John Paul Sweeny

I know it´s been many years since you´ve made your transition to your place in heaven. There isn´t a day that goes by that my thoughts of the days we´ve had together and knowing you and being a friend of yours. There are so many things that I can speak about and all the things we have done together and times we spent surfing, working on surfboards, and you watching me make surfboards at the RC Surfboard shop on 17th street in HB. Us working together on construction projects. Here I am, at...

Though it might seem, in the hurdy-gurdy of everyday kinetic life, that the abutting importance of John Paul to us - during each of these days we continue to take in the air we breathe - that his abutting importance to us ever disappears into some (poetic) receding horizon; well, think again - for that is only just an illusion. He is nearer now than then he was, on 14 January 2005 - He, our teacher (on the transitoriness of this life, on the eternity of the next; on living a life of...

John,
Your in my thoughts and daily prayers. I was in Hawaii and visited the Heau and stayed at the Kuilima. I felt your spirit strongly, daily.
I miss you.May you rest in peace.
-M.

To my namesake


This here’s my ol’ man John Paul Sweeny (b.1898) with your ol’ man John Paul Sweeny (b.1953), back in ’54 – when I sixteen, like you. This here were in dining-room of our Manhattan tenement apartment I write you about, six-eight blocks south of Columbia U. (My sister Patsy – who die in ’72 – married Columbia U. law student in ’52.) You can see that surfer-to-be who your ol’ man – upper body rotated left, head (& eyes) rotated right. While my ol’ man gaze...

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep,or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lords own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come from heaven, with a loud command, with the...

Just hanging around thinking of my dad.

Not until each loom is silent
and the shuttles cease to fly,
will God unroll the pattern
and explain the reason why
the dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver's skillful hand
as the threads of gold and silver
for the pattern which he planned
Author Unknown