URGENT!

A few days ago I received this email from my friends in the Fresh Air Fund ministry. I have decided to literally copy it so its freshness and urgency becomes clear as a trumpet sound in the ears of those who could read these lines and feel their heart inclined to “pitch in” in such worthy activities and opening of their homes´ generosity.


Hi, Emilio: I haven't reached out to you in a few months, but I wanted to let you know that The Fresh Air Fund is again in need of host families for this summer, to place these wonderful children into a loving host family for up to two weeks of a fresh air experience they will never forget.

I've put together a new social media release, so please feel free to use any of the images, graphics, banners,

or copy:

http://freshairfundhost.org

Your efforts can help a child have an experience that will change their life! Thank you so much, Sara

I decided so because, while reading the email, some words from Facundo Cabral, the Argentinean singer and composer, began to resound again in my ears.

It had been some time since I received the Powerpoint message that I transformed into a video, and from time to time I have watched meditating in the profundity of its words.

But now they seem so appropriate to these many children in need of something new and fresh in their lives as some fun time in hospitable homes among loving people could be.

Facundo Cabral, with his profound and grave voice that has been in so many scenarios of this world, tells us:

Urgently… is the poorest way to live in this world,
because, you know, the day we leave it,
we leave behind (pending) the things
that were really urgent.

Urgent is that you stop in your tiring Life´s pace;
to ask yourself what it really is
all these things that you do.

Urgent is for you to be a better friend,
a better human, a better brother.

Urgent, is for you to value the time a child, boy or girl,
are asking from you.


Could we have any doubt what a wonderful gift to ourselves

as well as to those children could be opening our homes

to as many of them we could accommodate?

If you find it so. Rush and check the link:

http://freshairfundhost.org

and enjoy a remarkable and unforgettable time this year!

Additionally, enjoy, too, the video I was telling you about, whose text is clearly impactant as well as the biography of this so universally known singer and composer of so many moving songs about life and need to overcome circumstances that I will summarize at the end.

Just think. How many undiscovered geniuses could be found among this presently dispossessed children? and what a joy could be ours if we were part of their awakening to their life´s potentials?

Let´s meditate on his words!

Urgent!

For you, who always live life at a vertiginous pace…
I want to remind you
that the most important thing you have in life,
is you and all those who surround you.
And remember…

Urgent, is a word we live with, day in and day out,
in our frenzied life,
but one we have lost, already,
all its significance of hurriedness
and priority.

Urgently, is the poorest way to live in this world,
because, you know, the day we leave it,
we leave behind (pending)
the things that were really urgent.

Urgent is that you stop in your tiring Life´s pace;
to ask yourself what it really is
all these things that you do.

Urgent is for you to be a better friend,
a better human, a better brother.

Urgent, is for you to value the time a child,
boy or girl, are asking from you.

Urgent, is for you to impregnate yourself with the sun´s warmth,

every morning you contemplate a sunrise,
and then give thanks to the Lord
for this magnificent gift.

Urgent, is for you to see your family,
your children, spouse, and everyone around you,
and value that marvelous treasure.

Urgent, is for you to tell the people you love, today,
not tomorrow, how much you love them.

Urgent, is for you to know you are a son of God,
and realize that He loves you and wants to see you
smiling, and full of energies.

Urgent, is for you that life does not flies away in a second,
and when you look back,
already an older person
who cannot make time retrace its tracks,
realize that you did everything
hurriedly urgently.

Being a great businessman, a great artist,
a great professional, who filled your agenda
with urgent dates, projects,
but after all, the most important,
forgot to LIVE!

BIOGRAPHY

Facundo Cabral is an Argentinean singer and composer,

born on May 22nd. 1937.

Almost blind and carrying a cane,

he summarized his life as follows:

I was able to speak until I was 9 years old,

illiterate until 14,

widowed when 40,

and met my father until I was 46.

The most pagan of preachers

is already 70 years old

and reviews his life from the hotel room

he has chosen as his last home.

His father abandoned his mother

leaving her with 7 children.

He was sent to a reformatory and escaped,

having found God in the words of Simeon, an old vagrant,

who recited to him the Sermon of the Mountain

on February 24th. 1934.

In 1970 recorded the unforgettable song

“I am not from here nor there”.

Inspired by Jesus, Gandhi and Mother Teresa of Calcuta,

as well as by Jorge Luis Borges and Walt Whitman,

he spiritually follows a social critic line in his songs

taking them to more than 159 nations.

Could you imagine what a joy could fill your life

if some Facundo

visits your home this Easter?

I am sure that many Facundos are out there

waiting for a friendly hand

and a loving heart to find a reason for their lives.

Go to: http://freshairfundhost.org

Two messages! Questions, concerns, considerations!

The other day I received an email with a Powerpoint presentation with the phrases of the well known writer, the controversial but influential in many circles, the Jesuit priest, Anthony De Mello.

At first sight his thoughts did sound convincing and logical. But later on, in my mind and my spirit sprouted the question I am phrasing after each of this writer phrases.

Then, as a second part of the development of my own thoughts and concerns, came out the interrogation born out from the second presentation on the offenses and reactions and responses, the winds of time and the permanence of the rocks imbedded in our memories.

This has led me to the final conclusion that even if we do not have the answers nor have done always what was correct and consistent, something good can come out from our experiences, even if for the statement of having stumbled twenty years ago over the same obstacle or circumstance.

Questions for Anthony De Mello

STATEMENT: What is what it makes you react to? Reality? Or the fiction you believe is real?

QUESTIONS: Is it worthy to live like this, as leaves gyrating in the wind?




Or confronting rejections and loneliness for the sake of integrity and self being?

STATEMENT: What is wrong with the ideals is that if you live according to them all… it is impossible to live with you.

QUESTION: GIVING UP OR REJECTING THE UNCOMPROMISERS?

STATEMENT: People do not want the truth! They want appeasing promises!

STATEMENT: When your shoes fit you, you forget your feet;

QUESTION: SELFISHNESS?

STATEMENT: When the belt does not tighten you, you forget your waist;

QUESTION: Deceptive self-esteem?



STATEMENT: When all goes well, you forget your “ego”. Then, What´s the use of abstaining?

QUESTION: SELFISHNESS?



STATEMENTS: How could I be a great man… like you? And why to be a great man? Just to be a simple man is a great achievement!

QUESTIONS: ACEPTANCE OF FAILED LONGINGS? OR CONFORMISM?




COMMENTS: But… Why to give in to the lies and snares of this manipulating world?

We can overcome, even if only in our inner world!

Even if the price to pay for it may be so painful!



A friend of mine some days ago reflected on the problems faced when trying to stay honest and faithful to what he defined as the fundamental values of a genuine middle class people.

He defined them as being only about 5% of the societies where less than 1% controlled about 80% of all generated income, manipulating the overwhelming majority that struggles and unendingly compromises in order to survive while the middle class values sink under the pressure and the ruthless whims of the powerful.

The only answer I had for him was that everyone has its own breaking point. And everyone has to decide what to do when forced to make fundamental decisions such as following the crowds or standing tall for what he knows is right and fundamental.

It is inevitable to face the natural consequences. Surviving at the cost of our own conscience… or sinking under the pressure of abuse, dismissal or rejection.

What we can control in this case is our responses to these painful consequences, understanding that all reduced itself to a simple sharing between us and the people we interact with.

It is up to us to live with peace despite the hardship and the hurting, burying them under the sands of times and circumstances, without forgetting to be grateful when we receive good for good done in our part.

Gratefulness that we should chisel on the rocks of the remaining standing rocks after all the sand of the abuse and selfishness has flown away, spirited out by our resilience and integrity.

We should always remember that we can live a simpler life, enjoying the technological progress of today, without being anxiously seeking, to get and make our own, what it is incessantly presented to us as needed to have to satisfy our craziest cravings.

We must realize there is an ultimate need, that of avoiding to be absorbed by the artificially mesmerizing but addicting myriads of trinkets that saturate every second of our present lives.

COMMENTS: But… Why to give in to the lies and snares of this manipulating world?

We can overcome, even if only in our inner world! Even if the price to pay for it may be so painful!


Balance! Wisdom! Awareness of what is real, right and fundamental, are the keys for a life to be worth its while.

There is no need to recur to extreme examples of human resilience as the Japanese people are showing in the midst of their almost unbelievable crisis.

But, we have a lot to learn from them in moments like these.

No looting! No opportunistic speculation! Supermarkets selling first need goods at reduced prices! People gathering together for mutual support! Still being able to smile after losing everything while locked in in a car in the midst of the tsunami!

Gratefulness for being alive and still having hope to recover what was lost because we trust in humans capable of helping other humans, despite offenses incurred, despite circumstances endured, despite whatever wrong could have been inflicted on us!


This is the message of the following tale of THE SANDS AND THE ROCKS! Meditate on it and decide what way to go while living.

Two friends were crossing a desert… They started to discuss and one slapped the other…

Hurt, but silent, he wrote on the sand… MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME, TODAY.

They kept on walking until they reached an oasis, where they decided to bathe. The slapped friend began to drown but his friend saved him.

After recovering his breath, he chiseled on a stone… MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE TODAY!

The one who had slapped and later saved his friend, asked him: When I did hurt you, you wrote on the sand, and now you chisel it on a stone. Why?

The other friend answered: when someone hurts us we must write it on the sand where the winds of forgiveness can erase it.

But, when someone does some good for us, we must chisel it on stone so no wind can erase it.

We must learn to write our wounds on the sands of time and chisel our fortunes on the lasting stones of our deserts.

For these reasons I am sharing my life´s actions and experiences to chisel on the rocks of our memories, the friends, the journeys´ partners… and all those whose diverse actions and opinions did influence the routes of our life, and realistically showed us the encountered crossroads.

If somehow or some times we offended you, forgive us. If we did something good, keep us, alive, in the vaulty rocks of your memories. MAY GOD BLESS YOU!