The title is from an old song sung by Mitch Miller on his TV Show, "Sing Along With Mitch " ! 

Once, in my first Pastorate I had the pleasure of knowing and working with and yes, learning from a Methodist Minister named Bill Morris. I learned much from him, he touched my soul. He and his Wife were classically trained singers as well.  

Bill could get peoples dander up but he knew more about Pastoring / Ministering / Shepherding than all the others combined, and yet he was close to my age. As I have often said, when I left Seminary I had the answers, and for the most part everything was Black -n- White. Well after my first year in the Pastorate I found a lot of "GRAY". (or is it Grey ?) I also found it was more profitable to dwell with the questions...   Bill irked the other Pastors because he would go into the Bars and Taverns and visit with the people. It even blew my mind; until I realized that that was where the work was, the needs, the residing emptiness. I think Churches should be more like Taverns...accepting, belonging, friendly etc. (except for those ugly Vinyl windbreakers !)  

  I love Poetry, as many of you know. The reason is, I used poetry to learn to speak out loud.(for even now when I am tired or burdened I may stutter...) I was born with an almost total inability to distinguish sounds and words. When the problem was repaired at the famous Mass. Eye and Ear Hospital in Boston, I was already in the second grade, having been held-back in the first because I couldn't hear etc. (I was double promoted past the sixth grade)

 Now, I love Whitman, Frost, Li Po, so many; especially Hafiz, and of course Rumi. I love the spiritual connections, and the soaring of my heart strings.   My parents died early in my life due to Drinking, and, as a simple point of fact, I was almost raised in Taverns and Bars. I now, do not drink hardly at all. Even though my Doctor says I should have a drink or two in the evenings. Isn't life funny ! (Some say the real reason I stopped drinking was because of my hands...people kept stepping on them !)

  I read, and am gifted with many books etc by my friends. Some say, hey Fred...here's a great book; now I want to read some great Daily Tao's from it ! And some times it happens. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed !   There is an overwhelming contact (realness) with the Divine called 'drunkenness'; and there is also a Spiritual place called the Tavern. This Tavern is a place of 'shared mystical experience'...as opposed to the Church with it's tradition of 'received', and sometimes unquestioned beliefs...although Churches can sometimes turn into taverns. The Tavern is an excited region where one is out of ones mind, with others. The wine is not an Australian Merlot, or even 'Firefly' , but rather a shared sense of Presence flowing... The Tavern is not a place one can go and live; rather it's a state of Hsin, of heart/mind; a state of stunned surrender.

The mystic in us must go to the tavern seeking "beyond the drunkenness of Gods ( God by whatever name, the Creative and Sustaining Power of the Universe) overwhelming, to the clearing of sobriety, where contemplation is restored.. You see, in the Tavern one is absent and present at the same time. It is said that "there is a sobriety that contains all drunkenness, but there is no drunkenness that contains all sobriety"; sudden insight is the watchword. Opposites...seemingly, but then, go far enough East and one winds up in the West...  

Thich Nhat Hanh shares this wonderful story in his Commentaries on the Buddha's "Heart Sutra" ,  about how the opposites of good and evil only "seem" to oppose each other. He shows how they are actually great buddies who meet in the heart's Tavern...    "One day Buddha was in his cave, and Ananda, Buddha's assistant, was standing near the entrance. Suddenly he saw Mara, the evil one, coming. Mara walked straight to Ananda and told him to announce his visit to Buddha.   Ananda said, "why have you come here? You were defeated by Buddha under the Bodhi tree. Go away! You are his enemy!   Mara began to laugh. "Did you say that your teacher has told you that he has enemies ?" That made Ananda very embarrassed. He went in to announce Mara to Buddha.

   Is it true? Is he really here? Buddha went out in person to greet Mara. He bowed and took his hands in the warmest way. "How have you been? Is everything alright ?"   After they sat down to tea, Mara said, "Things are not going well at all. I am tired of being Mara. You have to talk in riddles, and if you do anything, you have to be tricky and look evil. I'm tired of all that. But the worst part is my disciples. Now they are talking about social justice, peace, equality, liberation, nonduality, non-violence, all that. It would be better if I handed them over to you. I want to be something else."   Buddha listened with compassion. "Do you think it's fun being Buddha ? My disciples put words in my mouth that I never said. They build garish temples. they package My teachings as items for commerce. Mara, you don't really want to be a Buddha !"   Yin / Yang, night / day, whathaveyou ?  

 Shall we meet at the mystic Tavern my friends, and be drunk with the wine of the spirit ? Shall we lie down in that field spoken of by Rumi...  

 Listen with your Breath...you will hear all things in purity...  

 Deepest Presence  

   Fred