Day 088a: Remaining behind & Moving on … (July 11, 2019)
Emma, purportedly enamored by my Message of selfless love, had invited me to not only stay overnight in her hostel but to remain for another full day in town as well – while she attempted to arrange a few places for me to offer my presentation on Re-Discovering Peace to the surrounding community. Now I knew that pilgrims aren’t really the best-suited audience for that message (pilgrims being, by nature, often far too self-fixated upon their own “salvation” or “awakening” or “enlightenment” or “cleansing” to be able to truly Hear the greater summons to a life of joyful self-sacrifice) and as such I didn’t harbor any hopes or expectations related to these planned presentations. And yet it was an honor to be asked by Emma to share the same nonetheless. In addition, accepting that request had kept me in town for an extra day; an occurrence which ended up allowing a large handful of the pilgrim friends from my more recent Pilgrim Families to catch up with me and see each other again – with Mate proving to be one of the same. He had arrived in town the previous late-afternoon, had sought me out in town, had found me quite easily, had chatted with me for awhile, and then had made plans to meet me for a coffee on this next-day early morning before he headed back out onto The Road. And so it was that I rose after 9+ hours of deep & refreshing sleep, and so it was that we did indeed meet for that early morning coffee, and so it was that I was able once again to wish him a heartfelt fare-well as he walked off into that day …
“Wherever people gather for selfless ends – whether activists along a cause or pilgrims along a path , there is a vast augmentation of their individual capacities. Something wonderful, something momentous happens in all these encounters of togetherness. An irresistible force begins to move – empowered by our mutual regard and escalated by our mutual love, which, though we may not ever clearly see it, always alters & improves our world.” ~ inspired by Eknath Easwaran
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