N.B. I am posting a journal entry I wrote back yet on July 8, 2004, a part of a collection which I collectively called "JULY JAUNTS."
July literally rocks! It opens with more than just a bang. It flashes, and shines, and glows as all of America celebrates its more than two hundred years of independence. Fireworks galore, as only Americans can put up, explode simultaneously in many cities of the United States on July 4, in a flurry of bursting lights and colors, accompanied by a flourish of bands, symphonies, and concerts star-studded by all available popular icons of the big entertainment center that is America. Hotels, casinos, beaches, restaurants, parks, bayside and seaside boardwalks, and just about any available temporary refuge away from home, work, and worries are booked solid and filled to overflowing.
I must say I had been part of the crowds that clogged the freeways, and added to the mountains of trash created by those who took advantage of the long week-end getaway.
With my last early summer course over and done with at Loyola, with the cool, nippy spring weather fading into a distant memory in muggy and humid Baltimore, I definitely deserved a break from all the feverish studying, reading and writing. The timing was perfect. My niece was due to cap her fourteen years of violin lessons, and six years of formal piano lessons with a concert-recital, an occasion that was timed with her 18th birthday celebrations last June 26. It was a perfect opportunity for a quick swing off to sunny but comfortably cool Northern California, a good 5 hours direct flight away from BWI (Baltimore-Washington International Airport).
The traditional Filipino Hispanic inspired cotillion waltz that opened the debutante’s dinner-party was a sight to behold. The members of the court were all Americans save three who have some kind of Filipino heritage. Seeing them in their jusi barongs (a native formal attire for men) and native-Filipino-inspired gowns (all specially tailored and stitched in Paranaque), had an air of odd, but pleasant, and welcome incongruity. It was a perfect example that friendship knows no cultural nor racial barriers. The wonder is that they all endured the many long and tedious hours of rehearsals under the capable direction of a Filipino-American couple whose passion is dancing. My niece’s members of the “court,” along with other friends, prevailed upon her to put up the “cotillion de honor,” after having seen a video tape presented by her in class in a course that talked about different cultures and practices all over the world. In exchange, they promised to be faithful to the rehearsals and to help set up the party.
Put it up magnificently and well, they did. From an observer’s viewpoint, however, their performance of the Todo, Todo line-dancing sequence leaves much to be desired in terms of gracefulness, but all the same, it was worth all the long hours of practicing and pirouetting.
After the party, my niece was scheduled to join the annual Music Teachers’ Association of California convention, one of the 1,500 out of 30,000 music student-participants from all over the state who applied and passed the competitive exams, held at San Diego, CA.
That was another opportunity for me to tag along and be part of the mass exodus of long-weekenders for the Independence Day celebrations.
The trip down Highway 5 to southern California seemed less exciting than previous ones done years back. Somehow, the road seemed more bumpy, less taken care of, and the drive less pleasant. (Does all the money go to finance the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? What happened to the famed American clock-work efficiency at maintenance?) What made it exciting though, was the possibility of making a swing for Simi Valley, where just two weeks before, Reagan was buried right on the grounds of his Presidential Library. Of course, the library is opened only for serious researchers with a purpose, not gaping tourists like everyone who flocked to it seemed to be! The museum was not particularly interesting. They were just memorabilias and a massive collection of trinkets associated with Ron and Nancy Reagan’s closely intertwined lives. As an avid reader and a writing aficionado, though, I felt a certain emotional affinity with Ronald Reagan, whose speeches and personal letters definitely show a man who was very articulate, well-read, and who had a certain flair for writing. He, indeed, lived the epithet ascribed to him as the great communicator in more ways than one. Incidentally, during his state funeral, I was struck by the undeniable fact that both Thatcher and Mulroney read very finely written eulogies, delivered with perfect oratorical cadence, and couched in excellent, elegant prose that overshadowed the very plebeian, amateurish pieces delivered by Bush, Sr. and Bush, Jr. (oftentimes referred to rather disparagingly as Dubya). The highlight of the museum, at least for me, was the exact replica of the oval office, arranged exactly the way it had been during his eight years as President, down to the last details, including the view from the windows.
Approaching the sprawling city of LA, what surprised me were the new “developments” taking place in what I thought would not become residential areas – steeply sloping hills that used to be dotted, not by upscale residential homes, but by sparse vegetation usually found in the semi-arid conditions of southern California. The trip through the Highway 405 that hugged the coastline and crisscrossed the entire city reminded me of the traffic conditions of EDSA. We spent almost three hours just getting through 405 on the way further south to San Diego. For all the much ballyhooed freeway system of California considered as among the most extensive of its kind in the world, congestion remains a formidable challenge in one of America’s most traffic-clogged cities (along with Chicago, New York, Washington, DC, Dallas, and others). Incidentally, in Baltimore, I see that there are drivers who behave more like Filipino drivers in Manila. At the 695 beltway that rings the city of Baltimore, where traffic ordinarily gets congested during morning and afternoon rush hours, there are drivers who are learning the art of “cutting” and “weaving in and out” of lanes – practices that Filipino drivers (especially jeepney, taxi, and bus drivers), have elevated to the level of skilled artistry, if not an Olympic sport in the Philippines.
I have always maintained that human behavior is for the most part dictated by need. Space being basically limited, the solution to the traffic problem depends upon the availability of more space, more resources, and more money. But more resources lead to more and bigger cars. Development necessarily entails the need for more and more roads. The vicious cycle goes on.
This model just cannot go on forever. No, not even in America, as the growing traffic problems everywhere seem to suggest. The paradigm simply has to change. Mass transit will have to part of the planning now, not in the future. But will America put a stop to its love affair with the automobile that is the modern symbol of its culture of rugged individualism, personal freedom, and mobility? Will America learn from the growing phenomenon of more and more places saying no to the dumping of garbage in the technically flawed system of landfills? Not in my backyard … even if trash is created right within people’s homes.
San Diego … a city that sits on sloping hills, a city of towering and crisscrossing highway interchanges, a hotel-studded entertainment and convention center that hugs the Pacific coastline that used to be part of what was known as Alta California (as distinct from the Baja California that belongs to Mexico), is also home to the 48 year old, but still awesome aircraft carrier USS Midway!
Hotel Circle, a cluster of well-known and lesser known hotels just a few miles south of downtown was abuzz with excited musicians from all over California that Independence Day long weekend. Watching the whiz kids banging on the piano keyboard with absolute panache and self-confidence was entertainment enough for me. It was a wonder to me whether they were doing anything more than piano playing. What struck me most was the egregious fact that the great majority of them were chinky eyed children of Asian descent. Among us, we jokingly remarked that some of those might have been tied to their pianos by their parents to make them practice for five hours a day.
Just a few miles further south of San Diego is National City, the turf of Jollibee, Chowking, Red Ribbon, PNB, and other familiar joints in the Philippines. But this is America! National City, a short hop away from the navy ports, naturally and gradually became the enclave of Filipino US navy men and their families. As we munched on chicken joy with rice (the portions here are bigger than back home), we watched as cars passed by the main thoroughfare. We saw only an occasional Caucasian at the wheels or in the passenger seat. Most of those who passed by were – you guessed it right – pinoy at pango, like us. Banners hanging on lamp posts featuring the American flag are emblazoned with “Welcome” and “Mabuhay.” And yes, posters in the Filipino eating places announce the forthcoming concert of Dolphy and Zsa-Zsa Padilla. We ended up in Jollibee after a futile search for the restaurant named “Manila’s Best.” What we found was a “turo-turo” whose fare, like almost all Filipino restaurants in America, did not look appetizing. Food oozed or was literally smothered in grease, haphazardly placed in warmers that stood behind glass lined counters. I swore that for a while, I thought I was in Cubao, or Pasay near LRT stations, desperately wanting a hot meal after a long drive in Manila-like summer weather. Hindi bale na lang!
San Diego happens to be the site of the first Catholic mission started by the prolific Franciscan missionary named Junipero Serra. Mission San Diego de Alcala definitely brought character and color to San Diego, vestiges and signs of which are still evident nominally, at least. The baseball team calls itself the San Diego Padres. Roads and places betray the religious origins of the city: Escondido, El Centro, Friars’ Road, Coronado Island, and a whole lot more.
Few people who live now in San Diego, or for that matter all over California, are now willing to give credit to Junipero Serra’s vision and mission. The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), an ultra liberal and anti-Christian group recently succeeded in removing the cross from the emblem of LA county. They also have managed to remove the ten commandments from a court in Alabama. Now they want to remove the “San” from San Pedro, Santa Clarita, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, San Pablo, San Jose, etc. all in the name, at least overtly, of the doctrine of separation between Church and State. Funny how some people could be so allergic to what they call the dogmatist church and religions, and act so dogmatically and doggedly against any external sign and show of religiosity. Curiously enough, no one among them talks about removing the image of the goddess Pomona in the same emblem. No one talks of renaming Pomona boulevard in LA.
For all their protestations, however, history cannot be unwritten. History cannot be changed. And history shows very clearly how the very freedom they now invoke to fight against religion, was laid down in its foundations by “padres” and “friars” like Blessed Junipero Serra, even as historically, America’s founding fathers decreed the doctrine of separation of Church and state, precisely to safeguard the right of religion and religious groups to exist in what was then known as the confederate states. Take and read any history book, whether religiously inspired or not, and see the historical truth that juts out incontrovertibly. It was people like these padres, these friars, people sent as missionaries by Holy Mother the Church, that stand at the bottom, and that constitute the foundation of democratic freedom, personal liberty, and, ultimately, free enterprise.
History does not lie. And intelligent people are not blind, except those who would not see.
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Monday, July 23, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
A PILGRIM IN A NOT-SO-STRANGE LAND
I am again revisiting an old entry, dated August 3, 2003. I partly speak about the infamous mutiny at Oakwood in the central business district of Makati, just a few days before I left for the US. I remember getting apprehensive about traveling then that I missed my appointment with the novices in Cebu, where I was scheduled to give a week-long formation seminar-workshop. It is ironic that one of the mutineers, after the recent national elections, will soon be included among the list of so-called “honorable” senators. So what else is new? I am, as my title puts it, a pilgrim in a not-so-strange land.
Grueling weeks and days trying to make the best of the little time available for two crash courses at the Don Bosco Center of Studies, prior to my departure for the U.S. ended July 30 with the submission of grades and the returning of my students’ papers (tests and research works) all the way up to the last hour of classes last Wednesday morning. As I gave back my students’ papers, I gave in to their clamor for me to say a few words of comment about the recent failed putsch (Oh no! Not again!). The last few weeks had indeed, been rather full. Another retreat-seminar occupied me till the last weekend of July. And the day before I left, I just had to finish all that needed to be finished, on top of everything I had to do to put a closure to some other stuff I was engaged in.
SEEING CALIFORNIA AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME
After two sleepless nights, I got to the posh and renovated SFO international airport about 40 minutes behind schedule, that is, at 9:40 a.m., the same day I left Manila, 31 July. The good thing about going transpacific from the so-called “far east” is that one gains a full day, arriving the same day one departs from Manila. The trip was uneventful. It was pretty obvious Northwest Airlines is cutting down on expenses. Food was not as plentiful as before. Portions are considerably smaller, and non-essential snacks were scrapped out. As usual, the waitresses from Manila to Tokyo were more personal and warm. Their rather older American counterparts from Tokyo to SFO, expectedly, were more rough and gruff.
California! The place used to be the epitome of the great American dream, part of the proverbial search for the wild, wild west, for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Alas, the great Silicon Valley bubble has burst a long time ago. Gone is the euphoria that was there ten years ago, when real estate and housing shot up in prices, when the great demand for more and more from upwardly mobile computer wizards and electronic gadget aficionados was the run of the day. What remain are signs of a once upbeat rush for “new developments” that carved out huge chunks of “prime” real estate on the balding and now yellowish hillsides of Northern California east of the San Francisco bay. Somehow, the city itself that was made popular by songs like “I left my heart in San Francisco” just does not anymore show the same luster and glitter that I thought it had just 19 years ago, when I first set foot on the famed cable car city of everyone’s dreams.
The quality of life is steadily going down in sunny California! Starbucks coffee shops dot the city slickers’ paradise. But one espies hobos and homeless people waiting for their better heeled counterparts go out of such enclaves of coffee-comfort, in order to grab the precious commodity called a Starbucks-emblazoned paper cup, empty it of the remaining contents, in order for them to go stealthily inside the milk, tea and coffee palaces, fill their cups with hot, nourishing milk from the spick and span canisters of delight, and then go out casually to drink their fill of milk, courtesy of the capitalist crowd, who would, of course, rather spend a couple of dollars for a fancy cup of coffee, rather than three scores of cents’ worth of watery café americano, found in just about any greasy spoon , hole -in-the-wall affair all across the continent.
It was all like seeing California again for the first time! Traffic builds up daily at 880 freeway, not the way things used to be in the state where freeways are the most extensive, the most complex in all of the United States. Hybrid cars now begin to see the light of day, their drivers and owners well aware that petrol is bound to become an expensive and scarce commodity in the coming years.
PINOY PA RIN, TALAGA!
Talking about greasy spoon places … well, we got into one for lunch Saturday noon, famished after an all-morning trip to the bookstore (and more, after lunch) - a Filipino restaurant. Nothing much has changed since I first set foot into one in Chicago. They are all the same. They will never, never become what the Thai (and even the Vietnamese) restaurants are by now all over the United States. They were, and still remain, no better than a “turo-turo” affair in Avenida or in Pasay City. Professionalism, or the utter lack of it, is their undoing, as far as I am concerned. Our order of grilled chicken came with - you guessed it right - sticky and greasy knives. The waiter who took our orders, appeared to have just gotten out of bed, unkempt, uncombed, unshaven - and uncouth! He turned out to be also the cook. He disappeared in an inner room that was full of background noise. Obviously, there was more than just a kid in there who kept all the adults in the small room occupied. The other waitress was busy preparing a table for a biggish group. They gave out our orders. They forgot to give our drinks, and proceeded to eat with what turned out to be a group of relatives who apparently go there regularly. In short, the cook, the waiter, and everyone who ran the restaurant left us their customers in the lurch, alone to munch forlornly our meals. We sort of hesitated to ask for something else. The whole staff was busy having their own merry lunch in a separate set of tables. We were quite mortified as we ate our salty fare, consoled only by the blaring sound of the KTV that doled out Tagalog songs of the late 70s and early 80s - the sort that would make the fans of Anthony Castelo blush, and pine for the lilting tunes of Rico Puno.
Somehow, the Filipino professionalism - or the patent lack of it - has invaded American shores!
Incidentally, Thai restaurants have enjoyed quite a following and clientele from Americans and other expats. The Filipino restaurant somehow has not gone beyond being a “mom and pop” affair, capable of attracting only a handful of Filipino habitués, who go there, probably, just to get away from the usual fast-food fare or the “heat-it-up-in-the-microwave-see-you-again” fare that is the hallmark of every harried and hurried job holder in this fast-paced society that values a good credit line and equates a person’s dignity with a good credit record.
Yesterday, admiration turned to envy when passing through the small, cute and tightly packed downtown strip of Palo Alto, just outside of the famous Stanford University campus (again, I sighed and pined for what ordinarily could not be seen back home in the Philippines), I espied three Thai restaurants and some four Italian restaurants in a strip that was not more than a mile long, spick and span, proud of their heritage, which obviously offered more than just food to customers. Again, I felt sorry for those “hole-in-the-wall” affairs that passed for an Asian restaurant that attracted only sloppily dressed and noisy customers whose main aim is to beat the nostalgia out of their minds by belting out songs of artists whom my young students now back home would not know anymore from Adam!
STORIES THAT SHAKE; STORIES THAT SOOTHE THE SOUL
I left the day Italian Job was supposed to be showing in theaters in Manila. I had been waiting for it for long. I was lucky to catch up with it over at Century Theaters at Union City. It was a story to shake the soul and once more situate it in the context of a sinful, scheming world, with little or no redeeming values to put one back on one’s spiritual track. It was as entertaining as it was draining. Its only redeeming value - the superb acting skills of favorites like Edward Norton and some others.
But the other movie, “Seabiscuit” gave me the needed lift to save me from a growing despondency. I confess I shed a few tears as I felt so involved in the lengthy film. It was all about three individuals who needed healing, three people who needed to find meaning in their lives for one reason or another. They all found it through a horse who itself needed healing, a horse that attracted no buyer as it was slightly deformed. It was a horse that did not at all look like a thoroughbred. But it found a very good trainer, a very good jockey, and very good manager-owner, who had a passion for lost causes. All three were wounded people who had the right attitude. All three were winners at the end. All three came out victorious and vibrant despite all the odds. For they had synergy. They had flow. They had what it took to become winners!
STILL A PILGRIM
I am back in a land that is at once strange and not so strange to me. Part of me belonged here. Part of me told me I am not in the right place. But this is the land where a limping old horse probably could find the right people, the right conditions, the right frame of mind for him to become whole and help others find wholeness. Here is a pilgrim who continues to be in search, a wayfarer who still goes on dreaming to become one who would make a difference in people’s lives. Far from the people who I usually minister to, I still feel ministered to by friends and fellow pilgrims whose only wish and dream is to see me grow and glow and become the best I could be. Near the people I usually do not minister to, I feel the pull of growth and the search for depth that is the hallmark of handicapped “horses” out to win the race of a lifetime who only wants to be the instrument of others’ total healing and growth.
It was obviously a healing journey also for Tobey Maguire who played the jockey. His life trajectory is reflected in the story. He identified himself with the real Red Pollard who healed the horse and was healed by the horse, even as the two of them healed the manager-owner and the trainer.
We are all deeply interconnected. Our lives - our past, present and future - are all intertwined. As Thompson puts it: “Each of us, to each other linked are, that never does a leaf fall, without troubling a star!”
Come join me in my dream. It is no longer about horses. But it is all about our intertwined lives in which horses, cabbages and kings - and yes - even eggshell pieces - broken eggshell pieces like those of Humpty Dumpty - could make or break us!
Grueling weeks and days trying to make the best of the little time available for two crash courses at the Don Bosco Center of Studies, prior to my departure for the U.S. ended July 30 with the submission of grades and the returning of my students’ papers (tests and research works) all the way up to the last hour of classes last Wednesday morning. As I gave back my students’ papers, I gave in to their clamor for me to say a few words of comment about the recent failed putsch (Oh no! Not again!). The last few weeks had indeed, been rather full. Another retreat-seminar occupied me till the last weekend of July. And the day before I left, I just had to finish all that needed to be finished, on top of everything I had to do to put a closure to some other stuff I was engaged in.
SEEING CALIFORNIA AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME
After two sleepless nights, I got to the posh and renovated SFO international airport about 40 minutes behind schedule, that is, at 9:40 a.m., the same day I left Manila, 31 July. The good thing about going transpacific from the so-called “far east” is that one gains a full day, arriving the same day one departs from Manila. The trip was uneventful. It was pretty obvious Northwest Airlines is cutting down on expenses. Food was not as plentiful as before. Portions are considerably smaller, and non-essential snacks were scrapped out. As usual, the waitresses from Manila to Tokyo were more personal and warm. Their rather older American counterparts from Tokyo to SFO, expectedly, were more rough and gruff.
California! The place used to be the epitome of the great American dream, part of the proverbial search for the wild, wild west, for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Alas, the great Silicon Valley bubble has burst a long time ago. Gone is the euphoria that was there ten years ago, when real estate and housing shot up in prices, when the great demand for more and more from upwardly mobile computer wizards and electronic gadget aficionados was the run of the day. What remain are signs of a once upbeat rush for “new developments” that carved out huge chunks of “prime” real estate on the balding and now yellowish hillsides of Northern California east of the San Francisco bay. Somehow, the city itself that was made popular by songs like “I left my heart in San Francisco” just does not anymore show the same luster and glitter that I thought it had just 19 years ago, when I first set foot on the famed cable car city of everyone’s dreams.
The quality of life is steadily going down in sunny California! Starbucks coffee shops dot the city slickers’ paradise. But one espies hobos and homeless people waiting for their better heeled counterparts go out of such enclaves of coffee-comfort, in order to grab the precious commodity called a Starbucks-emblazoned paper cup, empty it of the remaining contents, in order for them to go stealthily inside the milk, tea and coffee palaces, fill their cups with hot, nourishing milk from the spick and span canisters of delight, and then go out casually to drink their fill of milk, courtesy of the capitalist crowd, who would, of course, rather spend a couple of dollars for a fancy cup of coffee, rather than three scores of cents’ worth of watery café americano, found in just about any greasy spoon , hole -in-the-wall affair all across the continent.
It was all like seeing California again for the first time! Traffic builds up daily at 880 freeway, not the way things used to be in the state where freeways are the most extensive, the most complex in all of the United States. Hybrid cars now begin to see the light of day, their drivers and owners well aware that petrol is bound to become an expensive and scarce commodity in the coming years.
PINOY PA RIN, TALAGA!
Talking about greasy spoon places … well, we got into one for lunch Saturday noon, famished after an all-morning trip to the bookstore (and more, after lunch) - a Filipino restaurant. Nothing much has changed since I first set foot into one in Chicago. They are all the same. They will never, never become what the Thai (and even the Vietnamese) restaurants are by now all over the United States. They were, and still remain, no better than a “turo-turo” affair in Avenida or in Pasay City. Professionalism, or the utter lack of it, is their undoing, as far as I am concerned. Our order of grilled chicken came with - you guessed it right - sticky and greasy knives. The waiter who took our orders, appeared to have just gotten out of bed, unkempt, uncombed, unshaven - and uncouth! He turned out to be also the cook. He disappeared in an inner room that was full of background noise. Obviously, there was more than just a kid in there who kept all the adults in the small room occupied. The other waitress was busy preparing a table for a biggish group. They gave out our orders. They forgot to give our drinks, and proceeded to eat with what turned out to be a group of relatives who apparently go there regularly. In short, the cook, the waiter, and everyone who ran the restaurant left us their customers in the lurch, alone to munch forlornly our meals. We sort of hesitated to ask for something else. The whole staff was busy having their own merry lunch in a separate set of tables. We were quite mortified as we ate our salty fare, consoled only by the blaring sound of the KTV that doled out Tagalog songs of the late 70s and early 80s - the sort that would make the fans of Anthony Castelo blush, and pine for the lilting tunes of Rico Puno.
Somehow, the Filipino professionalism - or the patent lack of it - has invaded American shores!
Incidentally, Thai restaurants have enjoyed quite a following and clientele from Americans and other expats. The Filipino restaurant somehow has not gone beyond being a “mom and pop” affair, capable of attracting only a handful of Filipino habitués, who go there, probably, just to get away from the usual fast-food fare or the “heat-it-up-in-the-microwave-see-you-again” fare that is the hallmark of every harried and hurried job holder in this fast-paced society that values a good credit line and equates a person’s dignity with a good credit record.
Yesterday, admiration turned to envy when passing through the small, cute and tightly packed downtown strip of Palo Alto, just outside of the famous Stanford University campus (again, I sighed and pined for what ordinarily could not be seen back home in the Philippines), I espied three Thai restaurants and some four Italian restaurants in a strip that was not more than a mile long, spick and span, proud of their heritage, which obviously offered more than just food to customers. Again, I felt sorry for those “hole-in-the-wall” affairs that passed for an Asian restaurant that attracted only sloppily dressed and noisy customers whose main aim is to beat the nostalgia out of their minds by belting out songs of artists whom my young students now back home would not know anymore from Adam!
STORIES THAT SHAKE; STORIES THAT SOOTHE THE SOUL
I left the day Italian Job was supposed to be showing in theaters in Manila. I had been waiting for it for long. I was lucky to catch up with it over at Century Theaters at Union City. It was a story to shake the soul and once more situate it in the context of a sinful, scheming world, with little or no redeeming values to put one back on one’s spiritual track. It was as entertaining as it was draining. Its only redeeming value - the superb acting skills of favorites like Edward Norton and some others.
But the other movie, “Seabiscuit” gave me the needed lift to save me from a growing despondency. I confess I shed a few tears as I felt so involved in the lengthy film. It was all about three individuals who needed healing, three people who needed to find meaning in their lives for one reason or another. They all found it through a horse who itself needed healing, a horse that attracted no buyer as it was slightly deformed. It was a horse that did not at all look like a thoroughbred. But it found a very good trainer, a very good jockey, and very good manager-owner, who had a passion for lost causes. All three were wounded people who had the right attitude. All three were winners at the end. All three came out victorious and vibrant despite all the odds. For they had synergy. They had flow. They had what it took to become winners!
STILL A PILGRIM
I am back in a land that is at once strange and not so strange to me. Part of me belonged here. Part of me told me I am not in the right place. But this is the land where a limping old horse probably could find the right people, the right conditions, the right frame of mind for him to become whole and help others find wholeness. Here is a pilgrim who continues to be in search, a wayfarer who still goes on dreaming to become one who would make a difference in people’s lives. Far from the people who I usually minister to, I still feel ministered to by friends and fellow pilgrims whose only wish and dream is to see me grow and glow and become the best I could be. Near the people I usually do not minister to, I feel the pull of growth and the search for depth that is the hallmark of handicapped “horses” out to win the race of a lifetime who only wants to be the instrument of others’ total healing and growth.
It was obviously a healing journey also for Tobey Maguire who played the jockey. His life trajectory is reflected in the story. He identified himself with the real Red Pollard who healed the horse and was healed by the horse, even as the two of them healed the manager-owner and the trainer.
We are all deeply interconnected. Our lives - our past, present and future - are all intertwined. As Thompson puts it: “Each of us, to each other linked are, that never does a leaf fall, without troubling a star!”
Come join me in my dream. It is no longer about horses. But it is all about our intertwined lives in which horses, cabbages and kings - and yes - even eggshell pieces - broken eggshell pieces like those of Humpty Dumpty - could make or break us!
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