The Ole Man With The Red Cane
This was my third encounter with the ole man with a red cane. My first he left me understanding that life has no special meaning but it exist, so by its mere existence it is meaning. Then on the second sighting I watched him from a distance and recalled a poem by Yeats, Old Men Admiring Themselves By The Sea and the chilling line, all things beautiful must fade away...
This is a cool morning for May, but bright with hues of sunrise peering from the horizon. There he was...sitting on the shore by the sea on the small inlet of Matanzas Bay. I approached him quietly and found my space not far from his and sat in silence as we both felt the sun on our face. The silence between us was like an old friend. I felt his brief glance and in his familiar voice, he asked, "Are you the pilgrim that disturbed my peace?"
He remembered me and our first awkward encounter as I apologized for my intrusion of invading his quiet moment of grace. "I am that pilgrim, kind sir," I replied. "Seems another apology is in order."
"Found your peace pilgrim?", he questioned.
"At times, I am honored by its presence, but always looking for its return. I would even go and visit if I knew where It resides." I was not pleased with my response and felt my response may have put him off a bit, but he quickly responded. "Seems it resides in thin places for us all, like where the visible and the invisible comes to their closest proximity...where the sky meets the ocean. To seek such places is the vocation of the wise and the good and for those that find them, well...the clearest communication between the temporal and eternal."
"And sir," I asked, "do thin places reside in other than the temporal, for I sense the beauty of peace in this sunrise and even where the river meets the mountains?"
Resting his arm on that red cane, he turned and in the gleam of his kind eyes he replied, "But perhaps the ultimate of these thin places in the human condition are the experiences we are likely to have as we encounter suffering, joy and mystery? Maybe pilgrim, just maybe."
He gave me a glance and a smile, silence between us as we watched the sun break the horizon, felt the gentle breeze as the tide changed its course, the sound of the sea birds as they made their morning search for mooring and the distant sound of the bells at St Mary's. Without a word he stood and made his slow walk down the beach and I heard him say, " find your peace with it all pilgrim." I watched until his frail figure disappeared around the bend from my sight.
There was a thin place between us this morning. Where the sky touched the ocean with its color of blue. The kiss on my face as the sun cast its warm glow, and yes, the the thin space of our conversation as his words transformed my visible peace to the experience of invisible peace we all share in our human condition.
Find your Peace with it all...
Thank you my friend with the red cane.
Ego, my friends call me Doc
