(Edited transcript below video)
This is a true story discovering the beauty within…
Transcript of the video:
Many of you who know me know that I’m always talking about looking beneath the surface of things, look beyond the obvious and see what you can discover about the truth that lies within and belays what the outer appearance is, to look beyond the mask so to speak. And this is a story about just such a thing.
Yesterday, I was at a Starbucks coffee shop standing at the pickup window inside the shop waiting for my latte to emerge therefrom. And as I waited, I was looking at some pictures on the wall. One, in particular, caught my eye. It was one that appeared to be an abstract drawing of a coffee pot of some kind. And that pot might be brewing coffee, and what appeared to be steam coming from the spout. But I thought,
“I wonder what else is there?”
Now, there was a middle age woman standing nearby whose face was wrinkled beyond what appeared to be the years of the rest of her body. And I asked her,
“What do you think that that picture is about?”
She looked at it for a moment and said,
“I don’t know, coffee pot.”
I said, “Yeah, probably, but what if it were, say, a magic lamp, and that in the magic lamp there was a genie. And that the steam coming from the spout was actually a vapor from the genie asking for somebody to release him from the lamp.”
Let’s say that you agreed mentally to release the genie from the lamp and he came forth and that he looked you in the eye and he said,
“I will grant you one wish and one only, what will that wish be?”
I said to this woman,
“For you, what would that wish be?”
She looked at the picture for quite a while thinking deeply on it, looked at me and looked back at the picture. Now, sensing that she may not want to tell a total stranger standing here in Starbucks her fondest wish, I said to her,
“You don’t need to tell me. Just make the wish is all you need to do.”
She looked back at the picture, the genie, thought for a moment, then looked back at me and said, a tear forming in the corner of her eye,
“To stay sober.”
And I said, a tear forming in the corner of my eye, “How long has it been?” She said proudly,
“One year.”
And I said, “Ah, then it is done. Wish granted. If you can go a year and then stand here in Starbucks and tell a total stranger that story, then you have what it takes to carry on for the rest of your life in pure sobriety.”
Now, for some reason it didn’t seem appropriate for us to embrace or hug there at Starbucks at that moment, I had a sense that it wouldn’t be permissible, but we stood there before each other, watery eyes connected, smiles shared, and hearts embracing in a moment of the unity, a moment of divine love. We stood there in a space of love for just that moment. Then our coffees came through the window, and we parted company, probably never to meet again. But I can promise you, she and I will carry that moment with us through the rest of our days and beyond this lifetime.
My dear friends, there is wonder beneath the surface of everything you see. If you take a moment to look for it and recognize it and invite it out, you will be rewarded in ways that you cannot even imagine. I love you all. Thank you for sharing this time with me. Namaste.
