Category: Journey

It Was in the Last Place I Looked

Post author By John Gallagher
Post date June 15, 2019
No Comments on It Was in the Last Place I Looked

I posted just the headline earlier today. Christina emailed me, asking, “Where’s the content?” I replied, “No content. It’s an invitation to reflect on the phrase.”

Then I spent part of the day reflecting on the phrase.

It’s a phrase I find funny. After all, if you couldn’t find your keys, or your wallet, or something like that, you’d stop looking as soon as you found them. Right? So, naturally, where you found your keys would be the last place you looked. Why would you keep looking?

Well, what if you were looking for something more ephemeral like meaning, or truth, or love? What if you found meaning, or truth, or love, but you didn’t know you had? You might keep looking.

So, when what you’re looking for is one of the “imponderables”, to quote Jack Kerouac, how do you know that you can stop looking?

What are you looking for?

When I’m Sixty-Four

When The Beatles released Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, I was twelve. The second song on Side Two was When I’m Sixty-Four, written by Paul McCartney. Hearing the song in 1967, I mean, even my parents weren’t sixty-four. Sixty-four was old!

Tags Beatles, Sergeant Peppers, Sixty-Four

Buddhism Journey Uncategorized

Conversations With Mara

This photo of me was taken during a mountain bike race in Michigan in 1992. I’d been training very hard that summer, maybe a little too hard. I’d done a race-simulation workout the week before, and I was still a little tired from it.

When my race began, I had a terrible start. It felt like most of the field left me behind in the first quarter mile. As I suffered through the first bit of the race, I began to have a conversation with myself.

“I don’t know why you bother racing. You’re no good. How many hours a week do you train? Maybe you don’t have any talent. Or maybe you’re not tough enough. You should quit. You should quit now.”

Tags Enlightenment, Mara, Mountain Bike Racing, Siddhartha, The Buddha

Journey Mystery Poems/Song Lyrics Uncategorized

Ithaka

ithaka island Greece

I’ve been re-listening to an audiobook of Homer’s Odyssey. The version I’ve been listening to has Ian McKellen reading Robert Fagles’ amazing translation.

Once again, I’m struck by how The Odyssey has influenced so many other stories. Bits and pieces of The Odyssey are found in Pinocchio, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, pretty much any quest story will draw on Homer’s work.

Over the next year, I”ll write some words of my own about the Odyssey, but for now, I’d like to share with you the poem, Ithaka, by Constantine P. Cavafy. As I think of the journey of self-understanding I’ve been on, and the obstacles—some self-created—I’ve faced, I enjoy this poem more and more. Maybe it will speak to you. Enjoy!

Tags Constantine P. Cavafy, Homer's Odyssey, Ian McKellen, Ithaka, Odysseus, Pinocchio, Robert Fagles, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings