Heart and Soul

Football has been a major theme of this blog for obvious reasons, but my dad was good at anything he seemed to do. My wife recently paid me the compliment that I too was really good at just about anything I tried, arguably the best. I begged to differ, but in the end said, "thank you."

I have thought a lot about that compliment. I'm not that good at a lot of things. But I get what she meant and I credit it to good coaching.

Whenever I would play exceptionally well in a game. My dad would always say, "You played with some real 'heart & soul' today Biddy Buddy!" I remember one baseball game in particular where I went 5 for 5 with a double, two triples and two home runs. I scored 5 times and we won 10 to 9 in the seventh. We were the home team and on the last out I had a diving over the shoulder catch that seemed so unreal that I remember it as though I was watching someone else catch it. At the time I told my dad that I didn't remember doing it and that is was like I was watching someone else do it and then there I was with the ball in my glove getting mobbed by my teammates. He said it was because I was playing with some serious heart and soul.

He said he saw me running for it before the ball had even left the bat. He said I had had a premonition and since I was playing with real heart and soul you went where your spirit led. And that is how you played and that is how you should live your life.

He said, "Today you gave your soul a chance. When you do this the soul will take care of the body, but the body can never take care of the soul. Pay heed to all of you premonitions. Cultivate them. Regard them as an extra self, above and beyond your mortal self. Regard that other self as a watchful angel, a friend who's got your back."

He went on to explain, "The mind is to the body as the spirit to the soul. There are things that cannot be seen but that are surely felt, like fear. It may be simply that fear is born into the mind because there is fear in the world. Or again, it may be that the mysterious agency of the mind has thrown out invisible tentacles and drawn the truth out of the void."

He would always say, "Fear is usually a big waste of time, but it will always keep you safe." I think what he was saying, now that I've had thirty years to chew on it, was in life always follow your heart. Because when you follow your heart you bring together your mind and spirit, and your body and soul. Pretty deep and profound stuff for a Dumb Dumb Daddyo.