Dear California Sisters and Brothers,
It is time for another letter from me and so here it is.
PART ONE
You may have read my last message where I spoke about my experiences of borrowing money from banks and lending money to friends, culminating in a bankruptcy about 6 years ago. I decided then to take Polonius’s advice to his son, Laertes, “neither a borrower nor a lender be, for the loan loses both itself and a friend.” Times have changed, and both the banks and my friends remain friendly, although all loans in both directions, true to his prediction, were lost. Here are a couple of footnotes to that story:
Footnote One: A Recent Discovery
I have discovered recently that I have both an inner and outer relationship with everyone, especially my friends and relatives. It was not so long ago that I observed I was spending quite a lot of time lecturing one of my friends when I was not with him (none when I was with him).
I’d be lecturing him (mostly about how he might improve himself, his relationship with me, etc.) when I was jogging, cooking dinner, or at any old time whenever his name entered my awareness. When I noticed this, I thought, “This is a waste of time. I don’t want our times together to be as professor and student. I want those times to be simply as friends.”
And since I was spending most of my time with him, when I was not with him, it seemed sensible to stop the lectures. It took a couple of month’s to break the habit – but I did it. This freed up a lot of mental space that I may now apply usefully, perhaps for Subud in California.
This discovery, I realized, was also relevant to my situation with the friends to whom I had lent money. While they owed me money, I could not think of them without the debt coming into my mind. Could they pay it? When? Why could they not stick to a repayment schedule? What could I do with the money once I got it back? When I decided that they did not owe me money any more, those thoughts went away and they became just friends again (much nicer).
Footnote Two: A Clever Plan
Just after my bankruptcy, I was joking around with John Matlick (a delightful and quick-minded Subud friend). I was telling him that I had lent about $70,000 to two friends who were not able to pay me back, and that was part of the reason that I had to declare bankruptcy. John said, “I have a proposal for you, Robert. The next time you have the urge to lend someone money, give me half of what you’re thinking to lend. That way you’ll only lose half the money, not all of it.” I haven’t lent a penny since.
PART TWO
A big mistake begins a big adventure (the use of being young and innocent). It was early 1970 and I had recently been invested with my first Subud job as Chairman of Subud New York (in those days the newest group member got that job, if willing). I was about 24 years old then and very green, which led to the big mistake and the big adventure. In those days, we longed for a place in the country where we could retreat, be together, and do Subud type stuff (this longing was mostly the young people, it is true). When Livingston Dodson became the chair of the newly formed East Coast Region, he took it upon himself as his mission to find and acquire that place.
So, he went shopping in the Blue Ridge Mountains near the little town of Front Royal, Virginia. Shortly after he began looking, Livingston had a receiving where an old wise man told him to find a place where “the grasses of the mountains reach up to meet the sky” and during a total eclipse of the sun, his real estate agent called Livingston and told him he had a place he wanted Livingston to see. When Livingston saw it, he knew it was the place of his vision. He then put together a consortium of 8 Subud members and Skymont was born.
Not long after that, Livingston called me with the happy news and I went down from New York to see the property as soon as I could get off work. Looking through my dreamy eyes, I envisioned the somewhat run down, ex-boy’s camp as a paradise just waiting to land on Earth. And, for me, in a way, it was to be.
Now, at that time, Bapak had planned a world tour with visits to New York, Washington, and Chicago, and all three centers were enthusiastically making preparations for his visit. In January or February, as I remember, I went down to be with Livingston at his home in Fairfax, Virginia (he soon moved to Skymont) and we were talking late into the night. It’s hard to accurately communicate the euphoric states that we young people felt when contemplating the future of Subud in those days.
But, to give you an idea, around midnight Livingston suddenly had an Idea. “Why not invite Bapak to come to Skymont instead of visiting New York, Washington, and Chicago?” I immediately embraced the idea. “Yes, then instead of just having 3 or 4 days in each center with time in between, travelling and tiring himself out, Bapak can spend 2 solid weeks with everyone at Skymont.”
“Brilliant! The members can all come to Skymont and experience our wonderful new place. Fantastic! Let’s get on the phone to Cilandak and see if Bapak likes the idea.” So, as fate/destiny would have it, Sharif picked up the phone, asked Bapak, and came back a few moments later to say “Bapak agrees”. And so began the chapter in Subud history entitled “Skymont,” that was to significantly impact many of our lives for the next ten years.
Rilka said, “We are bees in the visible, making honey in the golden hive of the invisible.” Yogi Berra said, “It’s not over till it’s over.” Hamid Camp said, “Continya.” Skymont, through it’s struggles and incarnations, made magic honey in many of our lives. Its pioneering spirit and innocence are still with us. Bapak advised us to create and get to know heaven on earth so we can recognize it when we leave this world. He also defined heaven as, “Where everything fits” (to be continued).
Do these stories have any relevance to our current Subud lives in Californa? I invite you to consider the question and perhaps respond with a letter to the editor.
Renewing Angel by Robert Mertens
