A thought... just a thought

This posting will be brief. I'm on my way to catch a train to Naharyia in the north. I'm going to hopefully arrive as Shabbos is coming in, enjoy the evening in solitude on a beach somewhere, and then rise early and begin the Yam L'Yam hike, which essentially connects the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee. The hike should take about three days. A tent was provided by a friend I met in Sinai. A sleepingbag was offered by a good friend in Jerusalem. Israel, the people who make Israel what it is, provide for you. It's quite amazing really. There is much that I would like to say in this post. Many thoughts and inspirations have come to me that I want to share with you all. But for the moment, I must make haste. But I will share this very simple thought that keeps visiting me during peak moments here. It's a sort of a mantra really, something that is continually echoing in my mind, enhancing every moment and giving rise to a more purposeful and appreciated tomorrow. The thought is this:

There is so much magnificence.

Every thing around you at every moment, the very breath you are taking at this moment, which in itself requires you to be submerged in a sea of oxygen (which to our untrained eye appears as nothing), held in place by atmospheric pressure nurturing an oxygen rich rock that is very precisely spinning around a meduim size star at just the right distance for energy to infuse rather than consume, a process that has been coming into this state of being for approximately six and a half billion years. It's all at such a perfect balance, for this moment, and you not only get to experience it, but you essentially are the experience of it. So enjoy, because there really is so much magnificence that you might just miss it.

On another note however, there is something else on my mind, which by comparison makes these writings and adventures seem all too trivial or incredibly fortunate at best. I have a very good friend of mine who will be undergoing his second brain surgery today. He's an amazing person with incredible courage. Yet, as you can imagine, he's scared. Regardless of your beliefs, religious or otherwise, I'm asking each and everyone of you who reads this to please take a moment, a real moment, and think or pray or do whatever it is that you do within the depths of your own self when something really matters to you, and think of my friend Dave Sommer. If you care to know his story, or are moved to donate to his parent's ever-growing financial burden for his medical care, please visit his blog at www.goliathandi.blogspot.com Any and all positive messages are welcomed.

I thank each of you for reading and will write again when I can.