What's In Your Bag

M r B u d d y

I once knew a nice man named Mr. Buddy. Daily he stumbled home after a long few hours of drinking at the local bar. Whether or not he was sitting on his stoop or stumbling down the street, he was a pleasant older man who loved speaking to anyone who dared to listen. Occasionally, Mr. Buddy would stop and engage me in brief conversations about heaven and all the gold in China. Needless to say, I had never been to either place. So, you can only imagine the depth of our exchange, considering I was no more than six years old and he had to have been an inebriated older man in his 70s.

His references to the gold in China were made because I dug holes in the ground for my plastic miniature “Cowboys and Indians” set. I would recreate cowboy movie scenes from old John Wayne or the Long Ranger and Tonto westerns. There, my cowboys and Indians would fight. I would stage the Indians on the hilltops as the Cowboys rode through the valleys. One day Mr. Buddy said that if I were to dig any deeper, I would find gold in China. So, I grew up believing that China was deep in the ground, and the place that hid its gold.

Another day while playing with broken twigs along the curbside, I saw Mr. Buddy sitting on the stoop in front of his home just endlessly staring in the sky. I asked him what he was looking at. He pointed to the sky and said, “the heavens beyond the clouds.“ I looked up and then back at him. I endlessly searched to see Mr. Buddy’s heaven beyond the clouds. So, while flying home earlier this week from California, I stared out my window and saw Mr. Buddy’s heaven beyond the clouds. It was beautiful. Wanting to savor the moment and use it to meditate, I pulled out my phone and began recording. When done, I created a video that best reminded me of the 70 year old man and six year-old boy who was curious enough to look for the heaven beyond the skies. Have a wonderful day, sowing deeds of kindness and seeds of love into the path of strangers. ❤️

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