Back home an din a thoughtful mood. I had a long trip home for what should have been a one day trip. My plane home from NY was canceled last night around midnight. The airline gave me a voucher for a hotel.. whch turned out to be incorrect which took another 30 minutes or so at the hotel.. They finally gave me a key to a room.. which I found to my (and their) surprise already had a family in it. Buy the time it was all straightened out it was almost 2 am.. and I had to wake at 6:30 to catch my new flight …

Now .. I’m not complaining.. i took all the above in stride and found it strangely amusing but the reason I tel you this is to setup that I was really tired and behind in my work when I got on the plane this AM. I had a ton of things I’d hoped to get done on the short, but wireless enabled, flight back to BTV…

As e took of, I was planning on what to do first in my huge pile of work.. just before we hit the magic 10,000 feet ok-to-use-laptop-beep i got into a casual conversation with my seat mate.. He turned out to be a really nice guy on his way from north Carolina to inspect a prefab building materiel factory in Starksburo.. We got to talking.. an within a few seconds.. I’d found the ‘mustard seed’ .

It happens to me so often. Within a few moments of meeting someone I can somehow tell that there is a story in there about loss. My seatmate Niel’s brother and his wife had drowned in an accident 30 years before.. I told him about Sam and we spent the rest of the 45 minute flight talking about loss, love and life.. it was really good talking.. We both had so many stories about the the moment that you connect with someone on the lessons of losing a loved one..

Niel is a gospel singer.. (He sings the Star spangled banner at professional baseball games for fun.. see here.. ) and a religious man.. We talked about religion  .. Thats when the parable of the mustard seed came up..  THeres a christian parable about a mustard seed as well i guess.. I think it’s about something small being able to grow into something large..

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To me it’s the story where  a a woman’ son has died. In grief she asks the Buddha to bring her son back to life. The Buddha agrees to do it if the woman can bring him a  single mustard seed . The catch is.. the mustard seed must be from a home that has not known loss..   Se discovers that this is impossible because loss and dying are inevitable and unavoidable. and finally comes to know that one must accept lass as part of life..   and part of everyone experience eventually..

talking about it  often forms strange but good bond between strangers. and i guess thats one of the wonderthings about being human

nite all, nite sam

-me

and I ended up in a hotel. The paperwork the airline gave me was maessed up whch