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It Ain't Over
The late, great Yogi Berra (1925 – 2015) was an extraordinary baseball player and coach. He was born Lorenzo Piero Berra in a working-class St. Louis Italian immigrant neighborhood. He served on a rocket boat on D-Day in World War II and was married for 65 years to Carmen Berra.
Writer and director Sean Mullin opens this entertaining documentary with a ceremony at the 2015 All-Star Game in which Henry Aaron, Johnny Bench, Sandy Koufax, and Willy Mays were saluted as baseball’s greatest living players.
Lindsay Berra, Yogi’s granddaughter, points out that statistics from his phenomenal career -- ten World Series championships, three American League Most Valuable Player Awards, and eighteen All-Star appearances -- prove that this batter, catcher, and coach was as great a player as the four legendary players honored that day. Further evidence is presented by Berra’s three sons and passionate fans including Billy Crystal, Derek Jeter, Bob Costas, and Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully. They note his skills on the field and also focus on what he brought to the game as the coach and manager of both the Yankees and the New York Mets.
The documentary touches on other things for which Berra was famous, including his interesting observations known as “Yogisms.” He was not particularly pleased when caricatures were made of him as Yogi the Bear. The public’s fascination with his off-the-field persona sometimes overshadowed their appreciation for this remarkable contributions to baseball.
Perhaps the best tribute to Yogi Berra is the one offered by Lindsay: “What I always say about Grandpa is, as good as he was as a ballplayer, he was an even better human. Even though he was the very best at what he did, he never for a moment thought he was better than anyone else. That’s a refreshing thing in our heroes.”
Try a Spiritual Practice on Humility
A wide-ranging portrait of the extraordinary baseball player and coach, cultural icon, and family man.
Autumn: Reflections on the Season
(For our southern hemisphere friends, here are ways to celebrate Spring.)
The autumn equinox marks the arrival of the season of fall, traditionally seen as a period of changes leading to the dark of winter. In Holidays and Holy Nights, Christopher Hill points out that for Christians who observe the liturgical year, autumn is actually the beginning of the cycle. In an excerpt, he suggests that "the dynamics of the fall of the year have the sweep of a great symphony or an epic poem."
That may explain why so many poets have reflected on this season. The Heart of Autumn contains 38 examples selected by Robert Atwan from such poets as Robert Bly, May Sarton, Carl Sandburg, Robert Penn Warren, Archibald MacLeish, and others. The excerpt from this book is "Leaves" by William Virgil Davis, a poem that conveys the mysterious qualities of fall.
What spiritual lessons and practices are suggested by the coming of autumn? Here are three areas for your meditations.
1. BALANCING DARKNESS WITH LIGHT
On the autumn equinox, day and night are of equal length. This signals the need to balance light and darkness within us. Far too often, we fear the dark and adore only the light. Joyce Rupp, a Catholic writer and poet who is one of our Living Spiritual Teachers, challenges us in Little Pieces of Light to befriend our inner darkness: "I gratefully acknowledge how darkness has become less of an enemy for me and more of a place of silent nurturance, where the slow, steady gestation needed for my soul's growth can occur. Not only is light a welcomed part of my life, but I am also developing a greater understanding of how much I need to befriend my inner darkness."
Buddhist Gary Thorp in Caught in Fading Light tells a wonderful teaching story about accepting all situations where we are left in the dark without answers:
"Once, when the Zen master Tokusan was still a student, he visited his teacher, Ryutan, just before sundown. They sat on the floor of Ryutan's hut, casually drinking tea and discussing Zen until deep into the night. At last, Ryutan said, 'Maybe it's about time you went home.' Tokusan bowed to his teacher and walked to the door. 'It's completely dark outside,' he said. Ryutan lit the lantern and said, 'Why not take this?' Just as Tokusan was about to take the lamp from his teacher's hands, Ryutan blew out the flame. Tokusan suddenly knew everything there was to know."
Thorp comments: "Sometimes there is no remedy for our situation than to begin from a point of absolute darkness. Turning off a television set and extinguishing a lantern have certain similarities; they are both abrupt and transition making, and can leave us in a different world. In darkness, we are always on our own."
2. LETTING GO
As we watch leaves fluttering to the ground in the fall, we are reminded that nature's cycles are mirrored in our lives. Autumn is a time for letting go and releasing things that have been a burden. All the religious traditions pay tribute to such acts of relinquishment. Fall is the right time to practice getting out of the way and letting Spirit take charge of our lives.
In Kinds of Power James Hillman, the elder statesman of contemporary depth psychology, challenges us to learn from others about this: "For what the actor tries to achieve on stage is to 'get out of the way' so that the character he or she is portraying can come fully out. So, too, the writer and the painter; they have to get out of the way of the flow of the work onto the paper and the canvas."
Buddhist teacher Sharon Saltzberg, another of our Living Spiritual Teachers, writes in Lovingkindness about one of the offshoots of letting go: "Generosity has such power because it is characterized by the inner quality of letting go or relinquishing. Being able to let go, to give up, to renounce, to give generously — these capacities spring from the same source within us. When we practice generosity, we open to all of these liberating qualities simultaneously. They carry us to a profound knowing of freedom, and they also are the loving expression of that same state of freedom." Fall, then, is the perfect season to give generously of your time and talents to others.
3. ACKNOWLEDGING IMPERMANENCE
Autumn reminds us of the impermanence of everything. We have experienced the budding of life in spring and the flowerings and profusions of summer. Now the leaves fall and bare branches remind us of the fleeting nature of all things. Jewish rabbi and writer Harold Kushner in The Lord Is My Shepherd suggests that when we contemplate fall's changes, we grow more appreciative of all the beauties that surround us:
"The poet Wallace Stevens once wrote, 'Death is the mother of beauty.' What those words say to me is that we cherish the beauty of a sunrise, of a New England autumn, of a relationship, of a child's hug, precisely because those things will not be around forever and neither will we be around to enjoy them."
Fall also brings home to our consciousness death and the challenge to live every day to the fullest. Susan Jeffers in Embracing Uncertainty gives us a spiritual practice to facilitate this twofold movement:
"I was once told that certain spiritual masters in Tibet used to set their teacups upside down before they went to bed each night as a reminder that all life was impermament. And then, when they awoke each morning, they turned their teacups right side up again with the happy thought, 'I'm still here!' This simple gesture was a wonderful reminder to celebrate every moment of the day."
Finally, Cynthia Kneen, in Awake Mind, Open Heart shares an open heart practice to carry with you into the fall.
"When you are brave and have an open heart, you have affection for this world — this sunlight, this other human being, this experience. You experience it nakedly, and when it touches your heart, you realize this world is very fleeting. So it is perfect to say 'Hello means good-bye.' And also, 'My hope, hello again.' "
Fall is a season for balancing light and dark, letting go, and accepting the impermanence of things. Here are quotes and recommended resources for reflections on this time of year.
An On-the-Go Heart-That-Cares-For-All Practice
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings be free.
May my longing be to contribute to the well-being and freedom of others.
May I receive the support to make this happen.
May wisdom, compassion, and abundant generosity manifest in my actions.
A 20-second practice for a caring heart.
The Coat
The brilliance of The Coat lies in its believable perspective on how the practice of kindness emerges in the life of a child. Elise has coveted her older sister's coat for as long as she can remember. She loves not only its poppy red but also the maturity it symbolizes. She has a hard time controlling her desire to have it now, as she waits for her sister to outgrow it. When she finally receives a package containing the coat, she runs down the hall shouting, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Her joyful, grateful response gets almost immediately tested. The next day, walking to school in the "penguin cold" with her sister, Elise sees a little girl dressed only in summer clothes huddled against a thin woman on cardboard near the steps of the town hall. After this revelatory sight, Elise finds that her "warm, soft, red coat ... hurt a little, kind of like a pinch." She can't even sleep that night.
Louis Thomas' illustrations add immeasurably to the story, revealing vivid emotions — from joy to uncertainty to angst to sympathy — through the characters' body language and wide-eyed facial expressions. When Elise arrives at school for the first time after seeing the chilled and unhoused family, for instance, we see happy students scurrying around her in the schoolyard while she stands stock still, stunned. The contrast underscores her puzzled anguish.
Naturally as readers we wonder with a strange mixture of hope and dread whether Elise will part with her coat. Séverine Vidal, whose many awards include the 2021 Prix des Incorruptible (ages 7 - 8) for the French edition of The Coat, has too much respect for children's psychology to allow such an ending. She knows that while fierce pricks of conscience can draw a child beyond selfishness, their acts of giving remain true to who they are. Elise finds a solution that betrays neither her affection for her coat nor her conscience.
A long-awaited desire that's no match for the joy of giving.
Ted Loder, The Haunt of Grace
Maybe we need to build an annex to our national heart so it will hold not only Americans but humanity. Maybe admitting our limitation, our need for a true global village isn't such a bad foreign policy.
The Human Heart
Gratitude
Gratitude is one of the most powerful ways that we express love; it keeps our hearts open to each other. It is impossible to have a closed heart when we are thankful. This practice keeps us learning and growing, and frees our generosity.
The practice of offering gratitude bestows many benefits. It dissolves negative feelings. Anger, arrogance and jealousy melt in its embrace. Fear and defensiveness dissolve. Gratitude diminishes barriers to love and evokes happiness, which is itself a powerfully healing and beneficial emotion. It establishes a foundation for the challenging work of forgiveness in relationships when we've experienced betrayal, loss, broken promises, deceptions, and disappointments. Gratitude keeps alive what has meaning for us and fosters our capacity to apologize and forgive. As gratitude grows out of love, its expression creates an opening through which increased generosity and good will can emerge. Today give gratitude for the Blessings, Learnings, Mercies, and Protections that you are currently experiencing in your life.
The benefits of gratitude for blessings, learnings, mercies, and protections.
Please Give
Guilt has a bad reputation. When we think about it, we recall uncomfortable feelings of self-disgust and unworthiness. But there is another side to guilt which psychologist Willard Gaylin has put forward: "Guilt is the guardian of our goodness. We are so constructed that we must serve the social good — on which we are dependent for survival — and when we do not, we suffer the pangs of guilt." To put it another way, this emotion is the price we pay for belonging to a larger world than our inner circle of loved ones.
Please Give is one of the best movies you will ever see on the positive side of guilt. This is the fourth film by Nicole Holofcener, a sensitive and spiritual observer of the manifold mysteries of human nature whose specialty has been plumbing the dynamics of female friendship: Walking and Talking, Lovely & Amazing, and Friends with Money. Please Give broadens this focus and delves into wealth, middle-age, death, and youthful obsessions. The film will elicit laughter and tears in equal measure as it speaks to your heart.
Kate (Catherine Keener) runs a trendy New York store with her husband Alex (Oliver Platt) which sells vintage furniture and other household items. However, as they make more and more money from buying things at cheap estate sales and then marking them up, her conscience bothers her and she starts feeling guilty. This growing malaise is exacerbated by the materialism of Abby (Sarah Steele), her teenage daughter who is lusting after an expensive pair of designer jeans. Kate and Alex are doing so well financially that they have been able to purchase the apartment next door to their own. They hope to enlarge and remodel the space. Meanwhile, their neighbor who lives there, Andra (Ann Guilbert), a ninety-one year old recluse, is feisty as ever.
The only ones left to look after Andra are her granddaughters, Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), a radiology technician who does mammograms, and Mary (Amanda Peet), her older sister who works at a spa where she gives facials. Mary blames Andra for their mother's suicide many years ago and has had nothing but scorn for her. This leaves Rebecca to do all the shopping and other errands for her bad-tempered and unappreciative grandmother. Mary stalks her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend while Rebecca dates Eugene (Thomas Ian Nicholas), the grandson of one of her mammogram patients. When the three of them take a drive outside the city to see the colorful autumn leaves, they bring Andra along. She spoils the celebration of nature's beauty with her negativity.
Something is lacking in Kate's relationship with Alex but she can't quite put her finger on what it is. But she has come up with a way of dealing with her guilt: she hands out money, sometimes five dollars and other times twenty dollars to homeless people on the streets. This generosity is not without its embarrassments: one day she tries to give some left-over food to an African-American man only to have him tell her he is not a bum but simply a patron waiting for a table outside of a restaurant. Kate even tries to serve as a volunteer at a senior citizen center and at a sports program for cognitively disabled youth but isn't able to handle the sadness she feels in their presence. Expecting something big and flashy to put her life in turnaround, Kate is surprised by the joys that come in small moments of kindness, empathy, and generosity where she continues giving from her heart as best she can.
The Complications of Giving and Compassion
We are all moved by the compassion of Mother Teresa and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. We salute the efforts of Karen Armstrong to spread the word about this spiritual practice through the Charter for Compassion. The German philosopher Arnold Schopenhauer once wrote: "Compassion is the basis of morality."
Please Give is a cinematic meditation on what happens when an ordinary person feels the pull of compassion. Kate finds herself empathizing with the poor people in her neighborhood; her compassion is evoked. In Why Good Things Happen to Good People, Stephen Post and Jill Neimark write:
"Compassion is immediate. We are moved by the suffering that is right before us, and we're less likely to be stirred by pain halfway across the world. In that case we might need to make a little extra effort to 'feel' our way into lives that are unconnected to us." Post and Neimark also discuss some of the scientific findings about compassion including:
• Compassion begins at birth
• Compassion calms and connects up.
• Compassion allows us to mirror others' feelings.
• Compassion increases positive emotions.
• Compassion is linked to spirituality.
A tremendous film about guilt as the guardian of our goodness and a sign of our yearning to belong to the larger world.
The Dhammapada , The Still Point Dhammapada
The Six Paramitas [Perfections or Virtues] of Buddhism:
May I be generous and helpful.
May I be pure and virtuous.
May I be patient. May I be able to bear and forbear the wrongs of others.
May I be strenuous, energetic, and persevering.
May I practice meditation and attain concentration and oneness to serve all beings.
May I gain wisdom and be able to give the benefit of my wisdom to others.
The Six Paramitas of Buddhism
Birthday Every Month
One of the rituals that I've made part of my life is the celebration of my birthday once a month. I used to make plans for a retreat day every month but seldom kept my good intention. I needed to find a way to help me remember to do this on a monthly basis so I chose the day of my birth. On the twenty-eighth of every month I make a special effort to spend more time in prayer, to have a greater awareness of others, to spend some time with beauty, to reflect gratefully on my birth. It is a celebration of what is important in life. Even when I'm traveling and can't take a day off, I still find ways to make this day unique. For me it's not a day to receive presents. It's a day to be present. I also try to give a little gift to someone on this day.
To Practice: Ignore the month of your birth and celebrate the date of it for the next several months. Be intentional about making this a time when you are fully present.
Celebrate your birthday every month as a spiritual practice.
The Documented Life
Sherry Turkle has been studying people's use of mobile technology for 15 years. In this article in the New York Times she reflects on a new way of life: "I share, therefore I am." But now what we want to share is pictures. Teens and even younger kids are caught up in possessing a photograph of their experience: "A selfie, like any photograph, interrupts experience to mark a moment." It is a sign of the times that three world leaders, David Cameron of the U.K., Barack Obama of the U.S., and Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, took a picture of themselves in the middle of the memorial service for Nelson Mandela.
Sherry Turkle has been studying people's use of mobile technology for 15 years. In this article in the New York Times she reflects on a new way of life: "I share, therefore I am." But now what we want to share is pictures. Teens and even younger kids are caught up in possessing a photograph of their experience: "A selfie, like any photograph, interrupts experience to mark a moment." It is a sign of the times that three world leaders, David Cameron of the U.K., Barack Obama of the U.S., and Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, took a picture of themselves in the middle of the memorial service for Nelson Mandela.