Belated Requiem
When Cec died I listened to Beethoven's ninth,
the last movement, Schiller's Ode to Joy
and celebrated his life and release.
Each Tuesday for years Cec and Hank met
discussing their war, current issues
and more often matters of the spirit.
Though still a youth, decades younger,
they asked me to join them. I was awed
by the privilege and the compliment.
Cec introduced me to music
though his tastes were light.
I could not afford concerts,
did not know why I should,
but the quality of his hi-fi set
was a revelation to one listening
to the radios of the time.
Each evening began with music
it's effect on us an investigation.
Our joining went deeper than any expected.
Later we invited a few more.
As our group thought became felt
Others elsewhere interacted with us
Waiting to aid and enable our actions.
Hank provided a monumental calm
in which thought gained clarity
for lack of irrelevant noise.
His search was for unity.
He found no value in complex argument
and considered nothing to be of consequence
unless its place in a mystical whole was clear.
Cec was ever the questioner, and sceptic
Never excluding but never content
with any of the answers extant.
He was always holding a pair of scales
Every fact and idea to weigh.
With his golden voice he could charm
almost anyone into anything if he would
But his questioning balance was antidote
to charms, glamours, glib answers, seeming wisdom.
If we were on a roundabout of thought,
prepared to leave it as useless,
he'd reflect on it and bring it back until
the lightning of intuition resolved it.
An early discussion concerned the merits
of the world's economic systems.
We went at them and at them, getting nowhere.
At his funeral I heard from others
whom he engaged with similar questions
in earlier decades.
They spoke of the soldiers, always about him
debating seriously issues
they would never have thought upon.
Cec wakened the minds of many
Yet he himself was always in the balance
Never himself in motion.
I asked why our economic discussion went nowhere?
And then I had it.
Any system, however conceived,
works well with people of goodwill
but, though brilliantly developed,
with the best goals, works poorly
where selfish advantage rules.
This intuition ended our focus on economic systems.
From there we turned our attention to goodwill
never leaving it whatever our turns of thought.
Who were we to the world and to ourselves?
Hank, warehouseman to the Foundation for the Blind
Mystic knight with his clear globe of thought,
Cec, Chief Executive Officer and manufacturer,
questioner, holder of the balances, and something more.
My part was the examiner of ideas who argued all sides
Nicknamed "the lawyer" by some, mover of actions too,
but primarily the intuitive,
making that leap beyond the stage set by reason,
that became our teacher
uniting us, when it spoke, in what we must do.
My struggle was always to see a bit of "the plan of God"
and this with the posing of questions and issues
drove me toward the intuition.
Fourth was a news sub editor who rebelled
at slanting the news, then became a teacher.
He ever posed matters of choice,
seeking clarification of the issues thereto
not letting up until the choices became clear.
"That may sound right", he might say,
"but it does not gel!"
Later came the industrialist, argumentative,
battling his own analytical intellect, struggling
to leap beyond it, fire beating against an iron roof,
primarily concerned with the moral dilemmas of money.
Others came for a while or two and went again.
Some of these eventually took over our work,
when we failed.
Occasionally we had a visitor.
One was a character of mystery
Unassuming exponent of occult lore
Who never claimed anything.
He sat silent through intense debate
On the right use of money
Which turned on the view
That how one acquired money
was a far greater matter
than how it was spent
for acquisition represented
one's real impact on human relations
and goodwill should qualify it,
challenging the rationalization
of the aspirant industrialist
that he acquired money to route it into service.
At the end, the occultist of few words
made his values clear: he said,
"This is the most important discussion I've ever heard."
What more had Cec to do with our debates?
Some who came and went did not think he contributed much.
They saw the balances and the sceptic as impediments
and were puzzled by his lack of motion.
I knew the balances and the inclusive sceptic
were essential to the development of our thought
if it was to result in right action
but Cec had something more,
harder to explain, difficult to see,
yet of greater value than all the rest.
By his very presence
he facilitated the co-operation of thought,
even when he had nothing to say.
It was a rare evening when intuition did not spark in me
and its blaze dazzled the eyes of a few
but I knew it was something about Cec
unseen by most but evident to my mind
that made the lightning flash more likely.
- Muhammad
After the death of Khadija,
of his later wives,
Only in the company of Aisha
Could he bring forth revelations.
Perhaps she had this quality I found in Cec,
a contribution I saw clearer
when we lost him.
During our years in the co-operation of thought
A sense of relationship grew
away beyond the personal sphere
or even the comradeship of shared service
deep though that is.
The sense of our group association
passing beyond the bounds of our lives
persisting beyond catastrophes and death
beyond the apparent leaving of a member
even beyond the group's outward demise,
grew in us, unchallengable, sacred,
outside time, a source of wonder to us.
I still, years after Cec's death
and the departure of others,
do not question the continuity
of this relationship.
We did not lose Cec through death.
In business he built the thought form
of a manufacturing industry.
Over a year we watched it week by week
take possession of him, cutting him off
from all other cares. We warned him!
He had no difficulty seeing the danger,
yet to no avail. He moved away
closer to his factory
which was so successful
the predators prepared to pounce.
In his absence we continued our work
But now it was a struggle to reach unanimity.
The loss of Cec's facilitating presence
I keenly felt, perhaps we all did.
When it has no road the soul chooses violence.
Four strokes liberated Cec from his thought form.
The predators moved in.
He was left on a war pension,
able to move just one finger,
without speech,
gaps in his memory,
but Cec understood what had happened.
We each contributed, purchasing recordings
of Beethoven's greatest music.
I restored his hi-fi set so he would enjoy
a communication denied in conversation.
He told me later how Beethoven
drew him into a world he had not known
but he would become infuriated if his wife
failed to understand which record he wanted
being only able to grunt and groan.
His own determination and persistence and
The efforts of his wife building up vocabulary
through the digital code of one finger
with the help of a dedicated physiotherapist
and a healer who was long standing friend
plus the solace of the music,
within a year had him walking, speaking,
driving a car.
Cec had lost his magical voice
which he confessed peeved him most.
He no longer had the calm of the balances
or the questioning of the sceptic
or the spirit of the facilitator of thought
But he gained one thing in place of all -
he now had spiritual motion
and in his recovery, had mastered the world.
Nevertheless his body had taken sore harm
and suffered more in succeeding years.
He had achieved the spiritual goal of his life.
With nothing to keep him death released him.
I celebrated and do not doubt we will somewhen
resume the group relationship in service
we discovered during our long association.
Such gains are not discarded.
