Family, Friends & Fellow Officers Remember...

Ritual is the act of sanctifying action-even ordinary actions-so that it has meaning: I can light a candle because I need the light or because the candle represents the light I need. The body is wiser than its inhabitants. The body is the soul. We ignore its aches, pains, eruptions, because we fear the truth. The body is God's messenger. You were our brightest messenger and more so our hero, Officer Cook, who intellect was wiser than most of your peers and mature beyond your years. valor and dignity went hand in hand when you were battling evil. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero. Officers do have certain rituals and if they are not properly adhered to can lead an officer down the wrong side of the law.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

The good news they do not print. The good news we do print. We have a special edition every moment and we need you to read it. The good news is that you are alive in spirit with us and that the linden tree is still alive, standing firm in the harsh Winter. The good news is that you had wonderful eyes to touch the blue sky and a keen perception. The good news is that you father was in heaven waiting to wrap his arms around you and give you a big hug. They only print what is wrong. Look at each of our special editions. We always offer the things that are not wrong. We want you to benefit from them and protect them. The dandelion is there by the sidewalk, smiling its wondrous smile, singing the song of eternity. Listen! You have ears that can hear it. Bow your head. Listen to it. Leave behind the world of sorrow and preoccupation and get free. The latest good news is that you can do it. You did it, Officer Cook. You served your department well and now for giving of yourself to make us safer and happier, you can truly rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero. Let your holy spirit roam where it wants to roam, it has finally fond its eternal home.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

Be careful with the crumbs. Do not overlook them. Be careful with the crumbs; the little chances to love, the tiny gestures, the morsels that feed, the minims. Take care of the crumbs, a look, a laugh, a smile, a teardrop, an open hand. Take care of the crumbs. They are food also. Do not let them fall. Gather them. Cherish them. You cherished everything God gave you and Karen, you held on so tight it was hard to let go.. At the hospital, when Karen saw you, I'm sure she cried and didn't want to let you go. I know I cried in you mother's home and your niece Gina, was there to comfort me and I was a stranger to her and her family. Very emotional to say the least! Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero. I won't ever forget your remarkable accomplishments on behalf of Dade County citizens.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

The kitchen is al-chemical, a place where we cook-actually and spiritually. We come to it for nourishment and ease. We come to it as to a center-the heart of the house, the heart of dwelling. In the kitchen we are one, linked by hunger-actual hunger and spiritual hunger. We go to the kitchen to be nourished and revealed. It is a holy place. Your home Officer Cook, where you grew up and where you and Karen lived was always a welcome venue for parties and happy occasions. It's sad the parties are not as in the past but you will always be spoken of in the highest of regards for your concerns for all. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

I am dust particles in sunlight. I am the round sun. To the bits of dust I say. Stay. To the sun, Keep moving. I am morning mist and the breathing of evening. I am the wind in the top of a grove and surf on the cliff. Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel, I am also the coral reef they founder on. I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches. Silence, thought and voice. The musical air coming through a flute, a spark of a stone, a flickering in metal. Both candle and the moth crazy around it. Rose and the nightingale lost in the fragrance. I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy, the evolutionary intelligence, the lift and the falling away. What is and what isn't. You who know, you are the one in all, say who I am. Say I am you. You were who you were, Officer Cook and that was a pretty lovable, humble and giving gentleman, loving son, darling brother, doting uncle and a great-uncle to some pretty great- nieces and nephew who will be like you when they grow older. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

All is a circle within me. I am ten thousand winters old. I am as young as a newborn flower. I am a buffalo in its grave. I am a tree in bloom. All is a circle within me. I have seen the world through an eagle's eye. I have seen it from a gopher's hole. I have seen the world on fire and the sky without a moon. All is a circle within me. I have gone into the earth and out again. I have gone to the edge of the sky. Now all is at peace within me. Now all has a place to come home. You have arrived in your eternal home, Officer Cook. The home that is truly blessed as your soul continues its journey this day and everyday. Your amazing feats have been recorded for posterity and are available to those who made the ultimate sacrifice that you so faithfully did. Twenty-thousand loving and giving souls can certainly illuminate an entire land and that's the message so vital to those whose lives rely on police officers protecting and serving them. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

Heaven is my father and earth is my mother and even such a small creature as I find an intimate place in its midst. That which extends throughout the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe, I regard as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters and all things are my companions. My neighbor, friend and hero, Officer Cook, you and your beloved father, Charles should rest in peace and I'll say prayers and keep your beloved mother, Mrs. Julia Cook in my heart. You are both looking down and making certain all of your loved ones are being taken care of properly. They will never forget your heroics and the honest life you followed and put into practice everyday.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. 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 tidings. You were not only good, Officer Cook, but you succeeded in all your dreams and desires. We all just wanted for you to be physically with us. You spirit certainly remains here with us, it will never fly away like a piece of paper on the highway, that's for sure. By the way, today I was driving in Miami and I passed the venerable building where your Inspector's Funeral was held on May 19, 1979, St. Mary's Cathedral. The memories will always last, but your sacrifice will always remain firmly planted in the hearts of all who knew and loved you. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero. That respect you displayed to all needs to be a vital fabric of your legacy.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow-even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down yo shallow the mayfly. I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass snake that silently feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being attacked by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay "his debt of blood" to my people dying slowly in a forced labor camp. My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and my pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion. For your entire life, your true identity was William Coleman Cook and you were known as Officer William Coleman Cook: Badge#1664 once you became one Dade County's most valued and treasured police officers for all time. The pain, the cries of sorrow can still be felt most acutely by your loving family, deer friends and honorable colleagues who witnessed you giving your life on that solemn day: May 16, 1979. It never goes away, it stays with us always and even people who did not ever know you my neighbor, friend and hero, personally. Trust me. Rest in peace among the stars that shine brightly along all your fallen comrades now cradled in God's loving and heavenly palms.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

Compassion means that if I see my friend and my enemy in equal need, I shall help them both equally. Justice demands that we seek and find the stranger, the broken, the prisoner and comfort them and offer them our help. And this was your motto, Officer Cook, to serve, protect, defend and assist others. There is a proper way to carry out justice and a dishonorable means as well. The loyalty you exhibited toward others should always come back and assist your loved ones, Officer Cook, in continuing their lives, their dreams and goals. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero. Love your spiritual yearning and strengthen it. Your heart's desire is a passport to a pluriverse of meanings.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

If you want what visible reality can give, you're an employee. If you want the unseen world, you're not living your truth. Both wishes are foolish, but you'll be forgotten for forgetting that what you really want is love's confusing joy. All you ever wanted Officer Cook, was to give respect and honor and then for the citizens you served to give it back to you. You've earned all the accolades that should come your way. After all, the sacrifices you made should never go unpaid in the sense of the dignity and integrity that is afforded to you. You were a hero through and through, may you rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero. Your humbleness allowed you to carry out your position with the highest of moral standards that govern a police officer's life and career.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

The moving finger of God in human history points ever in the same direction. There must be community. Community means different things to different people. To some it is a safe haven where survival is assured through mutual cooperation. To others, it is a place of emotional support, with deep sharing and bonding with close friends. Some see community as an intense crucible for personal growth. For others, it is primarily a place to pioneer their dreams. In a real sense all life is interrelated. All people are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free. The new survival unit is no longer the individual nation; it's the entire human race and its environment. This new found oneness is only a rediscovery of an ancient religious truth. Unity is not something we are called to create; it's something we are called to recognize. Our lives extend beyond our skins, in radical interdependence with the rest of the world. And so you see it takes the hard work and talents of excellent police officers such as yourself, Officer Cook, to make a community safer and for peace, goodwill and unity to foster even greater relationships among one another. This being said, your fine upstanding legacy is now being passed on to others to assist in making Dade County a much better place to live and to thrive. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

No need to get home early; the car can see in the dark. he wanted me to be rich the only way we could, easy with what we had. And always that was his gift, given for me ever since, easy gift, a wind that keeps on blowing for flowers or birds wherever I look. World, I am your slow guest, one of the common things that move in the sun and have close, reliable friends in the earth, in the air, in the rock. Your beloved father, Charles, may he rest in peace, wanted for you, Officer Cook to first of all be polite, which you were and well mannered and then whatever your heart desired he and your beloved mother, Mrs. Julia Cook, may she live and be well supported the decisions you would make toward working very hard to be an excellent police officer. Still hard to fathom you're not with us today, but your devout spirit remains with all who knew you and will forever be. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 18, 2013

When someone deeply listens to you it is like holding out a dented cup you've had since childhood and watching it fill up with cold fresh water. When it balances on top of the brim, you are understood. When it overflows and touched your skin, you are loved. When someone deeply listens to you, the room where you stay starts a new life and the place where you wrote your first poem begins to glow in your mind's eye. It is as if gold has been discovered! When someone deeply listens to you, your bare feet are on the earth and a beloved land that seemed distant is now at home within you. You were an excellent listener. Officer Cook, all officers need to be good at seeing and hearing, if you are lacking one then this may be the beginning of your problems. But you my neighbor, friend and hero excelled at everything you undertook. Rest in peace.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 17, 2013

Some seem to be born with a nearly completed puzzle. And so it goes. Souls going this way and that trying to assemble the myriad parts. but know this. No one has within themselves all the pieces to their puzzle. like before the days when they used to seal jigsaw puzzles in cellophane. Insuring that all the pieces were there. Everyone carries with them at least one and probably many pieces to someone else's puzzle. Sometimes they know it. Sometimes they don't. And when you present your piece which is worthless to you, to another, whether you know it or not, whether they know it or not, you are a messenger from the Most High. And you were Officer Cook, our inspirational messenger delivering quality service to the good citizens of Dade County. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 17, 2013

Do all the good you can by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all places you can, at all times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can. This was your theme of your storied career with the Metro-Dade Police Department, Officer Cook, yes I can. Not no I'll stop for a day and go back to headquarters, shower, dress and go home. Another day and another dollar. This was not the officer wearing badge#1664. You only knew one way my neighbor, friend and hero. Straight ahead all ahead full. All out-giving every last ounce of strength in your strong body to combat evil. Rest in peace.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 16, 2013

I believe, no pain is lost. No tear unmarked, no cry of anguish dies unheard, lost in the hail of gunfire or blanked out by the padded cell. I believe that pain and prayer are somehow saved, processed, stored, used in the Divine Economy. The bloodshed in Salvador will irrigate the heart of some financier a million miles away. The terror, pain, despair, swamped by lava, flood or earthquake will be caught up like mist and fall again, a gentle rain on arid hearts or souls despairing in the back streets of Brooklyn. This despair that cost you your life, Officer Cook, took place in Miami on the streets of Liberty City, where hopefully after these long and most difficult thirty-four years later, people who live there can see some positive results from their arduous work that was assisted by your dangerous work in serving their public interests. This was like your second home, in which you risked everything for them. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 16, 2013

No seed ever sees the flower. Anyone involved in compassionate service eventually learns the truth. Effort is its own reward. We are here to do. And through doing to learn; and through learning to know; and through knowing to experience wonder; and through wonder to attain wisdom; and through wisdom to find simplicity; and through simplicity to give attention; and through attention to see what needs to be done. Your fine work Officer Cook, will never go undone, as other fine officers such as yourself have continued your watch. Let us hope and pray they stay safe and remain honorable and dignified like you. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 16, 2013

The call to service is a yearning from the heart to live and move beyond ourselves. Love, compassion and gratitude lead many to a life of service. Often the most fulfilling acts of service are the ones that grow naturally out of our God-given talents, interests and skills. God gave you many talents my neighbor, friend and hero, Officer Cook and you maximized your talents and took them to another level. May I be a protector to those without protection, a leader for those who journey and a boat, a bridge, a passage for those desiring the further shore. May the pain of every living creature be completely cleared away. May I be the doctor and the medicine and may I be the nurse for all sick things in the world until everyone is healed. Just like space and the great elements such as earth, May I always support the life of all boundless creatures. And until they pass away from pain may I also be the source of life for all the realms of varied beings that reach unto the ends of space. If only you could be here today Officer Cook, I meant to say your department is much different than thirty years ago. Opportunity never arrives, it's here for those of us bold enough to grab hold of it as you faithfully did. Rest in peace.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 16, 2013

Small service is true service. if one is to do good, it must be done in minute particulars. We don't know what our destiny will be, but one thing we do know; the only ones among us who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. without them, humanity cannot survive. Helping out is not some special skill. It is not the domain of rare individuals. It is not confined to a single part or time of our lives. We simply heed the call of that natural caring impulse and follow it where it leads. Service is the rent each of us pays for living-the very purpose of life. Noncooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good. For all your years working as a highly skilled police officer, Officer Cook, you received cooperation with the people you served, if only that fateful day of May 16, 1979, if you could have had the ears and eyes of that wayward young man who was bent on evil and thought that harming police officers, fine upstanding men and women such as yourself would solve his troubles and look what happened yesterday at the Boston Marathon where two explosions killed three persons and wounded over a hundred. How very sad! At one of the premier races in this country and in the world. Your enthusiasm will never be forgotten and you'll forever be remembered as one of Dade County's true heroes. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 16, 2013

Whatever our work, the best that is in people is brought out in a creative and soulful environment. No matter if one is a plumber, a doctor or a police officer, there is no job that is unimportant in God's eyes. Sometimes you just connect, like that, no big thing maybe, but something beyond the usual business stuff. It comes and goes quickly so you have to pay attention, a change in the eyes when you ask about the family, a pain flickering beyond the statistics about a boy and a girl in school, or about seeing them every other Sunday. An older guy talks about his bride, a little affectation after twenty-five years. A hot-eyed achiever laughs before you want him to. Someone tells about his wife's job or why she quit working to stay home. An old joker needs another laugh on the way to retirement. A woman says she spends a lot of her salary on an au pair and a good one is hard to find but worth it because there's nothing more important than the baby. Listen. In every office you hear the threads of love and joy, fear and guilt, the cries for celebration and reassurance and somehow you know that connecting those threads is what you are supposed to do and business takes care of itself. Officer Cook, you dotted your I's and crossed your T's and took care of business for twenty-five years and for six of those years you were our guardian and now you are one of God's most trusted and loyal guardian angels. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero, sleep soundly in God's everlasting firmament.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 16, 2013

The world of my work is changing and my professional identity, direction and security are unsettled. It is discouraging to think of all the time and effort I have invested. it seems like a sacrifice. perhaps i can begin to understand the original meaning of the word: "to make sacred." perhaps this is a sacred passage in which my insecurity is sacrificed for trust in whatever is to come. As one form dissolves, another takes its place. My work now is to seek and to recognize a new form that will provide the opportunity for growth and reward. You are sure reaping your heavenly reward, Officer Cook, for the ultimate sacrifice you made in the line of duty for Dade County and its citizens. our department has come a long way since your tragic passing and we can only hope and pray it is for the betterment of society. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero as your eternal growth continues its journey through Our Creator's kingdom.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 16, 2013

Then a plowman said, speak to us of work. And he answered, saying: You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite....Always you have been told that work is a curse and labor a misfortune. But I say to you when you work you fulfill a part of the earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, and in keeping yourself with labor is to be intimate with life's inmost secret...And all work is empty save when there is love; and when you work with love you bind yourself and to one another and to God. And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to change all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit, And to know that all the blessed non-living are standing about you and watching....Work is love made visible. Officer Cook, with every ounce of breath you inhaled you made a permanent mark on society and will not so be forgotten. You carried out your duties so faithfully and with reverence other officers will take notice of. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.R

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 16, 2013

The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again. I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the streets to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters, but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out. The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums, but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real. With creativity and imagination, it is possible to reframe any type of work and see it as a partnership with God in the ongoing creation of the world. So true and this Officer Cook, is the life that drove you to become an excellent police officer. No matter the time of day or night, the weather conditions, officers are highly trained as you certainly were to deal with and risk their very lives for the safety of the public and you certainly did just that on May 16, 1979, without any reservations, you were there for your fellow officers and the civilians who relied on your boldness and mettle to see you through. As I've stated, you always remain a source of inspiration to your loving family, friends and colleagues forever. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.

.Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 16, 2013

I am aware as I sit quietly here in my chair, sewing or reading or braiding my hair-human and simply my lot and my share-I am aware of the systems that swing through the aisles of creation on heavenly wing. I am aware of a marvelous thing. trail of the comets in furious flight, thunders of beauty that shatter the night, terrible triumph of pageants that march to the trumpets of time of Eternity's arch. I am aware of the splendor that ties all the things of the earth with the things of the skies, here in my body the heavenly heat, here in my flesh the melodious beat, of the planets that circle Divinity's feet. As I silently sit here in my chair, I am aware. you were aware Officer Cook, of your areas where you policed and served with dignity and integrity so vital in protecting our very lives. Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God. The universe is made of stories not atoms. All your diligent work, Officer Cook, will never be forgotten. Good work that leaves the world softer and fuller and better than ever before is the stuff of which human satisfaction and spiritual value are made. To have sacrificed your life in the manner in which you did, Officer Cook, speaks volumes about your reputation and stellar character. Rest in peace my neighbor, friend and hero.

Rabbi Lewis S. Davis

April 15, 2013