My two bosses are as different as night and day and I feel privileged to witness both their perspectives. They've both been in the restaurant business for their entire life - both have indulged in juvenile promiscuity and excessive hedonism... but the way they have moved from that is completely divergent:
Maurice is constantly quoting insightful individuals. "Einstein is the best! You know what he said? It just blows my mind..." and "You don't get married because you are in love. You marry to discover love. You know who said that? The Dali Lama." His daughter is the love of his life - he had been faithfully committed to his wife for 29 years, until he lost her to breast cancer twenty years ago. Now he has been lovingly married to a Mexican-American, 18 years younger, woman he speaks beautifully of for 10 years. "If you receive these two liars: Failure and Success, in the same way - Then you have become a Man, my son." His view of the world is summarized by his comment "life is organized. Everything is organized. Everything is mathematical." His view spreads to his spiritual perceptions: "if you think 'poor me! what a terrible day!' then you will attract bad things - if you think 'wow - this is a nice day!', you will attract nice things. One plus one is two - it is all mathematical. It is all in your energy."
I am often confused by how people who have lost so much and hurt so much physically (his last vertebra is disintegrating), can still give others insight onto how to live life with a positive outlook... How he can still look at another and spark with hope as they tell him about their own relationships and hopes for the future.... "Oh! a Mexican family! You must be very happy!" and "What his his name? Oh - an American boy... so you like people who are like you? Ah. That is very far away... you don't know- Maybe the only one you are supposed to be is there, in New York, or maybe he is here, in San Antonio. You never know what will happen."
This is something both bosses share: a strong belief in that the future is completely unpredictable. Three men running one restaurant... three men in completely different stages in their life - yet they are incredibly compatible as workmates. Their stories are all so different, yet none of them ignore their most inner desire for human connection.
Does it all boil down to spirit? I keep running straight into situations that support the idea of Destiny - of a 'Holy Spirit' that guides you through the greater scheme of Life... and it's starting to freak me out a bit - yet the tug is no longer a single, piercing pull centered only in my heart. It is a warm embrace that starts in my chest and dissipates through me... a powerful draw that calms fear - it is comforting and it inspires a sense of surrendering to purpose.
"There are many roads to my Father; my Creator."
How many times have I heard that phrase in the past six months? I have dreamed of it, read of it, heard of it, experienced it, witnessed it... Is it because I've heard it so many times that I am beginning to live by it? Have I searched for it and therefore am finding evidence to support the preconceived idea? Or am I becoming awakened to a universal truth? I have never doubted that there are many truths - but maybe it is that what I have been calling truths are just roads towards one all-engulfing truth... that truth that some call God, and others call Consciousness... Humanity... the Higher Power... Nature...
And as I think all these thoughts, Maurice smiles, looks at me sideways and says, "Don't think you are alone in your beliefs. What are the odds of you walking into a restaurant and getting hired where the people believe as you do? Destiny." His Indian guru is getting to him...
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