Unexpected Joy (Copenhagen)

    Most people commute to and from work in their cars. Those who live in big cities use public transportation.  One day in this city (Copenhagen), regular riders were given a few minutes of unusual  pleasure and unexpected joy. Suddenly from all over one particular subway car, a group of musicians started to play a beautiful piece of music.

     When someone offers you a place and a chance to find temporary pleasure what do you do? You take off your headphones; your blank expression becomes attentive to your surroundings. Maybe you listen.  Perhaps the music reminds you of someone, sometime or someplace.

     You may take a picture to capture those feelings of delight. It is the same feeling you get when you hear your lover's name over a loudspeaker, your baby's first word, the laughter of friends, the sound of applause after a heart-felt speech. Many things can bring us unexpected joy.

Beautiful Blue Sky

"Bibo no aozora" means beautiful blue sky in Japanese

"When you love a man, he becomes more than a body. His physical limbs expand, and his outline recedes, vanishes. He is rich and sweet and right. He is part of the world, the atmosphere, the blue sky and the blue water."  ~Gwendolyn Brooks

   When you look up at the blue sky during the Summer, it is a remarkable site.
The poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, saw  her lover in the sky. He had lost his physical appearance and became more of a Great Spirit that surrounded her. Great loves can do that. They are with you, above and beyond the earth. They are part of the beautiful blue sky, even as they vanish from your view. 

Wedding Readings

“At night  there was the  feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waiting in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all the other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so no one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together."     

         ~ Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell To Arms

    Wedding readings from literature are probably not that common anymore, but its seems like a noteworthy tradition that we should not overlook. Hemingway seems to write the definition of love in this paragraph above.

      These two sentiments especially ring true:  Love is "feeling no longer alone"  and  "feeling like all other things are unreal".

There are no rules who reads.

   You can pick family members, friends, members of the wedding party - whoever can read clearly and speak up and doesn't get stage fright!  You can choose the sister off the bride the brother of the groom or close friends.

Or perhaps you prefer a song more than a reading.

What is important is to convey a message of love. Listen to the message/song from the group Fleetwood Mac. One woman sings this song as guests are signing the register, as the bride is walking down the aisle or when the guests are entering/leaving the venue.

Intoxicated By The Romance

“Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual.”

― Ernest Hemingway


    It is easy to love a beautiful woman or handsome man; it is much harder to discover in your mind the Beauty and Romance of the unusual person. Perhaps that person, however, will challenge you in ways you never imagined. We meet someone who expands our viewpoint, comfort zone, or intellect. In your infinite imagination, you create an experience of something special that stays with you forever. There is a new exhilaration and intoxication that expands your mind. Some would call this love.

Wedding Song (There Is Love)

Paul Stookey

      Paul Stookey, of the Folk band Peter, Paul and Mary wrote the above tune for the marriage of his friend and fellow troubadour, Peter Yarrow.  Inspired by the biblical verse of Matthew 18:20, he was the best man at the wedding.
     Shortly after his Christian conversion, Stookey was asked by Yarrow to "...bless our wedding with a song". According to Stookey "the melody and the words [of "Wedding Song"] arrived simultaneously and in response to a direct prayer asking God how the divine could be present at Peter’s wedding." Drawing almost word for word from the bible passage Matthew 18:20, the original lyric is "I am now to be among you at the calling of your hearts; rest assured this troubadour is acting on My part. The union of your spirits here has caused Me to remain for whenever two or more of you are gathered in My name, There am I...There is Love." Concerned that guests at the wedding might misinterpret his intention, "I" was changed to "He", in both recorded and performed versions until 1990 when the original lyric was 'officially' restored.

Couple Praying Before The Wedding

        

                                          

Life's Splendor

"Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come." (18 October 1921)

                     — from The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1923 




Love brings people together and it is natural when one expresses  a dying wish to burn their writing, should  you listen?
Should love make us obey the lover, always?

  Kafka requested that his lover destroy his short stories and novels.  His fiancee  obeyed and burned his works, but his best friend Max Brod did not.

In 1923 Kafka went to Berlin to escape from his paternal family and devote himself to writing. In Berlin he found new hope in the companionship of a young Jewish socialist, Dora Dymant, but his stay was cut short by a decisive deterioration of his health during the winter of 1924. After a brief final stay in Prague, where Dora Dymant joined him, he died in a clinic near Vienna.

He died of tuberculosis of the lungs and larynx on June 3, 1924, a month before his forty-first birthday. Dora, inconsolable, whispers for days afterward, “My love, my love, my good one . . .”

Kafka's Last Love 

You May Contribute A Verse

O Me! O Life!

BY WALT WHITMAN

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering – these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love – these are what we stay alive for.

We stay alive for romance and love. So keep that pursuit in mind. The pursuit of happiness through romance and love is the answer to that sad and recurring question posed by Whitman , "What  is life for?"

     That you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be? Will it be opening your heart to  love?  Raising a child? Solving a mystery?  Creating a better place in our world?

Freedom and The Fourth of July (Independence Day - USA)

"Freedom" by Zenos Frudakis

When you walk the Streets of Philadelphia,  you can see this statue called "Freedom" in front of the World Headquarters for the pharmaceutical giant Glaxo-Smith-Kline (GSK). Although there are four figures represented, the work is really one figure moving from left to right. According to the artist , the sculpture is symbolic of the univerasl desire in almost everyone for the need to escape from some situation - be it an internal struggle or an adversarial circumstance, and to be free from it. On this day in 1776, our forefathers met in Philadelphia; and the resolution was moved by Lee of Virginia, that the colonies ought to be independent states, and ought to dissolve their political connection with Great Britain. They believed "all men are created equal" and that we have "unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.  The Centennial Oration by Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer, veteran of the Civil War, American politician and orator, is worth reading.

    Elton John singing his song Philadelphia Freedom

 Perhaps the greatest freedom is the Freedom to love who you want.
Here are some other great Freedom songs. Happy Independence Day everyone and continue to shine a light over the darkness.