Being connected to past, present means living balanced spiritual life

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Tansi, ahnee and hello. It was three years ago on a spring morning exactly like this when the Old One gave me some very important words.

Being spiritual is living with a moist heart, he said. A moist heart. These days as creation gives a collective shrug and springs back into life again, I find myself drawn more and more into that level of being.

It's because of baseball really. That a lumpy old teddy bear named Bart who rides shotgun in my car. Bart's the world's second biggest Boston Red Sox fan and he wears a T-shirt and hat that proclaim his loyalty to his team. He never says much, but died-in-the-wool fans like Bart never really have to.

The World's biggest Boston Red Sox fan is me. That's been the case ever since I discovered baseball back in 1965. I was nine and the magic of the game grabbed me and held me with the electric thrill of that first home run or grabbing that long high seemingly uncatchable fly ball.

I had a friend just like Bart back then. He wasn't a teddy bear though, he was a tousle-headed country boy named Ricky Lark who loved the game like I did. We'd spend hours trading cards, statistics, rehashing the Game Of The Week, batting flies out to each other and leafing through baseball magazines. We were friends.

Ricky Lark was fast. He won every single footrace I ever saw him run and he did it so effortlessly you could almost believe he wasn't even trying.

He had these big sparkly blue eyes that even now, I remember as being the clearest and deepest of any man I've ever known.

He'd look at you and you'd know exactly where he was coming from. I remember how you could see those eyes flash when a ball came his way or someone did something magical on that Game Of The Week.

There wasn't anything else in the world that I wanted more than to beat Ricky Lark in a footrace. But every challenge came to the same second-place conclusion. He'd be standing at the finish line, blue eyes flashing in fun, love and friendship, laughing and saying, "Come on Wagamese it's the bottom of the ninth and we need you home."

That always made me mad. Back then I thought he was taunting me and so I'd find myself in the evenings running back and forth along the country lane leading to our house as fast as I could. Sprinting. Chasing the elusive phantom of Ricky Lark across the purple landscape of boys.

For three summers before we moved away I chased him. Sometimes I came close, other times he'd win in a walk, and be there at the finish yelling, "Come on Wagamese...."

We cried when I moved. We were friends and we shared the passionate exuberance of our youth in everything. Summer nights in a tent telling horror stories to each other, fishing in a stream, teasing girls, reading books and playing baseball. Ricky Lark was the first real friend I ever had and a big part of my boyhood shrank away quickly at the sight of him through the back window of the car, waving, waving and waving as we pulled away that day.

I never did beat him in a race. The years and circumstances have kept us apart and I have no idea where he is today or what his life is like, but if I could I'd pray that the Creator blessed him with as much success and love and contentment as I have found in mine.

And what, you may ask, does all of this have to do with living with a moist heart? Nothing really, but everything as well. Because when Bart the Bear and I sit down to cheer on our Red Sox, Ricky Lark is right there with us because of the gift of memory.

I've come to discover and believe these last three years that there is much strength in tenderness. That looking back and remembering and loving the glittery, shiny parts of my life are as necessary as investigating the grittier, seamier more painful sides.

When the Old One told me that being spiritual is living with a moist heart, he meant being constantly connected to the process of my own living. To feel. To be genuine. To be free. Connected to the process of my own living past, present and future.

When I cando that, I can live in balance. My mind, body, spirit and emotions are unified in a circle of life and living that's healing and nurturing. In this season when creation gives its collective shrug and springs back into life, this is good to remember.

Being spiritual is living with a moist heart. I believe that by the process of doing that on a day-by-day basis all along this path of years, I will be rewarded when it all comes to a close.

Rewarded by the voice of a tousle-headed country boy with sparkly blue eyes cheering me on from heaven saying, "Come on Wagamese, it's the bottom of the ninth

and we need you home!"