I hadn’t seen my dear friend Fred Lansford in many a moon (living on opposite sides of the globe will do that) and I didn’t expect to see him at all on the last day I ever did.

Fred & I had stayed in touch via phone & email whenever my work took me back to Germany, and we had always made plans to see each other at least once every time I was blessed to return to Chattanooga … and last year was no different in this regard.

Still, the last time I saw Fred was at a Saturday presentation I was offering on “radical Kindness”, and I hadn’t expected to see him there that morning at all — having assumed that we would get together for some sharing of tea & gentle Wisdom (Fred’s specialty) on some other day thereafter.

And yet there he was — smiling gently as he slowly entered the room and sat down across from me. My, how I Loved that man, and what an amazing tribute to Humanity he was, with his soft words and insightful thoughts and Kind deeds …

Anyway, after the presentation was over I gave Fred a deep hug and told him that I Loved him — and he hugged me back and told me the same. And this was more than a Good Thing, for I found out a short time thereafter that Fred had passed onward the very next day.

And so it was that I found myself thinking of Fred this morning, and missing him a bit, and wanting so much to share with each of you even a small portion of the Great Goodness that he had shared with me …

I have faith that this poem from Fred is a Good-enough start in that more-than-Good direction … Peace.

……………..

QUESTIONS (I hold in my Heart)

If up from dust and back again
the small and large are played,
and yet-to-be and what-has-been
are each on each so laid
that aging rocks of fire and clay
were formed ere age of man,
what phantom force then shapes the way
this cycle spins its span?

Do whim and fancy rule the day
and every toss and turn
of these upon the interplay
of destine discern
that we within life’s mystery
are children all of chance?
If so, what force in history
composed such happenstance?

Is there not yet a harmony
of notes in nature’s scale
that plays a higher symphony
than our best thoughts entail?
And plays it on with grand accord
of never-ending rhyme
while still we falter with the chord
we choose to call ‘our time?’

Where now the ride of Babylon?
The might of ancient Rome?
Were these not once the paragon
of worldly man’s aplomb?
What arrogance, what secret schemes
would make our dreams come true?
Is watching wanderings of our dreams
the most that we can do?

While still we wade through knowledge deep
and “Chance made it so.”
does not old wisdom know we sleep
and smile on us below,
while nature in her seasoned way
keeps on in outer space
to there some grander rhythm play
that holds our world in place?

Can we not gaze at stars above
and see beyond those spheres
a higher force whose order of’
some countess billion years
was formed as law so long ago
to keep stars in the skies
where still they sweep in spirals so
before our wondering eyes?

Does truth not throughout history
still ever seek within
to clear away the mystery
and so let us begin
to know the Source we seek without
is found within each soul
despite the ways so round about
we take to reach that goal?

Is there not still an ancient cry
that destiny of man
is not to rule, nor be ruled by
a greater Power than
the love that is within us turned
to know what some call God?

So as we love, so have we learned,
and paths to Oneness trod.

~ Fred Lansford

Filed under: Peace-full Poetry by Scaughdt