Beautiful People Profile: An "Ordinary, ExtraOrdinary" Young Man!

Santino Wong is a handsome 28-year-old man, carrying himself with ease and grace in his six-foot frame, and he most always wears a smile....except when it comes to Sports and his team isn't doing well, as below.


I don't recall at what precise time this "ordinary" young man became "extraordinary" in my eyes. But at some point, I know he caught my attention as being "extraordinary" in very "ordinary" circumstances.


Yes, I'm using the term Condi Rice coined for her memoir, "My Ordinary, Extraordinary Family and Me," because it so accurately describes Santino Wong. I've now come to know him as a young person who lives by grace and is gracious in all that he does in his interaction with others.


The grace that you feel emanating from Santino comes from his ever-ready smile, his light-heartedness and his winning sense of humor. That's the first sign that something is not very "ordinary" about him.

No one goes through life smiling, much less being gracious, even in moments of defeat. As a matter of fact, that's when Santino starts getting downright funny.


You see, I've seen Santino not win a sale, yet not become defeated. This was during the time I interacted with him in his Sales job at an Internet company in Pleasanton, California.

When others became desperate in wanting to meet their Sales quotas, I've seen Santino distance himself from "the game" of Sales and become even more PRESENT to himself. Ultimately, I've seen him come back from behind his quota to largely exceed it, because of this strategy.


Now that I've gotten to know him a little better, I believe this is the way Santino has learned to survive: through distancing himself from the "object" and becoming PRESENT in the fullness of who he is in Body and Spirit.

"I don't allow 98 percent of things to take the smile off my face," Santino says.

I speculate that when he goes from being "ordinary" to "extraordinary," Santino begins to live fully through the strength of Spirit within him.

This is the goal most of us striving for many years on the Spiritual Path aspire to achieve!

I don't think Santino is even conscious of the fact that his style changes, so I know he cannot explain this phenomenon to us.


All he says simply is that "I feel God is constantly with me in everything I
do."

He just becomes that special being!

Most of the time, if you're discerning, that's who and what he is in all ways.

Now that I know his story, I can say with ease that it is not a technique. It is his beingness.

This young man of grace and extraordinariness is a cancer survivor.

At age 19, Santino discovered a lump on one side of his neck, then a second on the other side. These turned out to be the symptoms of Hodgkin's Disease (Lymphoma).

Imagine the plight of this young man, next to the last, in a family of five
children to a single mom. He has a sister, Cindy, a brother, Timothy, then sister, Antonia, above him. Then there is his sister,Tiana, below him.


His family rallied around him with a love so fierce and so strong that it was greater than the chemotherapy and radiation treatments he had to endure.


His parents' families came together to help this young man ...fight...fight hard...to live! His mother, sisters, brother, aunts and uncles all were available for whatever he needed, whenever he needed it.

"I love my family to death and consider them the best in the world. Anything or anywhere I'm with the family is going to be great. We're all upbeat and positive, and we all keep each other balanced as family, as friends, and as people," Santino says.

He did tell me about the excruciating pain he experienced having marrow taken out of his bones. But now, he prefers to focus less on the pain he endured and more on the love he used to survive and thrive during this two-year odyssey.


His sister, Antonia, singularly undertook the task of writing a weekly newsletter, "Tino's World." This kept all the relatives
up-to-date on Santino's treatment and progress.

Aside from providing information about Santino, Antonia also included "a lot of fun stuff in there, so it wouldn't be such a drag," he says.

His entire family, Santino says, responded "like professionals."

Santino had to win. There was no question...no doubt.

"It was all forward motion, if you know what I mean. Game plans and strategies were written out, and we all tackled them together," Santino says.

By Grace, Santino won. By Graciousness, he now thrives!


In meeting Santino less than 10 years later, I'm truly awestuck by the resilience of this "ordinary, extraordinary" young man.

Where do you get the constitution to keep on going!?

Santino says that his illness made "me realize what was important and what wasn't," he says. "It taught me that being happy is being healthy. I don't let anything bring me down."

But I still am confounded! The reason is that Santino's illness and recovery was NOT the end of his or the family's trials!


Three days ago, on December 9, was the second anniversary of the death of his mother: Patricia Ann Alba. Yes, on that day in 2008, his mother died at age 59.

As I write this, I shake my head in wonder and awe.

Yes. I'm awestruck!

How do you...how can you ...move forward?

Forward march did Santino...and his three sisters and brother.

Truly the question is: Is it Faith, or, Is it Grace? Or, Is it ...Love?


I think it is all those things.

Santino says he grew up going to Catholic Church but now attends Christian churches.

Does it matter if he attends every week?

I never got around to asking that question ...it seems so irrelevant.


What I know about this "ordinary" young man is that he did not finish High School, yet he writes and speaks with the intellect of someone who went through at least four years' of college and interacts with the sophistication of a PhD in Psychology.

Yes. Santino dropped out of High School, started working at age 14 and began in Sales at age 16.

The fact that he's an awesome Sales person, exceeding quotas and results far above his college-educated peers, is just part of the story. The other part is that this "ordinary" young man has taken the "extraordinary" circumstances of life and survival in stride, without any trace of bitterness or self pity and has made it into a personal style of dignity and graciousness.

Yes. Santino grew up fighting for his life, as a child of Chinese and Mexican parents, in very dismal socio-economic circumstances in San Francisco.

Maybe, that's where he learned to get into his PRESENCE.

Maybe, that's where he learned that there is a part of himself that is greater than any "badder" boy or situation he encountered.


Maybe, that's when he began to look to one of his heroes, Bruce Lee, for strength.

Maybe, that's where he learned to rely on the Grace that supports us from within.

But what I know in truth is that today, Santino Wong, aka Adam Zapple on Facebook, is one hell of an "ordinary, extraordinary" guy!

He says that he overcomes any challenges with, "My faith in God and an awesome support system of family and friends."

Santino's goals in life are to be "Happy, Healthy and Successful" in Sales.

But there, he says, he has a strategy he's learned from his family, too:
"Hard Work."

Typically, when I ask people,"Who is God to you," few, regardless of education, religious or spiritual training, can respond with the directness, grace and clarity that Santino did:

"God is my creator and who I look to first for everything good or bad."

Yes, that's what this "ordinary, extraordinary" young man told me, without much fanfare, just eloquence.

This simply IS...the way it is with Santino Wong.

No fanfare. No fuss. No bother.

Just Grace...Just Graciousness....exuding from this...

ordinary, "very extraordinary," young man.

May God so Grace the rest of us in our lives!

Continue to walk in the light of Grace and Love, Santino Wong!


R.I.P. Patricia Ann Alba: It's such a pleasure to know of your wonderful family. You've left a great legacy in this "ordinary, extraordinary" young man!

Namaste',

Che'

Our Singular Journey: Our Singular Soul!

ABC Correspondent Dan Harris was on assignment in Baghdad in 2006, covering the Iraqi War. Of course, reporters are human and sometimes can lose their "distance" from the people they cover while doing a story.

That's exactly what happened to Dan Harris. He covered a story that included an 18-year-old Iraqi and his heart ...and Soul...went out to this little guy, also named Dan.



That's where the story of Dan and Dan began.

After the segment that included Iraqi Dan aired on ABC at the beginning of 2007, viewers wrote in and wanted to reach out to the 18-year-old. A small Liberal Arts college in Maine, Thomas College, went further: they offered Iraqi Dan an opportunity to attend college free. The question was: how would Iraqi Dan get into the United States.


That's when Dan Harris asked for and received permission from ABC management to intercede and help out.

That he did.

Within a few months, March 2007, Dan Harris was greeting Iraqi Dan at JFK International Airport in New York City. From there, they journeyed to Waterville, Maine and Iraqi Dan began his "American" life.


Happy ending.

No...actually. NOT ...a happy ending.

Iraqi Dan got enamored with freedom in the United States and began to party and party really, really hard. The story took an ugly twist when about nine months later, despite all their efforts at helping him, the administration at Thomas College expelled Iraqi Dan.

The story took many, many twists and turns with Iraqi Dan getting many chances to straighten up his life and capture a part of the American Dream.


His odyssey included a stint at a Maine group home, near homelessness, and a move to a Boston.

Nothing worked for Iraqi Dan.

Two years and four months later, the story ends with Iraqi Dan returning ....happily ...to Iraq. He wanted to go back home and rejected staying even a few more months to pick up his "Green Card" that would have assured him of entry back into the United States.


He simply did not want it.

Tracking Iraqi Dan in his homeland a year later, Dan Harris realized that Iraqi Dan achieved something in Iraq that money, freedom and access to a "greater life" could not buy: happiness!

Iraqi Dan was home and he was wiser and smarter for his American journey.

Many American who saw that story on Nightline, as I did several nights ago, probably ponder why access to the ultimate in life did not work for Iraqi Dan: access to education, to more money, to freedom to all the things that he seemingly could not get in Iraq.


Were these viewers to get stuck on those points, they would miss a tremendous lesson about life and about our Soul's journey.


Our journey in life is not to achieve status, money and power. Yes, these are by-products and tremendously rich by-products of our journey. But, our ultimate purpose here in this life at this time, or at any other time, is for the evolution of our Soul!


To not know this is the reason many Souls wind up going around and around and around and around searching for their tails!


If you believe like I do, then you'll understand that the journey of this life is the continuation of the Soul's journey from a previous lifetime. This is NOT an argument for the Theory of Evolution. Nor is it a belief in the the same BODY having the same experiences as it did in a previous lifetime.


But it is a thesis for the same SOUL continuing on its journey from one lifetime to the next continuously moving, or in some cases, inching, closer to what, I believe, IS the ultimate goal in life: a closer connection to the universal energy we call God.


This lifetime, like any other, is an opportunity to refine and improve upon a previous one, where our human traits and characteristics may have so intruded on our spiritual passage that we got LOST in the journey and ultimately lost connection to our Soul.

That Soul comes back with all the ingredients of the previous lifetimes, continuously urging, nudging, calling, whispering to us to get on "the right path."


That right path has nothing...NO THING...to do with achieving riches, unless it is to contribute to the growth of that Soul.

That right path has nothing...NO THING...to do with living in the best country on Earth, unless it is to contribute to the growth of that Soul.

And...every BODY...every Soul has a singular journey.


No two Souls are evolving at the same rate at the same pace at the same time.



Each Soul is navigating its way along its own path in this journey of this lifetime. This is a singular experience for that singular Soul.

"Remember that the spirit of God exists in every person, the same spirit that gives you life. Therefore you should not only love but respect the soul of every person as a holy place."

Epictetus


People make so many, many mistakes when they believe that "what is good for Susie is also good for ME..."



Through envy, jealously, greed, passion or other dark traits and emotions, people get lost to themselves and the journey of their Soul.

That's where they truly make their mistakes.

Sometimes that loss comes about at the hands of others.


But, if a body is connected to its Soul, it knows what it needs to go back HOME. It knows what it needs for ultimate happiness, like Iraqi Dan.



It begs to go back home, Green Card, or no Green Card.

That is the story of how an Iraqi teenager, now man, taught America an important lesson of the singular journey of a singular Soul!

Don't miss your lesson!


Namaste',

Che'
NOTE: Dan Harris also detailed his time with Dan in a "Reporter's Notebook." See it by cutting and pasting this link:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/reporters-notebook-dan-met-dan/story?id=12270612&page=1

His Spirit was so HUGE: It filled the Entire Gym!

"Treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of reward. Your life will never be the same."

-Og Mandino,"The Greatest Salesman in the World"Via Gratefulness.org

I just *came back from my gym where everyone who knew him
is in SHOCK!

There he always was...larger than life. Standing about 6' 10", tanned,
blonde hair and a mustache. Before you got to know him, you thought
when looking at him, that he looked pretty "fierce." This was simply based
on appearances.

He knew this, too, so the first thing he did (or so it seemed to me) upon
encountering a new person is to smile and put him/her at ease.

I remember that this is exactly what he did about two years ago, when
I first saw him. He wiped down the machine and excused himself and his
buddies for taking so long on the machine. From that day, whenever I saw him, he was always so respectful and loving.

About six weeks ago, he, his buddies and I got into a discussion about a topical issue of the day. Then when they started about girls turning into werewolves and vampire movies, I moved away.




"I love those movies," he said.
I smiled.

The last time I saw him was exactly two weeks ago.
I asked him for his buddies. He smiled and said they weren't there that day.

Today, as I came out of the locker room, I instinctively looked over to where he liked to work out. He wasn't there.

At the time, I wondered why I'd thought of him, since there were so many other people I meet and greet at the gym. My times at the gym are so inconsistent, he's not always there whenever I'm there.

But I looked for him today, and he wasn't there.

I was nearing completion of my workout when my friend, with whom I'd had a lengthy discussion earlier about the recent elections and the political happenings, called me over.

He said, "You know about Mike right?" He had a smile.
"Which Mike," I asked... My friend then described him.
I said, "Yes. I know him."
"Well, he's dead," my friend said.

I realized then that his smile was a cover for the shock he and ALL the folks at Bally's in Fremont are currently experiencing, once they hear the news about Mike.

Apparently everyone knew him! Aside from his height, he stood out, too, because he sometimes wore red/yellow workout shoes.
Apparently everyone had a wonderful story to tell about his gentleness. And whenever his friends talked about him (a few others came over to join us), they were smiling...

They were smiling because of shock and, yes, they are incredulous that someone with so much life...so much spirit...could suddenly be DEAD!

Many people recalled seeing him at the gym on Friday. Then Monday, he fell over and died on the construction site where he worked. His supervisor found him on the ground. No one knows what killed him...yet.

Meanwhile, everyone is wondering...how could a guy so loving...in such good shape...55 years old...suddenly be no longer among us.
I wanted to tell them:
"He's here...he's here...he's STILL HERE!"


I'd FELT him draw me into his spirit upon exiting the locker room and entering the gym floor.
I know... he did.
I know... his spirit still lives.
I know ...his spirit is still connected to each and every person he encountered.
That's the oneness I blog about so often.

Yet, it's so hard to imagine because we're no longer going to see him.

Yes, his friends and all the folks at the gym can't stop smiling, though he's dead. The memories of the JOY he brought can never ever go away, whenever people think of him.

That's just the type of guy he was...he always found a way
to make you smile. Always.

Even those who don't claim any spiritual knowledge now
know there was something special about that guy, Mike!

God...I will miss his Presence.

But I know that every time I go to the gym...
I will remember; I will smile, too.

I will remember that beautiful spiritof Mike Winslow.

We all are waiting to hear about the funeral services.

You know...we all plan to go...so many of us...
his gym "friends."

We'll all be there...
And yes, we'll be smiling.

You see that's the legacy he left with the world in his 55 years:
Always leave people with a smile.

R.I.P. Mike Winslow:

Your spirit has so touched mine today.
I can't stop thinking about you.
I can't stop loving the memory of you.
I can't stop knowing that you were a Presence sent
for a short time...
..to teach us all... friends... strangers... gym mates...
how to let our spirit expand and cover the world
we inhabit ... with love.


Thank you, Mike Winslow, for teaching us the lessons of
love so very well.

We'll miss your Presence.

Namaste',

Che'
*Editor's Note: Original note written on Nov. 16, 2010

Book Review: "Muhammad: A Story of The Last Prophet" by Deepak Chopra

"Wisdom is like hot coals," Waraqah, the Believer, said. "People enjoy the glow, but they're not stupid enough to step in."


Waraqah, the Believer, is one of several characters Deepak Chopra uses to narrate his tale of "the last prophet."

I don't know if this strategy were the best, as it made the story of "Muhammad," very complicated and hard to follow. [Even Chopra admitted that his dropping in and out of characters could be "confusing."] Obviously, it was the only way Chopra could "lessen the impact of our modern-day judgments," and accurately tell the tale of this "last prophet," who left a legacy of both tremendous strife and tremendous compassion.

Orphaned at age six, Muhammad did not in any way seem destined for greatness in seventh-century Arabia. He grew up in a large extended family of uncles, cousins and other males who belonged to the Hashim clan. The society he grew up in was that of fierce tribal rivalries. Muhammad's struggles started when he tried to educate the various clans that there is only ONE God, and that is God, Allah, not the many "gods," they paid homage to in their daily lives with sacrifices.


Muhammad's awakening and teachings led to bloodshed. Although he came out of the Middle Eastern desert, like Jesus and Moses, his struggle for recognition as a great prophet is even more pronounced today when members of the Muslim-based Jihad commit atrocities in his name.

Despite the circuitous way of telling it, the story of "Muhammad" is a fascinating look at a man who was way ahead of his time by marrying a widowed woman, Khadijah, 15 years his senior. The fact that Khadijah was a rich widow and liberated, yet made Muhammad a keeper of all her goods as a merchant, made her stand out in stark contrast to the other women in the Arabian society who were much more submissive to their husbands.


The liberal stance Muhammad maintained towards women certainly could have been nurtured at the breasts of his fiesty "wet nurse," Halimah. Despite her poverty, Halimah was a woman of great integrity, wisdom and insights.

Muhammad's awakening came through the archangel, Gabriel, who also had appeared to Mary, and who urged him to "recite," even though Muhammad could not read or write, a level of illiteracy not uncommon even for "well to do" at that time.

Gabriel's persistence for Muhammad to "recite," even embracing him three times to give him confidence, is ultimately the reason Muhammad and the rest of his community knew that he was being called to serve from a higher place.

With this sudden ability to "recite," we then become witnesses to the transformation in this man, Muhammad, who would be ordinary, had it not been for the "extraordinary" occurrences he encountered throughout his journey.


Chopra grew up in India, so was a first-hand witness to the riots and mass murders that resulted from the partition in Pakistan in 1947. The thing that intrigued him about Muhammad, though, was:

"my fascination with the way in which consciousness rises to the level of the divine. This phenonmenon links Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad. Higher consciousness is universal. It is held out as the ultimate goal of life on earth.

"Without guides who reached higher consciousness, the world would be bereft of its greatest visionaries--fatally bereft, in fact."

I was drawn to this book, too, because Deepak Chopra has been a great guide for me throughout my spiritual journey. I saw him first in the late 1980s, when he was just emerging publicly as a spiritual teacher. Since then, I've been witness to his evolution, as I've also been witness to my own.


What is especially fascinating to me about this book, "Muhammad: The Story of the Last Prophet," is its TRUTH of the journey of Spirit.

Indeed, if God were looking for a last messenger to deliver to us a message of Hope, he chose the right personality.

Muhammad himself felt that he was an ordinary man who had an "extraordinary experience."

Aren't so many of us experiencing this very thing, today, when we receive that first stirring of Spirit?

We begin very tentatively, doubting that we are hearing anything but our own imagination going wild.

Eventually, we settle into following the path we're being directed, despite our humanity and personality protesting all the way.



Then, we reach a certain plateau in our journey, where we must choose sides: the ways of the world or God.

It becomes that simple:

"No man shalt thou serve two masters, for either he will love the one and hate the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Matthew 6: 24


That's what happens to us along the journey.

This plateau.

Decisions.

Decisions between our spirituality and our humanity (personality).


Decisions between the Good within us and the Evil that also lurks within.


Those are the battles we fight, until the end: battles of the Soul!

These are the battles Deepak Chopra so clearly demonstrated through the complicated figure of "Muhammad, A Story of the Last Prophet."



So, if Jesus were the first "messenger of Truth," as many of us believe, and came to reveal to us the Spirit within us, we clearly can appreciate God's need to send other messengers along the way, then a last "messenger of Truth" about the "Human" within us as well.

That's why the wisdom of Waraqah, the Believer resonates with many who would be oh...so Human:
"Wisdom is like hot coals. People enjoy the glow, but they're not stupid enough to step in."



May God Bless you on your journey of Truth!

Namaste',

Che'