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<div style="clear:both">j'aime la vie
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<div><i style="background-color: white; "><font color="#000080"><b>Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!</b></font></i></div>
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<div style="font-family:helvetica,arial;font-size:10pt;color:black">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Jaime Vergara <pinoypanda2031@aol.com><br>
To: editor <editor@saipantribune.com><br>
Sent: Sat, Aug 24, 2013 5:36 pm<br>
Subject: August 28<br>
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<div id="AOLMsgPart_1_e32da963-8ba3-4644-accc-577d157525cd">
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:">At the
center tranquil<i></i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-family:"> </span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Set to the </span><span style="font-family:">tune<i> </i>of<i> Shenandoah, </i>aka<i> Across the Wide Missouri, </i>this
other song appeals to a deeper cord than the mellow <i>Try to Remember </i>in
yesterday’s musing. We used to reside
within the beltway on the Virginia side so we were always bombarded with news
from the Shenandoah Valley. The tune
itself almost became the State song but did not pass muster in the Legislature. It appears that the word “Shenandoah”
referred to an Indian Chief, verboten to the Potomac’s gentility.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">The tune became popular to people of my generation with Jimmy Stewart
in the 1965 movie <i>Shenandoah, </i>and the soundtrack of the <i>Cinerama </i>widescreen,
<i>How the West was Won!</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">The traditional tune wandered far and wide - a Shenandoah Valley origin
segued to a Civil War gray soldier pining for home by the Missouri River. Flatboat men of the river developed a <i>chanty
</i>(pronounced <i>shanty</i>), a work song that is echoed down river, like in
the Mississippi’s <i>Showboat </i>familiar to many: </span><span style="font-family:">"Tote that barge! Lift that bale!
Git a little drunk, An' you land in jail... " </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">We will not go into the Missouri pronunciation (Mi-zoor-i-eye to the
Illini, and Mi-zoor-uh to Oklahom-uh) since that is not pertinent other than as
an interesting aside.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">I thank colleagues of kindred spirit who penned the following lyrics so
I do not have to.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">Universe, illumination, </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">all unknown, absurd assurance</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">Everywhere is found life's meaning, </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">and I, I am the way </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">at the center tranquil.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Those of us
who grew up with the barefoot boy of Nazareth remember Johannine attribution to
his dialogue as having said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The admonition we got was more of the “go and
do likewise” tone, rather than the idolatrous adulation carried in the dense
medieval traditions of most Christian denominations. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">There's no hope, yet all is hopeful, </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">then no cares, there are no problems</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">No enemies no earthly foes, </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">and I, I am the struggle </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">at the center tranquil.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">In the
prologue of Nikos Kazantzakis’ early 1920s <i>Spiritual
Exercises, </i>it says: “<span style="color:#262626">We come from a dark abyss,
we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life.” Heady stuff. “As soon as we are born the return begins, at
once the setting forth and the coming back; we die in every moment. Because of
this many have cried out: The goal of life is death! But as soon as we are born
we begin the <i>struggle</i> to create, to
compose, to turn matter into life.…” With
the imagery of the crimson line in an evolutionary ascent, the human spirit pushes
the struggle to turn matter into life</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">Pulsing exhilaration, </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">everything's become a blessing</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">Embraced by joy a dance of rapture, </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">and I, I am the stillness </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">at the center tranquil.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:"> </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Parting words
in religious rites I grew up with include the passing of peace. “The Peace of God is with you,” is echoed
regularly in Christian mass and service of worship. Peace, of course, is the one that “passeth
understanding”! In contemporary
psychological therapy of stress management disciplines is “centering”, called
“contemplative prayer” in the monastic tradition. It is the call for stillness to linger in our
souls.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">Gloriously condemned to die: </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">life is new, a great resurgence</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">Community with all the faithful </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">and I, I am forever </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:">at the center tranquil.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:"> </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Kennedy went
for outer space, where no one had gone before.
Obama just launched an inventory on the content of what lies between our
ears as today’s frontier of knowledge. This
is long overdue. I know more about the
constellations as I do the fields of dreams and imaginations in my own
head. But community is the last
frontier. Though I am no longer in the
business of reforming the structures of <i>oikos</i>,
a few dear friends are demonstrating with their own lives what is called <i>Christian Resurgence Circles!</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Who has the
chutzpah to say, I am the way, the struggle, and the stillness! As we have previously commented, we are
predisposed to condemn all forms of self-centeredness as egotistical. This is not, however, about the ego. It is the affirmation of one’ selfhood. And in community, I will be faithful to the
end!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">At the center
tranquil is no early evening walk in the park.
It trudges the way – before, here, and after. It wrestles the struggle to be comprehensive
and inclusive of all directions including height and depth that is waged in the
lifestyle of stillness, the freedom of my soul. Who shall live with me in that
land?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">It is a showboat,
not a slow boat to China, at the center tranquil.</span></div>
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<div style="clear:both">Jaime Vergara<br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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