What happens when we get the opportunity to see a perfect invitation into our future - and we know that it's exactly right - but we have no idea how we will get there? In other words, what am I supposed to make of these once-in-a-while openings in which I gain a sneak peak into what might be coming - but I cannot fathom how it will come to pass?
So is my world this month as I prepare for Spring - no, springing - into the next chapter of my life. It is such a remarkable privilege to be given the blessings of family and friends. I just booked a free trip to Finland for next month, so that I can be good to my word that I would visit my friend Ville Parkka (missionary in New York city 2008-2010) when he had his first born child. At least, that is what I told him at his wedding exactly two years ago. And sure enough, just when I thought it was a bother to go to New York for meetings at work, I find that I have exactly 6 days free in the middle of these scheduled meetings so that I can dash across the pond and fulfill my promise to him. And so, for the love of mileage that credit cards are often wanting to throw at you for just signing up, I wind up being able to take this trip to Helsinki for just that. Ah, the things that make me happy!
But, wait, it gets better. Because I also made a promise to Ville's brother-in-law, Sami, now a strapping 18 year old who, after he and three of his friends visited New York City just 10 weeks after I met them at Ville's wedding, I see that I have just enough mileage to visit Finland one more time when Sami gets married. After all, a promise is a promise. So much for American Airlines mileage.
So, what about Delta mileage? Well, that gets even better. Because airlines promise you the world, I take their word very seriously. Because I think that's what we get, really. I mean some religions promise one hell of an after life. And I suspect that if we focus on their word, and the word is good, then that is pretty much what we line ourselves up to get - some type of consciousness when the body is done with carrying us in this world. And tickets to a spectator sport will get us just that as well - a good time. Perhaps something that stands out compared to the hum drum of the rest of our week (or month).
Anyway, Delta mileage is much more serious for me - not just because I started the year with about five times the mileage than on American, but because I had come to believe that I had something serious saved up - and I wasn't exactly sure how it was all going to be used - just that I was going to have the privilege of spending these hundreds of thousands of miles in the near future. A hunch? Yes, my intuition is usually quite good, thank you.
So, Ben and I enjoyed an amazing first trip to Maui with a really low amount of miles this past month. Only to realize that we were going back there next month. Because, well, I just HAVE to learn how to snorkel let alone scuba dive. It's just that simple. Nothing really more than I absolutely have to accomplish or enjoy - I mean, we just about scoured the island for all the things that was enjoyable to us this last time. So, what gives with this second trip, courtesy of Delta's Skymiles?
Well, there is this house. We saw it the last day of our trip. Perhaps we were fooling ourselves. Gee, I thought, wouldn't it be great to own a home (or a share of a home) in which I could return time and time again for the rest of my life - and then even pass it on to the next generation? Well, that feeling inside of me - to leave a legacy not just to students of all stripes and ages, but to the friends and to the children that I have and will have - that feeling remained quite strong the entire day. And then, upon seeing THIS HOUSE, it hit me really hard that Ben and I were seriously connected to the energy that was reaching out to us, standing on the veranda that mid January day.
Only problem? How the heck to find $1 million. Yeah, nothing serious. Just a slight foray into reality. But, if the two airlines that have carried me across the decades have one thing to tell me its that I AM all about American change - the dream that is so embedded in what it is to be a citizen (or even an undocumented resident) of this land. You see, America is not just about jobs. Or freedom. It is really the place - whether from a distance or from the bowels of its great cities and land - cry out to us "keep dreaming!". And so I do.
So, coming up to Valentines Day 2013, it's not that I have A dream. It's that I have THIS dream. That one day, because of the unfolding of my life, I get not only to have THIS dream, but also to believe that I might very well step into this dream and walk into the next chapter of my life. Except that I get to figure out more of the pieces of the puzzle - not just in acquiring this house for all who are to benefit from it, but also in allowing THIS house (Martin Lawrence Kokol) to become all that he is meant to know, to feel and to do. So that "it shall come to pass".
I think the riddle is in staying true to ones dreams. I sense the test is in staying awake to one's visions. I find that the mystery is in staying firm in one's convictions. All these must come together so that the Universe can act for and and behalf of one's truth and one's beauty. And all those lies that we are just "dust in the wind" - well, I guess I'm truly becoming a Westerner where the possibility of something just a little bigger emerges, where the belief that we are connected to this Cosmos with power that shatters any illusion that we are just a dot for a brief moment.
In the end, it's been a long journey to come to think and feel and believe, rather than accomplish and accumulate and accept. To dare to see myself as the author of my life, rather than victim of others'. Never thought there was more to my story than just "gay jew becomes straight mormon, winds up a queer saint". Well, there is a lot more this February. Stay tuned for further developments. And pictures.
No comments:
Post a Comment