Moments of Grace
In his book Soul Moments, Phil Cousineau writes that
“an experience of synchronicity is a soul moment, an electrifying experience,
as sudden as a visitation by a god, a palpable inrush of grace and power, one
of the defining moments in life, a sudden conviction that we might move beyond
fate and realize a hint of our destiny.”
I’ve experienced
many meaningful coincidences in my life, and I can attest to these same
emotions, which I explored in my twin soul book The Merciful Law of Divine Synchronicity; but I’ve also experienced
moments of grace when I’m in the presence of someone special, someone whose
fate is closely aligned with their destiny and is more himself or herself than
most people. My neighbor is such a person, and I wrote a poem to capture a
moment of grace that I experienced with him one day last spring:
Lunch with a Friend
I
stopped in just to say hello to my friend
and
neighbor who had come up from Toronto
to his
cozy cottage in Georgian Bay that he
had built
with his own hands. Born in Calabria
where I
came from with my family when I
was
five, Tony and I made wine together last
summer
and shared it over the winter and
spring,
and we’ll be making wine again in
the new season,
and when I dropped in from
my bike
ride he was roasting some lamb on
his
barbeque, along with mushrooms and
red
peppers, and he invited me to lunch with
him and Maria
whose husband died of cancer
a few years
ago. My friend’s wife dropped
dead of
a heart attack while building the cottage,
and
after five or six years of a bad relationship
with a
Sicilian widow who couldn’t control her
drinking,
he met Maria at a wedding reception
for a
mutual Italian acquaintance, and now
they
live together for companionship as many
widows
often do, which took their children
time to
get used to; and with each passing year
they
grow more intimate and respectful of each
other’s
quirks and habits and even laugh at
them now
in front of me. Lunch was a simple
feast of
love of food and sharing, an Italian
custom
like no other, and I had to politely stop
Maria
four or five times from over-serving me,
reminding
her of my mother saying to guests
at our
family table, “Manga, manga.” I loved
the freshly-picked
asparagus risotto with the
barbequed
lamb, large-capped mushrooms,
and long
red peppers, and the simple lettuce
salad
with salt and pepper and oil and vinegar
dressing,
and crusty Calabrese bread just like
my
mother used to make every Wednesday
morning
to soak up all the juices from my plate,
and a glass
of red wine to toast our lunch and
friendship;
and, what I really enjoyed because
Penny
and I don’t drink it at home, a tiny cup
of
espresso coffee with a drop of Anisette and
a tiny
spoonful of sugar, and after lunch Tony
and I
sat in his garage with the door wide open
soaking
up the spring sun and talking, I mostly
listening
to his life story, wishing that my father
had been
as adaptive and resourceful, and I
couldn’t
have asked for a nicer neighbor in
our new
home in Georgian Bay.
Life is for living,
which my neighbor did in full, always doing something to keep himself busy;
that’s how he grew in his own identity, forever initiating the natural process
of self-individuation by doing, doing, and more doing. That’s why he loves his
cottage.
If he wasn’t in
his garage working on something (he loves to collect things by the side of the
road that cottagers put out, old barbeques, lawnmowers, snow blowers, tables,
cabinets, whatever and clean them up and fix them if they were fixable), or
tending to his garden, mowing the lawn (for years he mowed the lawn for two or
three cottagers), or building (closing in his back deck, putting in a washroom
in his basement, shingling his shed, helping his children renovate their homes
and doing little jobs for friends, myself included, always finding something to
work on), foraging mushrooms every fall, making tomato sauce with Maria in August,
and wine in September, always doing, doing, doing.
And in doing, Tony
grew in gnostic wisdom. That’s why he loved to quote proverbs and sayings (all Italian),
which astounded me for their relevance, telling me that he had lived through
the experience and confirmed the proverb or saying that he quoted. Hardly ever
did we have a conversation that he did not quote an old Italian proverb or
saying, and I marvelled at his gnostic wisdom. That’s why I loved talking with
him, and why one day this summer when I saw him in his garage working on
something I dropped in to say hello.
I had just
finished my morning writing and was out for a bike ride when I dropped in, but
after fifteen minutes of talking I attempted to leave several times but he kept
on talking, and I willing gave in and said, “Tony, why don’t we ask Maria to
make us a cup of coffee?”
His face lit up
and we went into the house for one of those tiny Italian cups of espresso, which
I love with Anisette, but Maria was preparing lunch and they invited me to join
them, which I did for Tony’s sake but did not partake because I had already
eaten.
Maria of course
insisted, but I lied and told her that I had scrambled a couple of eggs with
ricotta cheese and was full (actually, I only had toast and peanut butter)
because I didn’t want to give them the impression I had conveniently dropped in
for something to eat; but just in case I changed my mind, Maria put a plate in
front of me, and Tony poured us a glass of wine and we talked, again me mostly
listening because Tony needed my company, and at some point, while Tony was
flavoring his pasta dish with just the right amount of salt, ground chili, and Reggiano
Parmigiano), I felt a quiet and unexpected moment of miraculous grace, and
tears came to my eyes, and I listened to Tony tell me the story of when he
first came to Canada and was working out of town and he and two fellow workers
went to a restaurant for dinner and he refused to eat his pasta dish because it
was overcooked, but one of his fellow workers explained to the waitress that he
was too polite to tell her that it was overcooked and she took his plate and
brought him a new plate of fresh pasta to Tony’s liking, and then—gosh, I wish
I could remember it, he quoted another Italian saying that captured the gnostic
wisdom of his experience, and I was blessed with another infusion of grace and
more tears came to my eyes, and then we had a tiny cup of espresso (Tony liked
his straight, with no sugar or Anisette), and when I felt that he was
sufficiently sated, I excused myself and continued with my bike ride; but my blessed
moment of grace lingered all day…
How does one
explain these blessed moments? What do they mean? I’ve experienced many such
moments of grace, especially with children who are full of joy and innocence, and
the more I thought about it the more I saw that infusions of grace are the
fruit of our individual gnostic way, which unbeknown to us will open us up to
the creative life force that nourishes our soul to grow in its divine nature.
That’s how life satisfies the longing in our soul for wholeness and completeness,
and it’s all commensurate with the values that we live by, of which I have
found the virtue of goodness to be the most rewarding; but again, moments of
grace are a mystery which have to be experienced to be appreciated.
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