Memorial Day

Since childhood Memorial Day has been a special family celebration. Although the holiday was launched to pay respects to those who gave their lives in war, for many it was expanded to give honor and to remember all of our ancestors.

Each year it has been our family’s tradition to take flowers out to all the gravesites in the area that was first settled in the mid to late 1800s. My great grandfather moved onto undeveloped land covered only my rock and sagebrush, built his tent and walked five miles round trip to the river, with a yoke and buckets, to get water for drinking, watering his fruit trees and washing. He knew the irrigation canal would arrive in a couple of years, so he endured; bringing his new wife to his tent home in January, a cold and dismal time of the year. He and many of his progeny are buried in an ancient cemetery that overlooks that same Yakima River he had walked to everyday in those early years.

Now, at a time when there is so much looking forward to what is coming in a rapidly changing world, it is good to take time to look back, and honor those who gave so much for their families and securing a better future. In relative terms, we live in such prosperous times, thanks to those core principles that were in the hearts and minds of so many of the past, and it would be good to emulate many of those now.

“A man is a good as his word,” was taken very seriously where I grew up. Far more importantly than a person’s social status or ethnicity was his integrity. That you were slow to borrow money, and you paid it back as soon as you could was highly valued; and you did not leave a debt unpaid. You worked hard, often from early sun to late in the day, and during harvest time you may go as long light was available; for crops ready to harvest would not wait. Prayer was done quietly, but seriously. The town I grew up in was once in the Guinness World records as having the most churches per population.

These are some of the lessons that were all around me when growing up. I honor those who have gone before, worked hard, was honest in their dealings with their fellow man and in general strove to live good lives. Of course there were plenty of heartbreaks along the way, those who did not live according to those high principles, and plenty of “characters” who added color and liveliness to the landscape.

As in any family there is plenty of pain that has been handed down. We have all been recipients of a pretty rough couple of thousand years in which man’s inhumanity to man has been atrocious. Wars, famines, and cruelty, both institutionally and personally left little room for many to be even aware that there might be a better, higher way to Self-realization. However, there have always been those who have risen above their times.

And this leads to another area in which to honor ancestors, of a different type. Spiritually kindred spirits will many times be as important, and even more so, than blood relationships in our lives. I would not have had physical incarnation was it not for my human mother and father, and I would not have had my spiritual birth if not for Mother Hamilton and our succession of para-param gurus. The second could not be without the first birth, but the second, the spiritual birth, is the more important.

I lay the flowers of devotion upon the “markers” of the gurus spiritually enlightened lives, those markers is the spiritual Light they brought into this world; for this I am so truly grateful. I bow at their feet in love and adoration, now and for all time. And to you, my spiritual family, I join with you in the celebration of the great gift given to us by these luminary giants that make us kindred spirits with the deepest bonds of love and the profound desire to rise up to the Light of lights where all sorrow is resolved in bliss and understanding. Ever in God Christ Gurus, Yogacharya David.

MotherDavidbyLorraine2

Happy Mother’s Day

everest_double_fragrance-600I want to wish all mothers a special blessing of love and gratitude. Without mothers this human race would vanish! By going into the jaws of death to bring forth new life a mother only begins her journey of motherhood. And there is an even greater role of all mothers, of all women, and that is each one is a manifestation of the Divine Mother. So, to all women, I bow at your feet in love and gratitude for your unique contributions as expressions of beloved Divine Mother.

I thought I would send this excerpt of a talk from Mother that is sure to put a smile on your face:

 

MOTHER”S DAY
by The Reverend Mother, Yogacharya M. Hamilton

May 13, 1979

I want to thank all of you for your prayers for me. As you know, I didn’t have my surgery. But I think it was your prayers that kept me from having it because, obviously, I was in no condition to have it. And if it hadn’t been for the prayers I might not have known that. The surgery is scheduled for next Friday, so I’ll appreciate your continuing them.

I want to read to you this morning, because it’s Mother’s Day, “A Mother’s Prayer”.

“Dear Lord, please help me understand my four boys, not including my husband.

“Dear Lord, that means five adolescents, including my husband.

“Dear Lord, please help me teach my sons how to stand on their own two feet and at the same time not step on somebody else’s toes. And help me appease four different kinds of appetite at each meal. And help me find a ready cure for acne so that everybody in the house can eat chocolate cake the same year. And help me serve a main course at dinner my sons have not had at school for lunch that day. And help my husband give them a smack when it’s called for instead of an increase in allowance.

“Dear Lord, please help me not to hear so much, see so much and say so much. And help me not to correct so much. And help somebody invent a hi-fi that will play so loud and no louder. And help my boys talk about something besides baseball because I can’t have Tallulah Bankhead for dinner with them every night. And help find a way for them to learn their piano lesson in only ten minutes of practice a day. And help me once in awhile have my hair cut instead of pulling it. And help hand-me-downs fit somebody after being in the closet three years.

“Dear Lord, please help me to explain to Jeff that he does not have to approve of the girls Warren and George take out. And help me remember to buy name tapes. And help me have the patience to sew them on. And help me talk softly and carry a big layer cake. And help me find a dessert that is not bad for weight, skin and teeth and that all my sons will like the same night. And help me find a dress that all my five men and I will like.

“Dear Lord, please make geometry go away. And please help me understand space, even if there is none in my closets. And help my boys find girls someday who are good enough for them even though I won’t think so at the time. And help Fordman Law School teach George as much about Blackstone as he now knows about Spinks Baseball Guide. And help Columbia University teach Warren there is something else in the world besides the theater and music. And help Jeffrey believe that giving up catsup, at least for breakfast, will improve his chances for becoming a bullfighter. And help Douglas at twelve feel like sixteen. Me, too.

“Dear Lord, please accept my thanks for giving my boys a sense of humor, if it is often at my expense – which is too expensive. And thank you for George’s liking Wallstreet quotations and not the drums. And thank you for Warren’s liking the piano and not the drums. And thank you for Jeffrey’s liking the guitar and not the drums. And thank you for Douglas’ liking science and not the drums.

“Dear Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you for my husband and for giving us four sons. Dear Lord.”

[Laughter.] I had to share that with you. It’s beautiful.

 

 

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