As I wake up at 25,000 feet during a 14 hour flight with fours to go...
I see something the ancients called Karma ...
A succession of events that has led me here ...
When I was young I wanted to become a teacher because I saw the misery of Life ...
Money was the root of fights of the two people who brought me into the world ... but also didn’t bring anymore joy to my wealthy friends’ families ...
... until one day at 17 I threatened to leave home ... actually I left and I told my Mother I would not come back until my Father was gone ... she threatened me that if I left she wouldn’t help me with college ... she did kick my Father out ... and I stayed because college seemed important ... it was possibility.
It was not for the reasons you may think .. not for a profession or anything of that sort ... as I was saying I didn’t want to be rich and my best friends were mostly African American so I aspired to save black youth from their fatal life of ... you can insert whatever a white privileged savior would write ... very quickly I realized I was very naive ... what the Yi Ching calls youthful folly ... enthusiastic without knowing what I was doing ... but I did meet my partner of over 15 years of marriage in college while completing my degree to be a teacher...
However, my inner-city students showed me very quickly how much I had to learn ... but that is what life is for ...
Consequence ... my mother remarried and had a beautiful marriage where she was happy at least more than I ever saw her ... my little brother had an experience with my step-Dad of what I thought a father should be ... thoughtful, patient, respectful during my Brother’s coming of age... but you would have to ask them how it worked out because these are all my personal assumptions ... but it was a seed for what I wanted ...
In my life I see nothing but consequence ... you work hard in your profession you have success ... or you put family first and have time to spend with the ones you love ... or in our case you find the happy medium ... you get to feel good about yourself but also have the means to enjoy time with those you love ...
I am relentless though ... I am ferocious to protect and inspire my wife and two children ... I would sacrifice a career or aspirations for them ... then I realized despite all we have ... that something was uncomfortable in me ... it was tearing at the bits and by the consequence of my choices my wife saw it ... and years ago she sent me to India ...
I see where I put my time and will in my life ... this is what unfolds ... for the last 10 years it has been in spirituality and family ... and that is what I have ... my kids would and do anything for my attention ... to feel my love ... to share their love ... if I give it because that something I have always been seeking, is fed inside then they are with me ... if I don’t because I am wanting to have achieved more ... they wait ...
And wait ...
Patiently ... then not so patiently ... there are signs ...
Maybe moodiness ... and if I have gone astray meanness ... anything to get my attention ... to draw me out of my misery ... to be with them ... to share our time together .. instead of all the talking I do with my wife ...
Of the planning and the complaining or blaming ...
Fortunately ... they are patient ... fortunately so am I ... I have read to them from the Alchemist to the Mastery of Love to Harry Potter to Atlantan Secrets to Dr. Seuss to the Ramayana to the Hobbit to the Lightening Queen ... I have taken them to the park ... to Pyramids in Mexico ... to a sacred mountain ... time after time ... in the rain ... in the snow ... and in the sunshine ... my wife and I have worked through ups and downs ... death, debt and taxes ...
I trust no one in the world like I trust Her ...
Even when I blamed her for this failure or whatever my misery wanted to talk about ... but there have been millions of moments ... more good than bad ...
I mean this ... we generally like each other! ... we respect each other!! ... we fight for each other!!! ... for the other to grow and become what is calling!!!! ...
We see that interesting part in each of us and we share it when the other cannot see it ... we reflect when the other is lost in their own nightmare ...
Karma ... a series of events that have led to this moment and are leading to another ... from another life? From past actions?
You can’t say ... but everything has a consequence ... as I feel moved to write this ... I feel deeply moved of this awareness ... this truth ... what I do has a consequence ... I like the consequences that unfolded in my life ...
... at 25 death of a loved one occurred and I asked why ... it screamed in our faces ... it was violent and without reason ... unforgiving ... at that point I am not sure I even had heard the word karma, let alone understand consequence ... but death always causes you to ask the question why?
But I see Karma far more useful in looking at consequence ... when I see my wife and daughter’s perseverance I SEE CONSEQUENCE ... when I see my passions and where I have put my time ... I see a home with warmth and mystery and challenge and love ...
What is Karma? What is consequence?
It is quite exciting to see what has come of my choices and where I have put my time ... it reminds me to rest and persevere at the same time .... to enjoy but also to strive ... it wakes me up a bit ... and I see the graces of my life ... in what I thought was bad and what I thought was good ... I see a string of consequence ... of Karma ... winding in expected and unexpected ways ... it gets me to take trips across the world ... pilgrimages to find what I can’t see in my day to day blindness ... this is interesting and draws my attention to here and now ... but also to the reflection of the beautiful unfoldment of my life.