When I was eight years old, my father sat on the edge of my bed, as I was about to go sleepy time.  He
quietly started to

EVERYTHING IS ABOUT RELATIONSHIP

It was Linda Worldturner, an 18-year-old Lakota-Sioux Native woman who taught me that everything in life is about relationship, and, what that looks like when practiced daily.  Linda grew up on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota.  Her home life was filled with alcohol, drugs, violence and stuff that can destroy the spirit.  Yet, for whatever reason, her spirit soared  

 

When I first met Linda at a unique program for, what were referred to as American Indians, I was just a standard white guy who grew up in L.A. on sandy beaches,long freeways and an awareness of Native people only from the movies.  Linda shared her life story once, and never again.  She didn’t need to.  Instead, she practiced connecting with everyone, even the all white staff that tended to hold Native people as needing to be civilized. 

By watching Linda interact with people of any age, color or racial belief, I saw what sacred looks like when practiced, and lived.  Relationship, I learned, wasn’t just about getting to know someone, or living with another person.  It is a way to be in life daily with all people, all the time, everywhere.  Without using or thinking the word sacred, I came to practice, more often, relating to people as sacred no matter what they believed, or who they were. .   

Linda never spoke of these things.  She simply smiled often, looked into your eyes and and cared for everyone. 

 

ARMEN: BIG BOY RESTAURANT

My son and I were in Bob's Big Boy restaurant in Burbank, near Los Angeles, a place that's been there for over sixty years, and is a hangout for everyone, including movie people and lots of non-movie people.  

We go once a week and have a favorite server named Armen.  When we arrive, and it's
crowded, we ask to wait for his table.  When he was told we were waiting for an open table with Armen, he came over to us, and apologized for not having a table available.
"We will wait for a table of yours to open up." 
"No, no," he said, "I don't want you to wait 20 minutes."

We insisted we wanted to be with him, and waiting was just fine.  "No, no, I can't have you do that," he insisted in a voice of caring.  "I feel guilty keeping you waiting."

Minutes later, he returned to tell us he had asked another server to turn one of his tables over to Armen so we could sit right away, and he could serve us.

We took the table, sat down, and Armen came over, during the crowded lunch time, remembered our order exactly (well scrambled eggs and hash browns with fruit), from a week ago, and with tears in his eyes, said, "Thank you.  You guys mean so much to me."  In the midst of lunch time crowd, we held hands.  He had tears.  He knew he mattered to us more to us as a person, more than the timing.   We had just met Armen the week 
before, just one time.  The food was secondary to us.  The relationship with Armen was primary.