Cranberry philosophy

["L. Bird" <pkeets@hotmail.com>]

Trust Pete to get philosophical on his birthday.  As usual, it's a little 
hard to tell exactly what all he's talking about here.  He tends to cast 
music into spiritual terms, so you'd suspect something related to it could 
be hiding in there somewhere.  (Who was it who said songs are prayers 
offered to God?  Springsteen?  I can't recall the quote.)  Pete mentions 
prayer, and love, but it could very well be talent as a songwriter and 
musician that he's really talking about, and how it feels to use that 
talent.

If not, I'd like to offer the subject for discussion myself.  People who 
have small gifts (meaning limited abilities) tend to guard them very 
carefully.  It's only people who are very secure in their source who can 
afford to give away what they create, especially on a grand scale.

Pete has always seemed to be a little awed at his own gifts, and what's 
happened to him because of them.  He tends to cast the talent, as he's done 
here, in terms of channeling a gift, or channeling some message that he has 
nothing to do with himself.  Other people might see it a little differently. 
  (Well okay, maybe Pete does have ego attacks, but still this is a 
recurring theme, having appeared for the first time in 1969.)

Maybe Pete feels this way about himself because other people have given him 
his opportunities to develop.  The whole experience pretty much picked him 
up and swept him along because of something that was nothing to him.  Just 
put him on stage and the songs pour out.  It wasn't until the late seventies 
that the gift began to run a little thin.

You'd get the idea that when Pete wrote the songs for "Who Are You" and 
"Empty Glass" he was feeling emptied out.  Nothing to say.  Recycling trash. 
  Bottles of brandy and still no songs.  So he started to get guarded, 
scared that the gift was gone the same way it had come, and without anything 
he could do about it.

These things have to do with being centered and open.  And they depend on 
other people.  No one creates in a vacuum.

Anyhow, it's good to hear Pete's feeling replenished.


keets



>In a recent experiment a prayer group focussed on half the patients in a 
>hospital ward. Sadly for those in the neglected half, those prayed for 
>improved more quickly. How does prayer work?

>You wish to help someone by praying. What power are you dealing with and 
>where does it come from?

>Imagine the power is contained in a beneficial liquid - let's say Cranberry 
>juice. You have a glass of it before you. Where did it come from? You 
>probably didn't make it, you probably purchased it. But wherever it came 
>from - and whether or not you feel you deserve it - it is there.

>The person for whom you pray has before them a plain glass of water. You 
>have to get some of your Cranberry juice into their glass. Does it matter 
>how you feel about the person? Do you need to love them, or have compassion 
>for them? Does it matter if in fact you don't really like them at all?

>What matters is that they need Cranberry juice, and you have a source.

>To give them some of your Cranberry juice couldn't be simpler.You simply 
>reach out and pour some from your glass into theirs. They drink it, and 
>gain the benefit. You are certain of your source, you are sure your supply 
>will be replenished. You can spare what you pass on. You are not giving 
>anything away, you are acting like a channel.

>So it is with prayer. Our focussed energy, our certainty of our own supply 
>of support from God (as we understand Him) or Nature allows us to 
>unconditionally pass on what we enjoy. We are dealing with an abundant and 
>infinite energy that is unconditionally passed to us simply because we hold 
>up our 'empty glass' whenever it needs to be refilled. Because of this we 
>need not be concerned about placing conditions on what we pass on.

>There may not be a human-like God 'in an armchair' in the sky. But whatever 
>force it is that God and Nature have conspired to place at our disposal is 
>subject only to the conditions of life itself. Life itself decrees that we 
>humans can only receive and express spiritual power and wisdom through each 
>other. There are obvious exceptions in the lives of the great saints who 
>seemed to commune with God one to one, but most of us need a more human 
>approach. Christ came as a man for that reason. My belief is that before 
>and after his advent there have been others like him.

>If the plan to which we are all subject was an accident, it was a devine 
>accident. Prayer is a conduit facilitated by the simple, humble, human 
>mechanism of self-expression. What passes through the conduit is original 
>and unconditional power. What do we call that power? For lack of any better 
>word, in any language, we choose to call that power love. But to act as a 
>channel for love, we do not need to feel love for the recipient. We simply 
>need to be ready to do our job, pass on what we have been given, certain 
>that we will be replenished.

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