Michel Renaud, in an email to me in response to the above photograph, wrote:

“This photo reminds me of a song by one of the most famous singer/songwriter/poets of Quebec, the late Felix Leclerc. He wrote this beautiful song called “Moi mes souliers” .… me and my shoes have travelled much … You will like this. In French, then in English.

Moi, mes souliers ont beaucoup voyagé
Ils m’ont porté de l’école à la guerre
J’ai traversé sur mes souliers ferrés
Le monde et sa misère.…

Au paradis, paraît-il, mes amis
C’est pas la place pour les souliers vernis
Dépêchez-vous de salir vos souliers
Si vous voulez être pardonnés.

Me and my shoes have travelled afar
They have taken me from school to war
In my rough-shod shoes I have made my way
Through the world and its unhappiness.…

Paradise it would seem, dear friends
Is no place for brand new shoes
So hurry now and muddy your shoes
If you wish to find redemption.”

“Well, if God doesn’t exist, who’s laughing at us?”

— from The Brother’s Karamazov, as quoted in Mary Karr’s memoir, Lit, a book which, along with her two preceeding memoirs, The Liar’s Club and Cherry, I can’t recommend highly enough.

Repentance: the way to spiritual renewal.

»Repentance is the gateway to the kingdom of love, the kingdom of heaven. There is no other way for us to enter the kingdom of heaven or for it to come to us; no other way for us to experience it here on earth.«
Basilea Schlink, Repentance

An alternative act of contrition (based in large part on Madonna’s song Sorry):
I am sorry.
Mi dispiace.
Tut mir leid.
Lo siento.
Perdona me.
Je suis désolée.
Forgive me.
Let these words cut through all negative memories, blocks, energies and vibrations and transmute them into pure light.
Repeat.

»Whoever does not live in repentance belongs to the spiritually dead, who cannot bring anyone to life. But the penitent are full of life, divine life; and they can bring others to life.«
»Contrition and repentance transform us and others. They give birth to love and new life.«
Basilea Schlink, Repentance

Excerpt from an interview of Haleakala Hew Len (The Foundation of I, Hawai) by Cat Saunders first printed in The New Times, Seattle 1997
Haleakala: To do Ho’oponopono*, you don’t have to know what the problem or error is. All you have to do is notice any problem you are experiencing physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever. Once you notice, your responsibility is to immediately begin to clean, to say, »I am sorry. Please forgive me.«
Cat: So the true job of the intellect is not to solve problems, but to ask for forgiveness.
Haleakala: Yes. My job here on earth is twofold. My job is first of all to make amends. My second job is to awaken people who might be asleep. Almost everyone is asleep! The only way I can awaken them is to work on myself.

*Ho’oponopono: Hawaian term meaning »to make right« or »to rectify an error«. A fundamental tenet of Ho’oponopono as a spiritual practice is that of being 100 percent responsible.

NOTE: Check out the documentation of THE LAST SUPPER special event on my portfolio site.

5 fundamental aspects of prayer:

1. Praise
2. Thanks
3. Love
4. Contrition
5. Petition

Message to myself: Employ, wherever appropriate, these fundamental aspects of prayer in your interaction with the people in your life.

1. Praise them.
2. Thank them.
3. Express your love. (God loves them, even if you don’t, or don’t think you do. Let God love them through you.)
4. Make amends.
5. Ask for support.

To be continued …

Action undertaken in honor of Jesus’ 40 day fast.

While most people understand fasting as a cleansing process, few realize that it’s a way to access hidden reserves of incredible inner strength. This has been my experience, anyway. In fact, while fasting, I have noticed that the weaker I become physically, the stronger I become psychologically and spiritually. My will seemed to know no bounds. As I deprive my body of food, a capacity to mercilessly cross some serious boundaries manifests itself in me and I am thankfully blocked by my body’s inability to follow through.

Fasting, I decided long ago, works best when you are faced with opposition, when your fight has a moral incentive, when your cause is righteous. Indeed, fasting can be a very effective weapon. I say this because of what happened to me during the mid sixties when I opposed the draft, and when in essence I became a peace warrior: After a long period of time without eating, I showed up at the military induction center in an alarmingly weakened state, and it became apparent, if not immediately than soon enough, that I was unfit for active duty. Armed with an implacable resolve, I followed instructions all the way to the military psychotherapist for a brief required session and then back to my life as a civilian. My intolerance for any kind of opposition became a triumph of will over the enemy, which in this case came in the form of my local draft board revoking my exemption from military service on religious grounds.

On another occasion during an extended brown rice fast, I found myself so far on the other side of desire or what Buddhists call craving in all of its manifestations that I no longer cared if I lived or died. Time to get back in the game, I thought — the whole drama of wanting something and not getting it, or getting it and not liking it, or getting it and being afraid of losing it, etc.

Through its eventual suppression of craving and desire, fasting can deny the Devil’s dominion over us. To quote from the Epistle of James 1:13–15 (King James Version): “Let no man say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted of God’: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man:  But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”

You can’t separate Jesus’ 40 day fast from his ability to resist Satan. In fact, the fasting empowered him to do just that. Conclusion: If you are going to fight the Devil, fasting is the way to do it.

Recommendation: Jim Crace’s novel, Quarantine, the story of Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness. One of the best books with a biblical theme that I have ever read. Written by an atheist, by the way.

Fasting in a religious sense is also meant to be a meditation on our responsibility with regard to God’s creation and his gifts to us. Lincoln called for a national day of fasting as a way to keep America prosperous and safe, which is to say, on the side of God. Lincoln believed that the nation had forgotten God and thus was in danger of losing His benevolence. His conviction: ignore the spiritual reasons for prosperity at your own peril.

To be continued …

Lent: the period preceding Easter, which in the Christian Church is devoted to fasting, abstinence, and penitence in commemoration of Christ’s fasting in the wilderness. In the Western Church, Lent runs from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday, and so includes forty weekdays. (The New Oxford Dictionary of English)

THEMATIC ELEMENT #1: ASH 

ASH: What is left after a substance is burnt; what remains when a body is cremated; a cleansing agent.

Story of soap: In ancient history, human sacrifices were made on a hill above a river, after which the bodies were burned on a funeral pyre. Rain fell on this place where human sacrifices were cremated and seeped through the ashes to become a solution of lye that combined with the melted fat of the corpses. The resulting thick white discharge trickled down the hill. After a thousand years of rain and human sacrifices, people discovered that clothes got cleaner if they were washed at the spot where this discharge flowed into the river. Cultures without soap had to use urine to wash their clothes and hair. (Fight Club, by Chuck Palaniuk)

Symbol of bitter disappointment, as in the taste of ashes in one’s mouth.

Rising from the ashes – renewal after destruction; burning for new growth, as in aboriginal Australia.

To be continued …

Giving is supposed to be its own reward. You can give without loving — seeking to please; in the hope or with the intention of getting something in return — but you can’t love — you can’t be love, love’s instrument — without giving. Or for-giving.

You can always give to yourself and appreciate yourself for what you’ve done for you. But it is exactly to the other as myself, to the other as the way to myself — to the very best in myself, or the worst — that I have a responsibility.

Put other people first — if you have the heart to be truly generous — and you’ll never come in last. Support others in winning, and you can’t lose. Unless, of course, your reason for doing so, is to demonstrate to the world what a wonderful person you are — kind, caring, self-sacrificing.

Why do nice guys finish last? Not because they’re always thinking about other people, but because they’re always thinking about what other people think of them.