Archive for November 2006
What would the world be like if Abel had known Aikido?
Cain said to Abel, his brother, “Let’s go into the field.” It happened when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him.
Genesis 4:8
What if it had gone down like this instead:
Cain said to Abel, his brother, “Let’s go into the field.” It happened when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and tried to hit him atop his head with his gardener’s rake . However, Abel being the first Aikido initiate, slid to his left, completed a beautiful tachi dori; taking the rake into his hands and sending Cain onto his stomach in the grasses.
Where would we be? How long until another person had tried to kill his brother, or his neighbor, or just some random guy in a field?
Maybe Abel would have walked home behind Cain, holding his brothers weapon in one hand while keeping his other hand on Cain’s shoulder as they talked about their problems? If they could have had that chance to talk it out, to find out why Cain was upset, why he was so jealous with the sweet bounty of the fatted calf that Abel had laid out before Yahweh.
Would they had talked long enough to figure out that Yahweh was only messing with them? Maybe he was only trying to make Cain mad just to see what would happen? Perhaps Yahweh thought it would be funny to make the brothers argue. I wonder if he felt guilty when Cain killed Abel?
Not sure how I can put this in terms that will do justice to the really awesome deep thoughts I am having today. But here goes.
I was driving in to the office this morning, my commute should normally take around 30 minutes, less if it is in the middle of the night and there is zero traffic, more in the morning as every other Joe drives in beside me, and I was thinking about all of the cars around me. I see many of these cars day after day. I see the people in them sometimes too: the cute blond girl who is always on the cell phone while she is still putting on her mascara, the angry guy driving his work van and chain smoking - throwing red hot cherry after cherry from the cracked window. I see the soccer mom with the stickers on the rear window, proudly displaying the names and jersey numbers of her three kids.
All of that to say this: who are these people. We are joined together somehow, we are driving the same roads, living in the same city, moving in the same direction day after day. Do they have other impact on my life? Maybe the soccer mom knows my wife somehow? Maybe the angry guy in the van will help me on the side of the road one day? Who knows.
I was in San Diego years ago and I met a family that lived in the same small town where I had grown up. They lived just blocks from my parents and I had never met them back home. But in this seemingly random location, a fast food place near the base, they notice my shirt and ask if I was from Oklahoma.
I tell them I am from a little town they have never heard of, they laugh that I wont know where they are from either and then in the conversation we learn that we live blocks from each other. I grew up one street away and never knew them; but I meet them 1100 miles from where I could have met them in my own backyard.
Connected. Timing. Oneness.
Distance closes and then you become familiar with people and places you didn’t ever think you would happen across.
I have a friend that I have known for almost five years now. We could have met a long time ago, as we had many mutual friends and acquaintances but somehow the timing just never fell in to place. Once we finally met it was not through any of the people we knew in common, it was work related and then we slowly figured out just how many people we knew together.
I like that. Kind of like we are all just threads on a tapestry. Sometimes those threads come close to other threads, combine for new colors and patterns and then move away again, to become yet more patterns and colors. Or maybe more like we are all leaves on the same tree. We touch when the wind blows, we grow close to some leaves, further away from others. But, we are still on the same tree.
Coincidence: I don’t really believe in coincidences at all… I know most people think that getting a phone call from a person that they are thinking about is just dumb-luck, but I don’t. I know that wondering what someone is doing and suddenly they walk in to your office, or call or send you a little email - just because. I think that on some level they could feel you, or you them, or something and then one or both of you reached out to the other.
Any way, it just makes me think about the feeling you get when you know you are about to hit the home run, or you just feel that you have got the other guy where he needs to be to put him on the ground in the dojo.
Where does it come from? From inside of you? From externally, from the universe?
In the mystical Asian martial arts there is the concept of chi, qi or ki energy. I am no sensei, not a guru nor a Lama, but I will try to define it in my own terms.
Chi is that force which makes your lungs fill with breath. It is what keeps your thoughts you as you move from one moment to the next. It is the space between your notions, the weight within your soul and the strength in your grasp, all at the same time. I also think it is the thread that binds us all together. The gossamer strand that links you and I, links me to my children to my family, friends and also every person, plant and animal that ever was or will be.
I know that sounds kinda out there, but bear with me another minute.Modern science can not measure chi, so in my book modern science should neither acknowledge nor deny that chi exists. However today we fly above the clouds, look in to the middle of the Milky Way and speak to others in distant places with this merest of thoughts (keyboards and cell phone required). All of these would have seemed like magic two hundred years ago.
See, some things are magic…
Stop, close your eyes, relax. Tell yourself to be quiet as you inhale, and then tell yourself to relax as you exhale. Allow your thoughts to grow still and then reach out again, touch someone you feel close to. Think about your mom, a friend, your wife; who ever. Send then your thoughts, your love, your ‘you-ness’.
You might be surprised.
