As many of you may be guessing from our similar appearance, I’m Pete’s brother, Jon. When I took a run early this morning along Motley Drive, the street Peter lived on, several motorists honked and waved. Perhaps it was just Texas friendliness on a beautiful Saturday morning, but if there are reports of sightings a week after Peter’s death, well…..

Our father often asked at the dinner table, “What have you done today to make the world a better place?” Though a bit of a heavy burden at times, good question for all of us.

Well, Peter, I can say without a doubt, you’ve made me a better person. Your life, and now your death, throw me back on myself to, as you have, make my unique contribution to the world. I hope for all of us Peter’s life and death can inspire us to fulfill our obligation to be fully ourselves and to do so in service to the world.

There’s much talk these days of service, especially to one’s country. But without much recognition of the many ways one can serve and that the best service comes from being our true, deepest selves. As Mary Oliver says in the last lines of her poem Wild Geese:

      Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
      are heading home again.
      Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
      the world offers itself to your imagination,
      calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
      over and over announcing your place
      in the family of things.

Though this may sound narcissistic and selfish, that is not the meaning. The poem speaks of both our uniqueness and of our “place in the family of things.” The implication would seem to be that they are the same thing. When we’re deeply ourselves, we’re doing what we should be doing, have to be doing, because it is always in some way our unique and essential contribution.

The world, like our Germanic father, often wants us to contribute the way they think we should, making the typical and tragic mistake of confusing our perception of the world and of others for a concrete reality. We mistake our ideas, past experiences and pet theories for reality. If only everyone else could get on board and see how things really are!

Peter, I’m sorry for the ways this happened to you. But inspired by your life of service that always helped others “find their place in the world of things.” And, I’m here to say that if our father were here today, if he could have seen the many lives you have touched, he’d be so very, very proud.

Our father, like Pete, was an educator. Peter and his dad were both superior teachers, deservedly priding themselves in being able to explain something complicated in clear, simple language. Having survived childhood dinners where some unsuspecting friend over for dinner mention something medical in the presence of our physiology professor dad….and then hours later..... But, it would be an excellent exlanation! As have been Peter’s many phone consultation on various questions I’ve had about electronics.

Peter and dad were educators, and both were champions of the underdog. And, like Peter, dad was a ….liberal….a word I’ve been cautioned against using in the Lone Star state! So, against the advice of friends in New Mexico, who said, “Don’t talk politics in Texas, we want you to come back alive!” But, you all knew Peter; we know he’d want it said. So, I will tell you the results of my throwing of the I Ching this morning before dawn, a week after Peter’s death.

The I Ching, the Book of Changes, is an ancient book, one of the oldest texts in human history. One “throws” coins or, as I did this morning in the traditional method, forty-nine yarrow stalks. The apparently random divisions the stalks fall into are taken as meaningful, the seeming randomness reflecting the greater transpersonal reality of the moment.

Regardless if we choose to find meaning in the throw of the yarrow stalks, the I Ching contains the wisdom of some of the greatest souls in history, including Lao Tzu and Confucius. And, for those who can imagine there is more to it all than what our conscious egos can conceptualize, you will be interested in the particular results I obtained from the I Ching. When I meditated on Peter Michael Maaske this morning, the throw of the yarrow stalks yielded the result called Ko.

Now, we all knew Peter, so no surprise that the meaning of Ko is REVOLUTION. The I Ching is explicit that this result may be in reference to political events. But I invite you to also consider the need in all of us for a personal revolution as I read you a bit from the I Ching.

“Ko refers to revolution or molting, as of an animal’s pelt, which is changed in the course of the year by molting. From this the word is carried over to apply to the “moltings’ in political life, the great revolutions connected with changes of governments.”

From the text:
            REVOLUTION. On your own day
            You are believed.
            Supreme success,
            Furthering through perseverance.
            Remorse disappears.

And from the commentary:

“…Times change, and with them, their demands. Thus the seasons change in the course of the year. In the world cycle also there are spring and autumn in the life of people and nations, and these call for social transformations.

…. In the course of the year a combat takes place between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, eventuating in the revolutions of the seasons. Man masters these changes in nature by noting their regularity and marking off the passage of time accordingly. In this way order and clarity appear in the apparently chaotic changes of the seasons, and man is able to adjust himself in advance to the demands of the different times.”

This is the task that Peter leaves us with.

In Buddhist counties, one constantly hears the greeting, “Namasté.” The usual translation is, “I greet the god within you,” or “I greet the godhead within you.” I like the translation given by the spiritual leader Ram Das:

“I greet that place in you that, when you are in that place in yourself and I am in that place in myself, there is only one of us.”

And, so, I say to you, and to Peter, Namasté.