SHOWING UP, BEING THERE; MAKINGS OF SUCCESS

Each morning I get out of bed on the right side, physically; most times, emotionally too, for I find life to be good. I sit on the edge of the bed until all the interior building blocks scramble back into their appointed places. I think that during the night, they sometimes all go to some big ball under the canopy of my skin, first here, then there, and dance all night, doing the Twist, the Jitterbug and the Carioca, else why would I be so, so oh well, some of you know.

An east window is only about two feet from where I sit, and after my minute of re-assembly, I reach over, peep through some slats to see what kind of day it seems we're going to have, always hoping for a clear dawn no matter how much we may sometimes need a rain.

Then I speak to God about the day ahead, what we're going to do together, etc. I do all the talking mumbling, whispering, stammering. He listens. I trust Him to separate the grain of my floundering words from the chaff and to help me with the grain if, indeed, there be any.

Then, as I pull on my socks, I think of Woody Allen and Peter Sellers! Quite a quantum leap, isn't it?

Woody Allen, in his own quizzical-eyed, inimitable philosophical way, says that a great percentage of success in life can be measured by just showing up.

As I don the rest of my clothes I think of the many things I've overcome, struck down (with help, of course), snuffed out, turned away from, been turned away from, the times I've lucked out, been tuckered out, even knocked out, and I feel Woody Allen-successful. I have shown up for another day. Am still here. Present.

Now, as for Peter Sellers, you will need to have seen the motion picture, "Being There," to understand why I think of him along with Woody.

Maybe you think the two phrases, "just showing up," and, "being there," overlap. Not so in this case. Peter Sellers didn't say anything in the movie except what the writers had him to say. In fact he doesn't even say, "being there," in the movie. The title capsules his hilarious rise to fame and fortune by just being in the right place, just being there, without aforethought, when some innocent, almost dumb thing he said, seemed to be the epitome of Confucius-like wisdom to those who heard him.

By the time I arrive in the kitchen to plug in the coffee pot, I feel armed for a challenging day. First, I'm here. Second, there's the chance that no matter what crazy, odd, or innocent thing I may say, someone might grab hold of it and expound some grand and glorious meaning.

For example, being aware of the social, economic and spiritual state of our world, I might say, frivolously, over some dinner table, because I'd been silent and didn't want to appear anti-social, "I think we should just cancel everything and start over again."

Someone, with a forkful of food suspended in air, might exclaim, "That's it! Cancel all the constitutional interpretations and start over as if the Constitution had been written yesterday."

Another, catching the spirit of renewal and passing the gravy, might add, with equal fervor, "Write off the deficit as a bad debt and forget about it."

"Erase all boundaries everywhere."

"All over the world?"

"Yes, why not? They weren't there in the first place. We'd be one big floating-in-air nation."

Potatoes are passed and green beans.

"What about history? You can't cancel history," someone mildly protests.

All eyes turn toward me and I smile enigmatically and say, "There are ways of doing things."

There is a moment of silence while my words are analyzed. You can almost feel a consensus forming. Yes, surely, in this stage of our mental arts, history can be erased.

"Then that would put us back to the first morning of creation," someone offers.

At this I would smile broadly and surely there would be a look in my eyes as if I'd caught a distant glimpse of glory because I've so often thought of that fresh, clean, first morning of creation."

Someone says, "But without history we'd have nothing to go on."

"Neither did Adam and Eve," another replies.

The dinner is continued in relative silence as everyone contemplates what a wonderful thing it would be if we had a second chance to do things, and somehow, this time, do them right.

There would be a warmth and loving closeness among those present as they think of what a new, clean, fresh beginning would be like and I would bask in the feeling I had, unknowingly, created by just being there and saying a few laconic words when they wanted to think of a fresh beginning.

The perking coffee pot sounds as if it is trying to send me some message in Morse code. I try to translate it but all I can make out is "Show up. Be there." And as it gurgles to a close, the coffee having been processed, it does truly seem to say, "Some day you may really say something smart, something smart, something smar, somehin'."

REJOICE!