Martin LeFevre: Babies and Old Men

After two weeks of inclement weather bringing much-needed rain to California, magnificent masses of cumulus clouds grace every quadrant of the sky. The snow-capped Coastal Range is as clear and spectacular as I’ve ever seen it.

A mother passes pushing twin babies sitting side by side in a carriage as I sit down beside the car-less park road. The little girl on the inside, no more than ten months old, stares at me with that combination of innocence and curiosity so endearing in young children.

I wave at her. At first she doesn’t wave back, but just keeps staring at me. When I wave again, she not only waves enthusiastically, but breaks out in a smile of pure joy. I see her little arm continue to wave after she can no longer see me.

Jesus’ insight comes to mind: “Truly I tell you, unless you return and become like children, you can’t enter the kingdom of God.” The sight of delight on that baby’s face wipes away weeks of digging ditches in consciousness.

There’s a tiny pamphlet on the bench. It has the words “let not your heart be troubled” on the front, with the symbol for heart representing that word. The selection of Bible passages it contains seem sorrowful to the point of blasphemous with the look on that baby’s face still in my mind.

The first two pages of the booklet are blank, except for the words “compliments of,” to which I add, “a troubled person.” I’m not sure who leaves these little bits of litter around the park, but I think it’s the same sad case I see reaching into filthy waste barrels for aluminum cans.

After a few minutes watching people go by, I move to a grassy spot on the bank of the creek for a sitting. The creek no longer fits that category, having been transformed into a small, muted-green river by two weeks of often non-stop rain. It fills its banks and races by. I feel light, clear, and happy.

The beauty and solitude generate a feeling of ecstatic awareness. As spring nears in northern California, many birds have returned, and there is a feeling of sharing the day with them. A number perch on the nearest branches, and some fly within inches of my head.

At first I think it’s just some kind of game they’re playing, but then I realize that one’s state of being is somehow drawing them close. When thought has been deeply negated, a human being is the awareness of nature and the universe.

A crusty old man rides up on his bicycle across the creek. I’ve seen him around the park before. He isn’t homeless, but looks like he carries his home on his bike.

He stares at me from across the rushing stream with a look embodying decades of separation and suspicion. Then he takes off a backpack and carries two large plastic bags from his bike, plus a full-length sleeping pad.

As the sun emerges from behind a cloud, he rolls out the pad, and strips down to shorts and T-shirt. His actions have the mechanical feeling of having been performed hundreds of times.

Now sitting cross-legged directly across from me, in a pose that seems a metaphysical mockery of meditation, he takes out a small radio and turns it on loud enough to be heard over the whoosh of the current.

Immediately I ask him, politely but firmly, in a voice requiring almost a shout to be heard, to turn it off, as I was meditating.

“No worries,” he replies a little testily. Then after a moment, he skeptically shouts, “you’re meditating?”

“Yes, I’ve seen you doing so as well,” I respond.

“Where have you seen me meditating?” he retorts with a definite edge.

With a sternness that surprises me, I point to where he is sitting and say, “Right there.”

“Oh, it’s interesting,” he says, completing the exchange.

Whatever apprehension and annoyance I was feeling when I first saw him staring at me across the creek is gone. He takes some fruit down to the quickly flowing water and washes it off, and I wonder what his story is.

If one reacts when one encounters conduit activity, darkness wins. But if one neither reacts nor retreats, intelligence prevails within one and in relationship.

Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net . The author welcomes comments.

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