Tags
What if
22 Friday Feb 2019
Posted Inspiration, Letting Go, Personal Legend, Poetry
in22 Friday Feb 2019
Posted Inspiration, Letting Go, Personal Legend, Poetry
inTags
01 Wednesday Aug 2018
Posted Exploration, Inspiration, Poetry, Taking Action
inMy voice goes silent as oft it does
I disappear from the landscape
Wrapped in a world of my own design
Tortured by voices that are my own
Your words are not enough
Not enough stay silent
Awakened by a message on the Radio
Contribute
Come out of the background
Emerge from the wood
Your camouflage not needed
Rise
For days I pondered
For what
For who
Stay silent
Let it die
Something changed yesterday
Arising from a hashtag
A movement born
The words of Tupac ringing in my ears
An evil geniuses invention
Flooding the street a $5 high
A gift for me to hear
Coming only
From another willing to share
I shall not stay silent
Benefiting no one
Emerging from night
Pulling aside the curtain
Light fills the room
The rest of the day
Engaged in play
600 words the rule
The limit
How much how many
Just one
a collection
A theme of expression
Of wrestling with this question
I buy no lottery tickets
Because I will never win
Yet life is not a lottery
Or perhaps it is
A lottery won a long time ago
Staying silent an option
I choose to abandon
My camaflouge not needed
My prize
Release from this cage
I put myself in
Embracing the light
The words of a mother flood my ears
A gift again from the radio
From one to another
We expand
That’s just the way it is,
Things will never be the same
15 Tuesday May 2018
Posted Defining Moments, Family, Inspiration, Uncategorized
inGood morning,
Yesterday was my first Mother’s Day without my Mother since her passing last September 15 and yet I know that despite her passing from this plane of life that she is still here wonderfully touching my own ascension and I feel deeply connected to her.
On Thursday night past, I walked through the door of The Inn on Capelin Bay in Calvert, Newfoundland, a small community 50 minutes from St. John’s on what is called the Irish Loop. My own property is also on the Irish Loop but inland, not on the Coast. I happened upon it by accident and wanted to open a conversation with the Inn Keeper to possibly partner with him to send visitors from and to Hometel on Signal Hill.
Willingness to grow is important. In this case being willing to get out of my truck and meet the owner outside of the Inn as he was talking with his guests as they headed out to explore.
Kevin invited me in – and once entering, I knew I was in a sacred place. A place dreamed of by Kevin ever since he was 17, when his grandmother said that one day this house will be yours and you will do something special with it.
Over the next few hours, Kevin showed me his passion project.
I then chose to stay also. After all there were still a few beds available at the Inn. After bringing in my bags, Kevin’s guests had returned and Kevin’s cousin Father Gary had dropped by also.
Kevin’s guests were from London England, yet living and working in Toronto. Father Gary was living in London, England although his work took him different places.
Mother Teresa is someone whose life has touched me deeply. When asked, how she did what she did every day – working and serving the poor in the streets of Calcutta, said that “I simply see Jesus Christ everyday in all of his distressing disguises”. This lesson has lived in me a long time.
During our conversation, I heard Father Gary say that many years ago, I worked with Mother in her mission in Calcutta. What? I must say I was dumbstruck. The conversation did not stay there, it was more a conversation about India and how despite Calcutta not being as it once was, the level of extreme poverty was still great and imposing.
All I could muster up to say that night was that I needed to shake the hand a man who once worked with Mother Teresa. I did not even get his picture. Shortly after Kevin left with Father Gary and I was left to reflect on this extraordinary evening.
The next day I spent the morning with Kevin as he shared more about his Inn and his expectation of delivering service with extraordinary love which I believe was an act of worship of his Grandmother Minnie Walsh and his Aunt Harriet. He has three rooms in the Inn – named Minnie’s Room, Harriet’s Room and Kevin’s Room. There will be always room at his Inn – even if he cannot provide a bed – this Inn Keeper will go to great lengths to ensure that those needing a bed, get one.
Yesterday though I know I needed more of a conversation with Father Gary. I had so many things to ask him. I also felt the need to say thank you. Thank you for his willingness to be of service.
I reached Father Gary through Kevin around 8pm last night as I had come into my own Inn – The Country. Not simply a vacation rental – no this place is also sacred and a big part of my life’s mission.
I asked to hear more about his mission work in India. He told me that he served for 4-6 months in 1991. And would you get to spend time with her? He said that whenever she was in India that Mother would do mass and then spend some time with them as they had tea. She would gather them together and teach.
He was always struck by how simply she lived. She taught the same way. She said that through our ordinary acts done with extraordinary love, that we each everyday had the opportunity to work toward Sainthood. That every small act done for another was “You did it to me” – using her five fingers to explain Jesus’s message of serving others.
Nearing the end of his time in Calcutta, Mother told him that she was going to Albania. Albania, an Atheistic Country was emerging from the fall of Communism. She wanted to have a Priest go with her. Father Gary told her that she would need to write to his Bishop in Newfoundland and she promptly got the address.
Coming back to Newfoundland, Father Gary needed to go to hospital to recover from Typhoid which he contracted in India. His Bishop came to see him and told him that he had a letter from a friend of Father Gary’s. Father Gary said he could not imagine who it would be from. The Bishop revealed that the letter was from Mother Teresa asking if Father Gary could come to Albania to serve with her. The Bishop commented, “How can I say no to her?”.
Father Gary’s trip to Albania was supposed to be for one year. That was 25 years ago, and today he is still serving the Albanian communities in London, Ireland and Belgium. Serving the poor; serving the refugee communities; serving Mother; serving God.
At the end of our Church service yesterday morning, Pastor Matt said that Mother Teresa would say that she simply was a pencil in the Hand of God. That as a pencil she did not choose what to write. That all the pencil could do was to be willing to serve.
Father Gary said that Mother would say that we need to pour our whole selves into this day – and serve simply yet with extraordinary love.
I wonder who my Mom is going to bring into my life next?
Have a blessed day – be a pencil; art brush; voice; hockey stick; server; teacher; sponsor; friend; instrument in the hand of God today.
With great love,
Gordon
14 Tuesday Nov 2017
Posted Exploration, Inspiration, Nature, Uncategorized, Wisdom
inTags
Did I jump too soon?
Celebrate too early?
Will I like others before
Become the cliche of sports re-runs?
Will they think I am enough?
go behind my back, cut me out?
Did I make the right move?
Involve enough of the team?
Questions flood my brain
flood my thoughts
blocking out beauty
Pausing I see amidst the turmoil
I am not these thoughts
They are a playback of an earlier time
Stuck in an endless feedback loop
Blocking the truth
Am I successful? asks this tree before me
Do I have enough?
Did I grow in the right location?
Do I have enough sunlight?
Will my offspring grow tall and be without burden?
Will others in my community thrive?
Will I be cut down before my time?
Did you notice my missing limb?
Do they trust me?
Do they love me?
My heart knows that trees
don’t think that way
They are
All their days in the
full presence of God
Connected to heaven
Intertwined with the earth
Allowing
Being
Dancing in place
12 Sunday Nov 2017
Posted Addiction, Exploration, Inspiration, Personal Legend, Recovery, Wisdom
inTags
Ain’t no Saint, no Guru
Yet I am willing to listen to you
And I am willing to share tonight
Just don’t take it as everything right
My words are for me, my experience of strife
They come as I reflect stories of my life
From the death of my dad and now my mother, new
From the places have been, and the people met too, from the mistakes made this pass through.
And I can listen and sit you see and let you talk, let you share with me.
You can share your joy, your pain, just try
We can laugh together or quietly cry.
I have been on this path a time or two
Just ain’t no saint, ain’t no Guru.
26 Saturday Aug 2017
Posted Exploration, Inspiration, Nature
inShall we taste the sky You and I Shall we get on our knees breathe in the dirt Not in …
30 Thursday Mar 2017
Posted Inspiration
inWords written and shared in speech
in prose, on page or out loud
for me tonight they ring in song
Layered over lyrics
of rising beyond circumstance
of a teacher and her dream
Helping Young people to write their own stories
Reaching those who were forgotten
Left behind
And I know that everyday
There are those who do the same
Teaching and inspiring
Reaching, pulling up
Standing behind
13 Monday Jun 2016
Posted ART, Inspiration, Wisdom
inTags
Wonder aloud between two perhaps more. Wonder aloud be silent no more.
Wonder what if, what more, who for. Wonder without keeping the score.
Wonder for nothing for you for me. Wonder how far how deep you can see.
Wonder in rap, in beat, word and song. Wonder knowing we all belong.
Wonder keep wondering from now and now again. Wonder in one word, one hundred or just ten.
Wonder today for all those to see. For wonder gives life to you and to me.
25 Wednesday May 2016
Posted Exploration, Inspiration
inTags
An exploration of inspiration
Gang leaders and Nobel peace laureates sharing on creating peace
Here and now
Moving beyond who I am
Or moving toward who I am
As a natural expression
Of me
As poet
Creator
Expander of possibility
Expanding beyond
Into the wider unknown
A space of abundance
And miracles
Possibility
And transformation
30 Saturday Apr 2016
Posted ART, Inspiration, Poetry
inI spent the morning
wrapped in words Warm
Blanketed
In layers
Buried in feathers
Of birds
That once flew
Among
Friends
Climbing high
Into the sky
Buoyant
On the winds
With the window
Open
The world
Entered
Fresh
Alive
And sunny
Beckoning
And from there
I created
Mixed the ingredients
a stone milled
Bread
30 sec of Wild Compassion
And 14 sec of Somewhere in America
Listening I was moved
Also to write
Not just that which inspired
But of the pain I have been feeling
Of late
Freedom emerged
From my ears
Through my heart
And out onto the page
I mix in George Elliott Clarke and Shane Koycan
Poets from Canada bringing
Sweetness and crunch to this
Concoction
The recipe is not yet
Complete
The bread not yet in the oven
I am enjoying mixing the
Words and clips
Enjoying the aroma emerging
Reminding me of days gone by
When my step-mom used to make her bread in Apple Juice cans
Round and ribbed they would emerge
Yet still delicious
With peanut butter and jam
By Sunday Eve
It will be complete
A masterpiece
Who knows
But good enough to eat.