Re-reading

When I was a senior in high school I was given a little paper back copy of Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse. It is a story of a searcher. I wrote my name in the front. bobbie and the year. I read that book several times, always moved by the journey of faith.
"When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily
happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches
for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind,
because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search,
because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching
means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having
no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because,
striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are
directly in front of your eyes."

I haven't ruined anything for you by putting this passage here....
Anyway this book about a young man searching for truth was one of my favorites. And then I loaned it to someone and it disappeared. My senior year. I graduated and went to college and life went on. My senior year of college I'm sitting in a friends' apt and said. Oh I used to have a copy like that of Siddhartha, I wrote my name in it with the date, 1966. he laughed went over and picked up the book, Yup, you guessed it ..it was my book.

Where had it been and how had it gotten to Ed? I don't know. I wish that whom ever read it had written their names in it as it was passed along. But there it was...now back to me. Ed and I tried to figure some link between the guy who gave it to him ... but it had been five years gone.

Searching and finding are theological issues in many faith traditions. Jesus tells a lot of parables about the lost and found. And we listen and think we are the lost, and hopefully the found.

But maybe this quasi buddhist story can teach us something about being in the present. .... maybe we miss many things, which are right in front of our eyes.
Become friends Keen observers of life. Pay attention. Listen... be present in this moment.

God abides
Bobbie McGarey
@2004