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Author

loz12

Jan 18

A monastery has fallen on hard times.

I would probably have to start with the notion that he had loved me,at least somewhat,but where would I go from there?How would I explain the facts?Why then had he not wanted to be with me?Why had we lost contact?He felt he had nothing to offer me.My father was not happy with himself.Who would take himself so thoroughly away from the world,but a person who felt he had nothing of value to offer?The rearrangement of meaning seemed to me more real,and attuned to a wiser part of me,than the story I had previously sworn by.I looked at other relationships I had had and saw how absurd it was to characterize a man who had chosen a partnership with me as not loving me and not knowing me.And furthermore,how exhausting to feel I had to work so hard for recognition and acknowledgment!Then when I talked with him,I spoke from within the framework of the A,to someone I had defined as able and willing to hear me.As long as I practiced in this manner,I found that virtually all the conversations we had were productive in a way I had never before imagined they could be.It was in my father’s hand,dated some twenty years previously.Dear Rosamund,It was wonderful to see you.I hope you choose a profession that involves working with and helping others,because I think you are really talented at that.Love,FatherHe knew me exactly the way I would have wanted to be known.As soon as you have the grace to give people A’s,all sorts of things are revealed that were as though hidden behind a veil.Letters pop out,memories return.There are new openings.When the relationship itself is no longer in question,we can ask ourselves,what now do we want to create?Often the advice we receive,delivered with an earnest,pitying look is,You can’t change people,though most of us will go to our graves trying.That adage is true,of course,in the world of measurement,where people and things are fixed in character.However,in the universe of possibility,you certainly can change people.They change as you speak.You may ask,Who,actually,is doing the changing?And the answer is the relationship.Because in the arena of possibility,everything occurs in that context.Here is a letter from a man who heard about the practice of the A,gave way to the power of music,and transformed his life,all in the space of an afternoon.My Dear Benjamin Zander,You have just completed a presentation to the leadership of the North Shore–Long Island Jewish Health System.I am the man who approached you and told you of my emotional reunion with my father through your presentation.You told us,as you were about to play Chopin,to use the time to reflect on someone no longer in our lives.I thought about my father and again about that nagging question which I could never answer—why couldn’t he say I love you?And then,as if delivered by a bolt of lightning,I recalled an incident that occurred between us at least 45 years ago.I would instead remain upstairs,bedridden,gasping for every breath,waiting expectantly for Father to come upstairs and just say hello to me and maybe,just maybe,for the first time,say Hello,Jeanot,I love you.But those words never came.And then,as I listened to your music,the memory came back of an evening,more than 45 years ago,when I was again sick,and Father came upstairs.But this evening was different.He sat next to me on my bed and,as I was sitting upright and struggling for the next breath,he began gently stroking my hair for a period of time that I wished would have lasted an eternity.Today,as you played us the Chopin,tears came to my eyes.It struck me that while Father could not say these words,I love you,they were expressed even more poignantly in the gentle stroking of a little boy’s hair by his father’s powerful hands.I recall that as he sat with me my asthma attack subsided.I had completely forgotten that incident.I must have buried it in my own desire to perhaps keep my father at a distance,to continuously prove either that I was unlovable,or that he was just a cold s.o.b.My father showed me love in so many ways.We keep looking so hard in life for the specific message,and yet we are blinded to the fact that the message is all around us,and within us all the time.An A radiates possibility through a family,a workplace,and a community,gaining strength,bringing joy and expression and a flowering of talent and productivity.Who knows how far it will travel?The Monks’StoryA monastery has fallen on hard times.It was once part of a great order which,as a result of religious persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,lost all its branches.Clearly it was a dying order.Deep in the woods surrounding the monastery was a little hut that the Rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage.One day,it occurred to the Abbot to visit the hermitage to see if the Rabbi could offer any advice that might save the monastery.The Rabbi welcomed the Abbot and commiserated.I know how it is,he said,the spirit has gone out of people.Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.So the old Rabbi and the old Abbot wept together,and they read parts of the Torah and spoke quietly of deep things.The time came when the Abbot had to leave.It has been wonderful being with you,said the Abbot,but I have failed in my purpose for coming.Have you no piece of advice that might save the monastery?No,I am sorry,the Rabbi responded,I have no advice to give.The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.