the world, life itself, human life, and not surprisingly, "my" life in particlar. Everything, large and small, near far and everywhere - everything.

This is a huge topic, and I have much more to say. Later. For now, a few words about my personal paradigm.

I’ve had a handful of mystical experiences. I only go into detail with select people in select circumstances. This is because zealous mechanistic materialists believe such experiences are categorically impossible. Therefore they conclude that claims of such can only indicate, first that I am obviously wrong, and then at least complete foolish, if not obvious suffering psychological pathology (as the Brits would say, ”barking mad”). I learned a very long time ago that most people are not at all open to “alternatives” to their own personal belief system, their own paradigm. As such, I don’t try (any longer) to explain myself to most people. Experience has taught me that most people are incapable of understanding me (I am too “far afield” from their paradigm), and too many are not (let's jut call it) generous in their judgments. I cherish the few people I know who are “on my wavelength”.

I have seen, with too many people, in an absurd double standard, that I am supposed to accept their view of reality, the world, life, and everything. But when mine views ARE different, well, somehow, the reverse is not at all even plausible. There is no possibility that my (or any) differing “views” can be valid. Or that, upon serious investigation, my views can be understood to constitute a superset (to used mathematical language) of theirs.

Of course, some people are “barking mad”. But to immediately jump to this conclusion, simply because their views are different, without any serious investigation and consideration, is compelling evidence of a limited paradigm belonging to “the judger”.

For many people, there is no allowance for the world to be bigger, wider, deeper, and/or more complex than their own view. And consequently, that other people can legitimately have vastly different understandings/interpretations/conclusions about the nature of reality, the world, life, and everything.

“It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive”.

This is from C. W. Leadbeater. It is considered to be a paraphrase of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s quote:

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world"

"The belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions".

Another example of absurd (non)logic, is the insistence, by zealous mechanistic materialists, that the only way non-material phenomenon can be considered real is if they leave material “finger prints” or “footprints”. That “evidence” can be found and measured, if not directly with the 5 senses, with machines. “Say what”? They are NON-MATERIAL PHENOMINA. And to assert that lack of “measurable” evidence proves their non-reality, is entirely a circular argument.

To press the point, show me materialism-based evidence that love is real, that anyone ever loved anyone.

And we can also cite the philosophical axiom, “The absurdity of the conclusion reveals the absurdity of the premise”. Unfortunately, any preferred premise can be (mis)used by anyone to bolster their own perspective.

The massively important point is that people live their lives based on a paradigm, their paradigm – as the “model” of how everything works. To the extent that any particular paradigm is “limited”, the lives lived accordingly, are correspondingly limited.

The story of the blind people and the elephant is also very useful, here. And even more poignant if someone actually sees, at least more of, if not all of, the elephant.

The importance of my mystical experiences is that they “realized” (made real), in personal experience, a great number of philosophical and religions “ideas” that had previously existed only in the mind, as conceptualizations. By analogy, it is the difference of reading the travel brochure vs, actually visiting some new (and presumably exotic) place.