writing – Page 2 – …my temporary assignment.

Only if you sing your song.

Daily writing prompt

Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?

Well, my stage career began and ended with Mr. Tantillo’s 7th & 8th grade Barbershop Music classes at the Hinsdale Junior High School, about 1972 or 3 BC. I had the fortune of singing lead in a quartet that travelled as far as Milwaukee, to share “My Wild Irish Rose” when our turn came up during the program.

Heading out on that proverbial limb, I think it was Russ that sang bass, Mike that was our baritone, and the tenor’s name? Escapes me for now. But when I remember it at 1:43 AM, I will add it in. We usually concluded our concerts with “Good-bye My Coney Island Baby”. Upon retirement when I graduated from junior high, my singing moments were reserved for “Rosalita” in college and are now preserved in the friendly confines of my car with my friends at WXRT or the Drive.

However, since then, I have also been blessed with opportunities to create some of my own melodies in public speaking around the community. My involvement in football as a player and now a coach has afforded me chances to speak to players whether on the field at practice or at other events, share my thoughts with the staff, players and families at weekly high school team dinners and teach coaching concepts at football clinics around the state.

I also became a guest lecturer at a near by college and through my involvement as a mentor for the local Boy Scout troops, provide the earned accolades for soaring as an Eagle at their court of honor. Of late, I have had the chance to share a daily devotional with my new team and explore the spiritual essence of other readings with another close coaching friend of mine.

These daily prompts are such a treasure. They reveal things to me I just did not even consider.

Singing was scary to start. Being out in front of many with three others carrying a tune. But now that I look back, it was a sorely needed source of joy for a young man that pretty much kept to himself. Since some arbitrary test I took in grade school disqualified me from learning an instrument, having the opportunity to just sing was a Godsend. A way to express a passion I had for music. Apart from laying on the living room floor next to the RCA console, reading liner notes and playing records at “11”. Not sure what led me to neglect that path once I went into highschool. Maybe it was football that took front and center.

So the melody I have been able to share in public speaking shares the same source of passion. To articulate feelings, sensations and hopes through words. Not telling anyone what to do or how to do it. But moreso what is to be gained if you surrender yourself to that undertaking without regret. The memories it will create within those moments and for the rest of your life. How fulfilling just leaving it all out there, regardless of the outcome, can be. And is.

And when you can connect with another or others within a sea of faces and lives, you just know it.

The eye contact. The body language. The expression. You sense their presence in your melody. And within you. A feeling of connection and intimacy that just escapes description.

Exactly why you just need to leave it all out there, surrender and dismiss the possibility of regret.

How fulfilling that can and always will be.

Only if you sing your song.

PF

One of the most influential mentors in my life is Pastor Ellsworth Freyer. “PF” to those close to him. “Coach” to me. I was blessed to be one of many he coached throughout his life as a man of the cloth. He coached me to coach. To mentor. Serve others. And write.

When I would run into writer’s block penning some words of encouragement to those I served, he would reach out and share some of his words of wisdom. The most inspiring were found in his motivational pieces, he called “Power Thoughts”. Aptly named. I happened upon this one tonight (in 2017):

“One of the most sobering thoughts I have ever been confronted with is this: ‘What you are someday going to be, you are now becoming.’

Right at this very moment in time, you are exactly what you have been in the process of becoming – all your life.

So? Are you the person you dreamed of becoming?

How close are you to becoming the type of person you want to be?

Even right now, you are in the process of becoming the person you will be in an hour. In a day. Next month. The coming year. In two, five or in a decade.

And the habits? Those you have now – and will begin to acquire and accumulate – determine the person you will eventually, someday, become.

If you are not now doing the things that you need to do, to become what you want to be, what makes you believe that you ever will?

What is preventing you from becoming that person? The one you want to become?

It is incumbent upon you to choose to begin now.

Situations or circumstances should never determine the when, if or how you begin.

So?

Just begin. And begin right now.

For what you are now becoming, is what you will someday be.”

Location

In a conversation at work some time ago, the phrase “location, location, location” came into play.

Nothing to do with its inherent real estate connotation. But more so how one maintains a sense of presence in the real estate they happen to occupy in this moment. Not just where they find themselves. But more to the point, how they find themselves where they are now. Not in a week, month or year.

Now.

‘Cause when it comes down to it, if you aren’t here, then you cannot access what is to be gained from the moment. Not that each moment is going to be an epiphany. That is never the case. It is just that each moment has within it the capacity to become an epiphany.

A surprise. Never expected. Life changin’.

An epiphany.

It seems to me that there is a human tendency to believe that moments that seem a mistake, reflect a poor decision or turn out to be a failure are lost causes. A chance lost. Something not meant to be. Better left behind than kept, discerned and understood.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Everything we encounter in our lives has meaning. A purpose. A reason to be. And yet because things are not precisely what we imagined, we think all is lost. Wasted effort, commitment and direction.

We choose to leave the moment and place ourselves where we wish to be. A place begotten without the sacrifice, effort, discipline and effort. Then when we awake, and find ourselves at what seems to be the ultimate conclusion, we deflect, ignore, blame and avoid the outcome.

“Location, location location” has nothing to do with where you are. It has everything to do with being fully present where you are right here, right now. So that you can someday, become all that you were meant to be.

If you have the presence of mind and soul to capture and keep those multiple instances of missteps, defeat and failure, then you can access the wherewithal to maintain a presence in those moments yet to come.

And better yet?

Those made just for you.

Seize it.

“carpe diem, quam minimum credula”…

….or ‘Pluck the day, trusting as little as possible in the future’.

Ever since Horace first penned this phrase, the passage of time seems to have weathered it. Worn it down. To make it more succinct and quote worthy.

Eventually, pruned down to roll off the tongue, becoming simply “Carpe Diem.”

A precise intention; a thoughtful command meant to spur one to “seize the day”.However, when you think about it, far too often, the day will seize us.

That is,we permit it to do so.

We have all allowed this to happen at some point in our lives. An experience consisting of equal parts trial, tribulation and anguish, leaving one feeling twisted up and wrung out. Letting things – or days – happen to us leaves one disappointed, frustrated and full of anxiety for what will surely follow.

Once seized by a day, or a succession of them, one is led to a residence of “existence”. Not living. A place where just getting by and through it is all there is. Being seized by these days can only lead one to live in dread of what the next day will bring our way.

Yet even our overcast, rainy or stormy days have their value. They are part of a larger purpose and plan. They are meant to test our mettle.

Even in the darkest of days, there is still light to be found. It just happens to be obscured for the moment. With an eye guided by wisdom, some patience and the will to press on – even if it means taking the smallest of steps – one can still find something positive and lasting.

Progress can be made. Growth can occur.

So seize onto that one ray of light, if only by the fingertips. Hold on.

Wait it out.

Fronts do pass.

Commit to make it your mission, to discover something special in each day, to seize every moment within it; to go “all in” – with both feet. Even if it is baby steps. Just put one in front of the other and give it your absolute best.

It is in having this level of courage to move forward that will crack open the clouds and emit the rays of light on your efforts; both from within and without.

You will begin to see a way. You will be warmed and energized by the sense of accomplishment; rewarded for your perseverance by the act of simply pressing forward.

And as you continue, your momentum will become too great. It will overcome the inertia of the day. It will relent. And loosen its grip on you.

Like Robert Frost once said: “The best way out is always through.” Seizing the day – if by only grabbing a small corner of it – is as energizing as it is affirming. As your grip on it increases, new possibilities and opportunities will emerge. Like the adventure story waiting to be written, you will now want to see how it ends.

Butterflies of excitement and anticipation flock to overtake the nausea of fear and dread.

As you seize the day, and each one that follows, you will be making the future.

For it is what you make of this moment – the present – that determines what is yet to come.

“What you are becoming is what you will some day be”.

So “pluck the day, trusting as little as possible to the future”.

If you can understand the value that lies in act of the “plucking”, you have most likely already entrusted the future to those efforts you undertake in the present.

Think about it. There will be no ambiguity in what lies ahead.

No gray areas.

For you are choosing it now.

At this very moment.

But only if you “carpe diem”.

Unordinary.

“We meet no ordinary people in our lives.”

― C.S. Lewis; Inspirational Christian Library

My mom’s father, Grandpa Cordts, “knew no strangers”. Whenever I was with him out in public, at the store, getting gas, buying worms or playing putt-putt, everyone within sight and sound seemed to know him.

That isn’t to say that he or they did. It is just that EVERYONE he encountered each day, no matter the circumstance, investment or need was approached as a friend. Someone that went way back. The one in the back row of the picture. A compatriot.

Was not aware of it then, but as I go about daily life now, how he went about life left an impression on me. As it stands, I don’t know any strangers either.

And when you go about it in that fashion, you cannot believe what you learn.

Once they recognize that they can just be open, all sorts of things flow out. Not that they are meant to be sewed all over. Just that they want me to hear and know it. Shared as a friend. With trust and an understanding that it was in some sense collaborative, restorative and affirmative.

And is ain’t all one sided. You share as well. In an equally genuine fashion. Maybe you only see them the next week, month or year. Perhaps never again. But they did. You did.

And it was something.

Maybe substantial in certain situations. Maybe just the spur of the moment.

But again, if you think about it, not really ordinary. In all actuality, those chance moments become special. Not because they were designed that way. But simply because they were.

Unordinary.

Like them.

And what we – and they – chose to make that encounter to be.

Unordinary.