|Chapter One: Beginning Awareness

My Story: Openings for the Heart

How does the mountain move?
Grain by grain,
carried by the wind
Or water.
Such patience!

And you!
You want to move the masses!
Change the thoughts of mankind!

Patience...

This work is nothing new
Search first for your piece of truth,
Your wisdom.

Then hand it down,
Grain by grain
To our children
Then their children.
And feel the mountain move

One Step In. By Stephen Frank Smith

chapter One
Beginning Awareness

It was a hot summer day in a small town in Kentucky in 1933. It was the summer I turned four, when my mother became rustrated by my attempts to create some mischief to get her attention. I remember two of my baby sisters inside. I believe I drove her to distraction before she decided I needed to be outside the house. Since there was a state highway in front of our house and no fence, she searched about for some way to get me out of the house to play in the yard but keep me within bounds.

After walking around leading me by hand, she took a rope of clothesline, tied one end to the large tree and the other end to me so that I could have the circumference of the tree to play within but not being free to wander off. She probably intended to keep a close eye on me.

I remember becoming quickly bored by an old rusty toy or two found around the tree. Then wha interested me most was the rope securing me to the tree. I discovered that one end of the rope was yes. securely tied to the tree, but the other end, tp my great delight, my very first "aha", life discovery experience, was not tied to me but rather to my sunsuit.

I can remember to this day the great sense of delight, freedom and adventure as I simply stepped out of my sunsuit and was now free to travel. Not to be held back by he narrow confines of my yard, I took off down the sidewalk headed downtown, where I already sensed was the place of excitement and traffic. My birthday suit spree was short lived. I was told I got only few blocks before being apprehended.

My very first excitement in life was discovering what I thought was holding me back was not what was really holding me back. The rope was not my prison. It was my thinking that the rope secured me to the circumference of the tree. I will never forget the primitive joy and delight I had in discovering I could simply step out of my sunsuit.

Later, much later, it took time to discover that it was my limited view of things that held me back, that is, my assumptions, not reality itself. Later I learned that our mental maps are not the territory but only represent the territory. And a close look at the territory from another point of view may be necessary to change my mental maps.

When I learned the difference between maps and the actual territory they represented, this made immediate sense. Traveling around the country in the 1960s, our roadmaps did not always have the new Interstates registered, so we could end up traveling the long way, when shorter way was available.

Perhaps due to this early experience, I have been able to wear a lot of hats: I have been an athlete, a coach, a sports psychologist, a monk, a priest, served in or with all 4 branches of the U.S. Military during the Cold War, a psychotherapist, a college teacher and administrator, a writer and now, my favoriate and ultimate vocation, a storyteller. These transitions happened desp9ite or maybe because I felt deeply trapped at times. I have been blessed by many gifts, people and opportunities. I am lucky in life and in love.

LESSON. Is it possible that when we are "stuck," it not the situation that holds us back, but our view of the situation? If or when we can somehow step outside that situation, we might begin to view it from a different point of view, a new frame?

In this story, I will share many setbacks, some personally caused and others not. Several were reallly deep holes for me. Now I see each of them as a blessing in disguise that later led me to deeper awareness of my own journey into faith and love, risk and adventure.