Pete

Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part series.  If you desire the full meal, you might want to start with the appetizer first – Part 1.

I grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri.  The St. Louis football team, the Cardinals, was awful and the St. Louis basketball team, the Hawks, was decent, but the Boston Celtics of Bill Russell and Bob Cousy won it all back then just about every year.

St. Louis was definitely a baseball town with the St. Louis Cardinals led by Stan The Man Musial and company.  Our family lived and died baseball and the Cardinals, and when the baseball season was over, we simply holed up and waited for spring training to start again.

My dad, Lyman, being an ex-Canadian and growing up in hockey country would take us to games, but never really understood the game.  I remember games at old Sportsman’s Park before Busch Stadium with the huge metal columns that would always seem to be in the way of part of the playing field.  I would pray to have a seat where I could at least have a clear view of my hero, Stan The Man, as he played first base or sometimes left field.

Dad would often sit backwards in his seat and spend the 2-3 hours watching the audience.  The fans and their classic behavior interested him more than the game.  He was a dedicated people watcher.

My dad was also an older dad.  I was born when he was already 45 years old and so his sports playing days were long since past, and anyway, baseball just wasn’t his game.  Neither was basketball for that matter.  He was an accountant and spent most of his time in the office.  His only real relaxation was watching Johnny Carson every night – something he never missed.

He was supportive of our sports endeavors, but often aloof.  I used to think he was just disinterested, but now I’ve come to understand that he just did not understand those queer American sports.  He was even somewhat disgusted with the way hockey had turned so violent and seemed to emphasize the fighting over the game itself just to bring up TV ratings.

So it came to no surprise to either my older brother, Jim, and me that at our Father and Son Boy Scout picnic baseball game, Lyman decided to sit out, not play, and simply watch.  So Jim, 5 years older than me, took Dad’s place on the opposing Father’s team and played against my team – the Sons.

This was neither a surprise nor a problem for me.  It was simply normal.  Dad did not participate in our sports.  He had been a professional hockey player with the Chicago Black Hawks in his own youth and his father had actually owned the Kenora Thistles up in Canada which actually won the Stanley Cup (hockey’s equivalent to the Super Bowl) in 1907, but that was such another lifetime that it really didn’t mean much to this 12-year old boy.

Back to baseball:

The Fathers and Sons game was a close game.  In fact, we were tied 3-3 in the last inning of a seven-inning game.  It was getting late and no one wanted to go into extra innings and the fathers were up last.

I was playing first base and there were already two outs.  It was agreed that if we were tied at the end of this inning we would all just call it a day and go home tied … bummer.

My brother, Jim, was the last hope for the Fathers.  He hit a triple and I was full of mixed emotions as he stood on third representing the potential winning run.

For the sons, this was a serious game – a chance to beat the dads at something.  For the dads, it was just a lark – a chance to have some fun, drink some beer and have a lot of laughs – mostly at each other’s expense.

As the last dad shuffled up to the plate for the final at bat, with Jim on third, one of the wise-guy dads had a crazy idea.  “Hey, let’s let Lyman decide the winner of this great contest!  Lyman, you pinch hit!”  There were a lot of guffaws and gentle ribbing, and after some prodding, Dad agreed to grab a bat and take a few swings.

I stood on first in horror and embarrassment.  Dad hardly knew how to hold the bat, much less hit the pitch.  I knew what was coming.  I had seen him pitifully try to throw the football a couple of years back.  It would be 3 embarrassing strikes, followed by a lot of laughter and then we’d all go home.

After the first two swings and misses, I wanted to run off the field into the night.  My dad had a great sense of humor and was taking all the ribbing he was getting from the other dads quite well.  It was all in fun and he knew it, but I couldn’t see it that way.  I was already ashamed.

And then he knocked the cover off the ball.  He must have reached back to a time gone by and pulled something from his youth – his timing, his grace, his strength – for he hit a gigantic Home Run far over the left fielder’s head driving my brother in from third and winning the game.

Though we had just lost, the Links had just won the game and I was jumping up and down playing first base at the amazement of what Dad had just done.  The crowd had gone wild.  Already all the dads were chanting his name as he began to run. “Lyman, Lyman, LYMAN!”

I watched him with my heart in my throat as he began to run to first.  His eyes were as big as saucers at what he had just done.  I wondered if he would even know that he had to circle the bases.  He had hit it so far that he could have strolled the bases in his own sweet time while the left fielder ran hopelessly after it.

I began to yell, “Run, Dad, Run! C’mon, this way!”  He seemed confused.

And then it happened.

It had rained earlier in the day and there were patches on the field that were still wet.  One of those patches was along the first base line.  When he hit that patch, I saw his legs move out far ahead of the rest of his body and watched his eyes get even wider as he actually fell awkwardly backwards slipping on the wet ground.

He fell very hard and just lay there.  Everyone was laughing and screaming, “Get up, Lyman, get up!  Keep running!  Keep going!”  But he didn’t get up and finally a hush fell over the crowd.

He had broken his shoulder and his arm badly on the fall.  The ambulance came and carted him off to the hospital.  He was in an amazing middle-of-back-and-shoulder to wrist plaster cast that required his arm to stick out in front of him like he was reaching for something for months.  I used to scratch his itches inside the cast with a coat hanger …

Lyman, the jock.  Well … the point is that he did it.  He didn’t exactly make it all the way around the bases – actually he didn’t even make it to first base – but hell, we gave him that.  He hit the homer, he drove Jim in, he quieted the laughter – twice – and he won the game.

I was never more proud of my dad.

Further Note: I just realized that today, Feb. 12, is my dad’s birthday.  Happy Birthday, Dad – wherever you are …

Lyman Link

I grew up an athlete.  Throughout high school and college, athletics were as important to me as music and girls.

In high school I was a decent three-sport athlete (Football, soccer and track).  I did not really know the meaning of work, but the highlight was that I did play split end and defensive safety on an undefeated and unscored upon championship football team that was one of the greatest teams in the history of my school.

I then went to the University of Virginia on an athletic scholarship (soccer and track) for a year.  I pole-vaulted under a coach who had coached several Olympic vaulters and he taught me the meaning of preparation and what it took to become a champion.  But the jock’s life at a major college was just not for me and I finished up my college years at a small college in the Midwest – Principia College.

There I found myself as an athlete and was the high scoring center forward on the soccer team and a champion pole-vaulter.

I suppose, as some people might think, “I had the genes” for my father, Lyman Link, who was from Canada, had been a professional hockey player and had actually played with the Chicago Blackhawks for some time.  So he had been an athlete as well, though being from Canada, at the time, he had no experience whatsoever with either football or baseball.  Neither sport had yet become popular in Canada.

My dad was an old-fashioned dad.  He was just not the kind of dad that rolled up his sleeves and got down on the floor and played with the kids.  We never shot baskets together, though he built my brother and I a fine basketball backboard in the driveway.  He hated basketball and as an ex-pro hockey player, called it a sissy sport and we argued that one for two decades.

He came to my brother’s and my events seldom and participated in our games never.  He was an accountant and a workaholic and spent most of his time in his office.  None of this ever bothered me as a kid.  What did I know?  That’s the way most dads were.  One summer he did sponsor our Little League baseball team, but he was always more the owner than the coach.

One early fall Sunday afternoon as baseball turned to football, my brother, Jim, and I were out in the side yard tossing the football around.  Our house was on a two-house lot with room enough for a brick patio and an ample playing yard on the side.  As my brother and I worked on our passing, my dad sat on the patio and read the Sunday St. Louis Post Dispatch on his one free afternoon of the week.

Then an historic and totally surprising thing happened.

Dad actually stood up and walked out into the side yard and began to watch us throw more closely.  Jim and I immediately became totally self-conscious and had no clue as to what to make of this insertion of a previously standoffish father into our life.  Our passes got wobbly, we began to drop the ball every other catch, and our minds were just not on the practice, but rather on a suddenly interested dad.

Then he pulled out all the stops and shocked us both.

“Hey Jimmy, throw me the ball.”  My heart went into my throat.  Dad wanted to play with us!  I remember feeling suddenly, totally out of place and out of time.  This was just not ever even dreamed of, never considered.

What did Dad know about football?  He didn’t even know the rules of the game.  My brother, who was as in shock as I was, turned and readied his throw to Dad.  I remember thinking, “Oh my god, he’ll never catch it.”

But Jim threw the ball and Dad caught it easily and with grace.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

And then Dad turned to me and said, “Now Pete, go out for a pass.”  I began to trot and he readied his throw.  I felt a surge of adrenalin as I realized a new world, a new existence – a father who would play sports with us, coach us to heights yet unconsidered – be one of us.

And then he threw.  Now you have to remember that he grew up a hockey player.  This was quite probably the first time he had ever thrown a football in his life – and the last time.

He threw the ball like a girl.  Instead of a neat spiral with a Johnny Unitas spin on it, the ball fluttered through the air end to end softly landing some 15 feet short of my trajectory.  I dove for it heroically, but didn’t even come close.  It was a pathetic first attempt.

The ball bounced lazily to a stop on the grass between us.  I couldn’t even go pick it up.  I just stopped in embarrassment.  The three of us just stood there for a good long beat or two wondering what to do next.

Then Dad said, “Yeah, well …” and turned on one heel and shuffled off back to the patio to continue his afternoon reading.

That was an experience that defined our relationship for all time.  Looking back, had I been older, had I been wiser, I might have said, “Here Dad, let me show you how to hold the ball, let me show you how to roll it off your fingers when you throw so it will spin like Johnny U.  Maybe that defining moment better played might have changed our paths.  Maybe that was surely a moment missed.  Maybe, surely …

But I wasn’t older and I wasn’t wiser.  I was just embarrassed for Dad.  He was out of place in my world and that hurt me deeply with a shocking kind of reality.

The moment was never brought up again in our lives, but always remembered by me.

It was the time my sweet old-fashioned dad tried mightily to step across the line of demarcation between past and present … and failed.

I know now that it was just not who he was.  But I also know now that the image of the modern father, the father I became – one who did get down on the floor and wrestle with his son, one who did give up his mornings to help coach his son’s swim team, the one who loved playing with his son – this was the image that, for a moment, intrigued my father.  He tried to step over that line, but couldn’t.  But he tried.

I’ll always love him for that attempt.

Note: The following is my response to a recent customer question.  Occasionally we print these to clarify to all what might be otherwise misunderstood.  The question from customer was, “Why can’t the sampled songs on your website be full songs instead of only part of the song?” The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Dear Bart,

Your letter came to me this morning from our customer service department.  I’ve asked that these kinds of responses come to me occasionally so that I could help handle them and help clarify confusions.

As CEO of Watchfire Music and one of its composers I would love that you could hear a full sample of my music on the site, but unfortunately we, as well as the rest of the industry, have learned that if we were to put the full sample on the site, then three generations of people would then steal such and never actually purchase it.

Unfortunately I have to eat.  I’m working on overcoming that limitation in life, but I just haven’t gotten there yet.  As it is, we live in a world where now much of what we create as musicians and composers is either free or stolen because of file sharing and hacking.

Your short note came across to all of us here as critical.  We pride ourselves in our giving.  We sell songs that take tens of thousands of dollars to create for 99 cents in a world where music is now even becoming “free” — thereby reducing our much loved occupations to the level of hobbies.

I guess you got me on my soap box here, but when I come across moments like this of such misunderstanding, it usually, these days, puts me right back on that box.

We do offer every possible tool we can think of to help you discover and understand our music.  Perhaps you might rethink this in terms of going to the movies.  Let’s say they were forced to let you see the movie for free and then, if you saw the whole thing and liked it, then, and only then, you would have to pay for it.

It’s a good analogy.

Perhaps that’s why the movies provide trailers — so that you can get a taste of the film, but not the whole experience … Perhaps look at our samples in the same light.

BTW, iTunes’ samples are :30 seconds long, always starting at the top and usually giving the listener only the intro of the song.  (Not much is to be learned from that.) My rule to all our composers is a 1:30 sample including at least a verse and a chorus.  That should be enough information to give a good musician a real taste of the song.  We also offer the full lyric for free.

And then there’s the purchase:  99 cents to hear the entire song!  What professional singer cannot afford that once they have had their taste and are intrigued enough to take the next step?  Think about it … 99 cents …

Ah well, perhaps I’ve ruminated on this subject enough.  I hope I’ve been able to jog your brain, to clarify a few things and most of all to give you a better understanding of our intentions and our obstacles.

Perhaps this was not the kind of clarity you were pursuing, but it is the truth — like it or not.  We don’t happen to like it much and wish this were a different world where people were more to be trusted.  95% of our customers are, in fact, trustworthy.  It’s just a very limited few that take negative advantage of the technology.  They often cause all the trouble for the rest of us.

At any rate, thanks for communicating — and most of all, thanks for listening.

All the best,

Peter Link
CEO & Creative Director
Watchfire Music
peterlink@watchfiremusic.com

Poem by Peter Link

You can’t sell imagination in jars.
So what?
It’s already ours.

You can’t buy it in a box
Or learn it in the school of hard knocks

You won’t find it in the attic
Or in any way limited to just the aristocratic
Nor is it in any way idiosyncratic
It’s just a blessing to us all

Call it a gift from God
A flight of fancy
The quixotic muse of the heart
The mythic invention of wishful thinking
A fantastical work of art

An ingenious moment of genius
The conceive of make-believe
The romance that burns between yus
The extravagant dream we weave

Michaelangelo, the sculptor
Really got it right
He looked beyond the eyes
Beyond what the eyes could see
He saw the angel in the marble
And carved until he set her free.

Imagination was the key
And the door opened wide
To the treasures of the mind
That lie inside

Imagination!
Mind’s eye to the world of make-believe
The most wondrous of inventions
Designed to make the world believe
What we perceive

Imagination!
The rising of the curtain
On creative mind
The visionary’s chance
To define the undefined
And leave the world of physicality behind

Imagination …
The chance to stand in God’s shoes
And schmooze with the Muse
And fabricate a world
Out of nothing

Those who war are responsible.  Those who greed are responsible, for greed makes war.  Those who ignore are responsible.  We as a human race must take action and raise our collective consciousness up past the point where this act is impossible.

So far we have known better than to start nuclear war.  If we know better on this issue, we can know better than to ever have a repeat of Newtown, CT.  How many school shootings do we have to bear before we as a people get it?

It’s not a matter of putting more locks on the school doors; it’s a matter of raising consciousness.

But I start with myself.  So what am I going to do about it?  “It” — the most shocking act of my lifetime.  What have I done to be a part of this?  What can I do going forward to heal my grief, your grief, the grief of a nation – the shame of mankind?

I can live better, that’s what.  I can speak up and not stand for this!  We talk about gun control.  Gun Control!  We must abolish them altogether.  As a race, forget they ever existed!  Melt them down into plowshares.  They have no purpose.  Limit them to the “sport” of killing animals?  Bah!  Get another hobby.

But it’s so much more than just guns; it’s a great mistake of the human consciousness.  If we can’t overcome these notions of killing each other then we as a human race deserve to be wiped out one day.  And if that happens then we as a human race will have done it to ourselves.

Newtown, CT must be our call to action – the action of consciousness.  What do we carry each moment in consciousness?  What are we conscious of?

Raise consciousness.  I need to do whatever I can in my life, to do my part, to live more and more in the purity of thought.  To enforce a higher consciousness wherever and whenever I can.  To take a mighty stand, in whatever way possible, for the goodness and purity of thought.  And I/we must start today, right now.

Not just pray for the grieving.  That is not enough.  We must raise the consciousness of the world – through prayer, through good deeds, through sacrifice, through our thinking.

For we are all responsible.

He then began to talk to two African-American women sitting beneath him – one a pretty and sweet looking woman in her 30s sitting with probably her mother.  Because he was so drunk he began falling all over them.  They were obviously bothered by this and were leaning the other way so as to not be touched by this man.

One learns to pretty much to mind one’s own business in the NY subways – the dangers being obvious, but this continued intermittently for several minutes.  People were watching, but nobody was moving to help.

I stood up and walked down the car to the doorway where the man was now bothering the ladies again and heard the drunk blubber, “Aw c’mon Shweetie, I thought you was my frien’?”  The younger one and closest to him responded, “OK, we’re friends, Mister, but you have to stay at arm’s length.”

At that she held out her arm and held him gently away as he staggered and tried to keep from falling across their laps.

I watched his hands.  I just wanted to make sure he was not carrying any kind of weapon.

He moved to them again, leaning far across both their laps, barely still standing.  “Aw please, I thought we was friends.”

I took a deep breath, stepped forward, and grabbed on to the same pole he was holding onto and placed my right hand gently on his shoulder.  He straightened up groggily, surprised, and looked at me menacingly with bloodshot eyes and breath that could fill the bottle right back up.

I said calmly, “Hey buddy, you’re my friend.  Don’t you remember?  She’s my friend too and I think you’re a little confused.  You and me are the ones who are friends.”

In his drunken stupor he was now, in fact, very confused.  He looked at me questioningly and asked, “Do I know you?”  I answered, “Yeah, remember we got on the subway together.”  He groggily tried to recollect.

I then asked him, “What’s your name again?”  He mumbled, “Pedro.”  I laughed and smiled at him, “Yeah, I’m Pedro too … remember?  Let’s move over here and finish our conversation.”

At that I steered him to the pole on the other side of the door away from the two grateful ladies, their eyes flashing relieved ‘thank yous.’  On the other side of the door sat a large African-American man in his late 30s who had been watching the encounter along with most of the people at our end of the car.  Pedro’s attention was now completely off the ladies as he tried mightily to recall our long-lasting friendship.

Suddenly the train came into the station and to a stop.  I looked out and it was my stop.  I had to go.  I said quickly as the doors opened, “Hey Pedro, here’s another friend” (indicating the African-American man).  Now Pedro was really confused, but the African-American man stood up.  He was about 6’5” tall and loomed over both of us.  He said, “I got it from here, Mister.  Thanks.”

I got off the train and moved on, leaving all my newfound friends behind.

I climbed the subway station stairs and moved out onto the street where it was cold, rainy and now beginning to get icy.  I thought back on the experience and breathed a sigh of relief at how smooth it had all gone.  Handling the situation lovingly had totally disarmed the threat and confused the negative intentions.

I got my bearings and began to walk to my student’s apartment.  I had only walked half a block and was moving down the sidewalk past a Christmas tree stand when, lost in thought, my feet became suddenly tangled in some wire mesh from the unwrapped Christmas trees that had blown out onto the sidewalk.

Suddenly I was falling forward.  All in the same moment I knew that I was in real trouble.  My feet were hopelessly tangled, the sidewalk was slick and I was going down flat on my face onto the concrete.  My hands went out to break the fall, but I knew my reaction was not in time.  My head was going to hit first and the rest of my body was flat out in the air.  Here it comes!

An arm suddenly flashed under my chest, catching me, holding me.  A Spanish man, standing by the newsstand on the left with his family had watched me fall and in that instant reached out and caught me at the last second.  We both went down to the sidewalk in a heap, but he had broken my fall.  Neither of us was hurt.  He had saved me.

I jumped up and helped him up saying, “Thank you, oh thank you!”  His wife came forward to support him.  I thanked her, I thanked the kids, I thanked him again profusely and walked on thanking God.

This all happened about two minutes after I had left the subway.

It’s a New York Melting Pot story if there ever was one …

What goes around comes around.

I was surprised to see an audience full of young people following this group because the group looks “old.”  The rock and roll, drug induced, no sleep lifestyle unfortunately does not produce baby faces and ever-young images.

The kids in the audience were having a ball though, and I was glad to see that groups like the Stones, Metallica and AC/DC were still happinin’ and appreciated.  After all, these are the guys that had a large hand in creating rock and roll to begin with.

The stage was replete with today’s necessary light show, fireworks and other pyrotechnic effects, and number after number went by projecting basically the same theme over and over – Hell, fire and brimstone, the devil and all things dark and spitting from the center of the earth.

Probably the typical message of many bands preaching to teenagers revolting from too much parentally enforced Sunday School.

As I watched, enjoying the power of the music, I began to tire of the same theme over and over.  They had given out little red devil’s horns for everyone in the audience to wear and even some of the musicians in the band wore them  — actually rather dopey and goofy looking …

I began to wonder, “What is this really all about?”  Devil worship?  Revolution from the good old straight and narrow?  Even worse, some sort of pagan ritual played out on a Saturday night?

The band, and especially the lead singer, screamed constantly the same message and the stage effects backed it all up, but then I began to look deeper at the whole scene.  The audience was simply having fun.  They were smiling, joyful, singing along, all standing throughout — they in their little red devil horns were one of the happiest groups of 20,000 I’d seen in a long time.

That’s when I saw that it was all a game.  These weren’t devil worshipers; these were Jerry and Tommy and Martha from down the street.  They were good kids just out rockin’ to the music, havin’ a blast and actually laughing in the face of the devil.  There was no voodoo fear of evil in this audience.  It was far more comic book than the poison scrolls of Sodom.

There was no devil present – only the joy of music and dancing, humanity together out havin’ fun and celebrating the energies of life.

Oh to quibble, perhaps the subject matter might have been more wholesome or even a bit deeper in content.  But it was certainly a lot better that the rest of television and its murder, mayhem and blatant and consequently boring sexuality.  The concert was not boring, whereas most of TV is with its toilet humor, 1000 killings a night and repetitious plot.

OK, you get the idea.

Anyway, I moved on past the concert after a while because it too finally became boring in its repetition, but I felt a lot better about our American culture.

When I first turned on to the concert one of my first thoughts watching it all was, “No wonder we’re so hated by the people in the Middle East and other parts of the world.?  If they showed this in Iran, I could see that we, as a people, could definitely be misunderstood.  Then I saw through the Halloween mask into the happy faces of the kids out on a Saturday night laughin’ at the devil.  It was all so innocent.

I surfed on, smiling …

Finally, being unsuccessful in letting the thoughts go and the cramp worsening, I got up, put my robe on, and left the bedroom so as not to disturb my sleeping wife.

I began to first hobble groggily, then walk through the living room, kitchen, hallway, circling through my apartment praying and stretching as the pain and tension subsided.  I walked for about 10 minutes until my mind cleared and the pain went away.

On what was to be my last lap I suddenly stopped in the middle of the living room rug as I contemplated both mental condition and body and this thought came searing through my brain: We are the inventions of a far greater mind. 

I began to think once again about what a wondrous invention my body is and how it has really very little to do with me.  I didn’t create it, I don’t understand it, I don’t really maintain it, it even appears, at times, to be self healing, etc., etc. – thoughts I’ve had all to often of late.

I walked on …

I began to imagine a man sitting somewhere in another dimension, an alien from outer space perhaps, ;o) certainly a mind far greater than my own feeble flutterings, perhaps working on a hobby like a person might build a ship in a bottle.

This mind or ‘man’ or ‘woman’ or ‘being’ decides, in its spare time, to occupy his giant brain by building a universe and placing in the middle of that universe a fascinating little ball of matter called Planet Earth.

Then being bored with this universe thing, he (or she) decides to populate it with little beings – all different, with these fascinating micro bodies that are splendid inventions of technology …

You get the idea.

After about the tenth additional lap, my mind whirring, my pace quickening, my imagination running rampant considering the adventures of my newfound friend and creator, I suddenly stopped – actually at the same place on the living room rug where this all began.

“That’s God” came the thought.

Perhaps you saw this right from the beginning, but I hadn’t.  It was a total surprise to me and, well … a revelation.

We are inventions of a far greater mind.

Does the metaphor of the story play out perfectly?  Perhaps; perhaps not.  It is, after all, just a metaphor.  I don’t believe that God is a space alien and of late I don’t even believe in a God that is a He or a She, but rather an It.  Star Wars “The Force” often comes to mind as a good one, and, when pressed, I’m most satisfied with Love or even The Allness of Goodness.

I’m pretty clear that our English language hasn’t yet come up with the words or a better word than “God.”

But going along, for a moment here, with my rampant imagination’s metaphor the other night, I had to ask myself if there was really a ‘thing’ like a body containing this Mind that did the inventing.  After all, why should the Allness of Mind have to be housed in anything, any form of container?  How can the All in all be contained?

And are we something that my friend, the creator, just imagined or did he actually build us there in his study late at night in his alone time while his wife and children slept?

Am I and my body just his imagination at work, or did he actually get out his tweezers and box of nanobot clay and begin to construct?

I once took a beautiful autumn red leaf to my spiritual teacher and asked him, “Who created this leaf?”  His explanation to me was that God was the designer, but not the builder – this too a metaphor.  But the explanation sufficed.  God is the architect, but not the contractor.

It’s His dream, His imagination at work.  I really have very little to say in it all.  I am here just to reflect His wishes, His imaginations.

The thoughts centered me.  They healed me.  They seemed to have put me in my place.  They stripped away the pressures of my life and gave me a completely new perspective on life.  They gave me distance and allowed me to see things from a different angle.

I was not in control.  He is.

I wrote down that central thought and it’s sat here on my desk for several days now to remind me …

We are inventions of a far greater mind.