You Can't Fake Divine Crap

There's no faking on a spiritual blog!  Well, I suppose many spiritual people do fake it because they're tired, just aren't feeling it, or maybe they're just scamming the rest of us to begin with.  Anyhow, there's no faking on this spiritual blog.

That's a curse and a blessing.  The curse is that you have to BE spiritual to write about it.  You have to think spiritual thoughts, feel spiritual feelings and be transported now and then.  Well, I've been away almost a year, so what does that say about me?  You could assume I've been a-spiritual, spiritually anorexic and I couldn't blame you.

The fallacy in that is that you don't HAVE to post every time you have such thoughts, feelings, and transports!  In fact, I don't see how a human, allegedly a spiritual being cloaked in a physical frame, can go even a short time like an hour, much less a year, without swarms of such experiences. I've been swarmed.

The Big Dude has been hanging around on a regular basis, divine stalker that he is.  And sometimes I even notice he's there, recognize his droppings, notice his signature.  For example, I share my house sometimes and for the first time I have been sharing it with a male.  After turning down myriads of potential housemates, I finally stumbled over Rick, a truly fine human being and I took him on.

About a month later, I was rear-ended by a hit and run driver and entered the labyrinth of no-fault insurance claims, personal injury  or PIP as it's known in the business, and the part of the medical world fueled by non-health insurance companies.  Come to find out, Rick heads up the PIP division of a large insurance company and he's walked me through every piece of paper, every test and appointment, and even through the myriad phone calls from my insurance company.  What are the odds that the very first time I agree to house share with a male, he turns out to have the exact skills that I need to survive a very complicated personal injury, no-fault insurance system.  The odds
are zero to none, right?

I couldn't help but see the Big Dude behind that "coincidence."

So where's the curse in all that?  Clearly, that falls in the category of "blessing," yes?  Yes.  The curse is in failure to shape that blessing into the language of sacred shit so I could post it on my blog.  Better late than never, I say, and so I'm posting today.

Generally, I end my stories with a lesson of some kind, gleaned from that self-same story.  A little parable, if you will.  Maybe the lesson is this:  I'm coming to take the Dude for granted.  How great is that?  I don't have to write about him to make him come alive.  He's kind of taken up residency in my neighborhood, that in-dwelling thing that mystics write about.  That's a little fancy for me though.  I'm just a chick who's blessed with a stalker-god.  Not that I'm condoning stalkers, mind you; but if I've got to have one, then I'm glad it's the Big D.  Blessings, Roxie

The Big Dude Dwells Within!

We read about the God who lives inside of us.  I've always thought of that, intellectually, as some kind of co-creative spark that each creature uniquely possesses.  I'm coming to see that literally some kind of different spirit or being lives in my being--in lock down along with childhood feelings both of sorrow and glory.  Wordsworth wrote:  "those first affections,/Those shadowy recollections,/Which, be they what they may,/Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,/Are yet a master-light of all our seeing."

 He's saying that some higher being inhabited us more fully when we were children and as adults, we have a harder time grabbing on to that innate connection.  To my absolute amazement, every time I unlock a childhood feeling, bring it into the light of day, I am closer to
that indwelling Spirit or God or the Big Dude, call it what you will.

 We're on a journey as "spiritual beings in a physical world" says Teilhard de Chardin.  Before we were conditioned and shaped by our parents and our culture, we were instinctively drawn to whatever life presented--laughter, clouds, a loving touch, a butterfly.  We knew that life was amazing!  In my own case, I learned to NOT be amazed, to stifle my amazement and joy.  I learned, in fact, to be afraid.  I learned to be quiet and to try to please authority figures.  By age 5, I had very little wonder left in me.  Mine is not an unusual situation.  Many, many humans have far worse experiences in childhood to wipe out those "shadowy recollections" and even those "trailing clouds of glory" that Wordsworth speaks of.

 Many of us learned that the God of our families and even our schools or churches was a harsh, punishing God who would separate those sheep from those unacceptable goats, who would see our slightest sin, who might strike us dead if we doubted or questioned authority.  This was the God of my mother, for sure.  He was a weapon used to scare us into the behavior required of the moment. How do we recover from that false idol and begin to open ourselves to our own spiritual nature lost in the rules and judgments of family and culture?

 I'm learning that every time I free a feeling that has been on lock down for decades, I experience a bit more of my connection with the Divine.  I feel the fear of my 13-year-old self white knuckling it through church services as I'm sitting in church today.  I feel the horror of my 5-year-old self rejected and shamed for being injured on the playground as I'm dancing with friends.  Don't feel.  Don't be so excited.  Don't be happy.  Be afraid.  Be. Afraid.

 How do we know, much less love, a God that seems to have been a perpetrator of pain and fear or, at least, seemed to be at the command of such perpetrators.  I think of watching a priest beat a third grader with a switch in front of a room full of 8-year-olds.  I remember trying not to move a muscle, trying to be invisible, trying not to ever be noticed by God or any of his representatives.

 And so it was for many human children. It doesn't have to be once we're adults.  We can heal. That divine spark, all but extinguished, burns a little higher every time we remember a squashed feeling and let it live.  God lives, for me, in all those locked up places--in enthusiasm, spontaneity, joy.  In my unbridled 3-year-old self, arms outstretched, running and leaping into Uncle Phil's arms where he sat in a speedboat. That "running toward" is the diving spark that's coming back to me.    
     

After a Long Hiatus, Grace

I've been away almost a year.  Perhaps I had cancer and was fighting for my life?  Perhaps I had no computer?  Perhaps I . . . no excuse.  I lost faith for awhile and was wandering in the dark.  It happens.  If we're honest, it happens a lot.  If our "faith" is not just intellectual, but permeates all corners of our being, it happens really a lot.

Intellectually, I can't reason my way into any kind of faith.  My heart and spirit and gut apprehend it in some strange way.  The only way I can really explain my lapse is this:  I was looking down afraid of the next step.  Instead of looking up to find the way, I was focused on staying erect, on not falling, on putting one foot tentatively in front of the other.

That, too, is the journey.  That's where I've been.  Sometime is IS faith to take one step at a time. Sometimes that's all the faith we can muster.  Listen to my words. We don't "muster" faith or, I should say, our spiritual nature.  It's in and around us.  We can ignore it.  We can refuse to trust it.  We can be hurt so much by life that we can't conceive of a God who would treat us that way.  All of that.

In the end, faith is really mysterious.  It's a choice but we don't make it alone.  There are forces in an around us, guiding us.  Sometimes we are aware; sometimes we are not aware.  They are there whether we believe it or not.  Our beliefs do not shape the universe.

There.  That's when I have faith.  When I get out of my poor ego self and recognize that I'm just a particle, not the wave.  I have to trust the ocean which I can never fully know or understand from the droplet's perspective. My beliefs do not shape the Universe. Roxie

Spiritual Guides

The other day I was talking with a friend about the money-related details of my life like selling my house, building a business and so on.  I caught myself saying:  "I don't know how to DO this shit.  I need a coach or something."  Later I was  watching TV and noticed that a man, working with a movie star, called himself a "sobriety coach."

I began to think about spirituality and the complex simplicity of being in its flow.  I realized that many of us need or want a guide or coach for various things.  It's like having a good friend or fellow traveler.  In some cultures and in some eras, people HAD medicine men or women.  They were drawn to those who could help them and it wasn't shameful.  It was honorable to have a spirit guide; it was part of life's normal process.

Several years ago, in a Reiki session, I had a past-life experience and saw myself as a medicine woman living on a lake at the edge of a Native American tribe.  Since then, I've been doing everything I can to prepare myself for that role.

What IS that role?  It's giving voice to the inner wisdom of others.  In our culture, the closest thing to it is the life coach function or calling.  The spiritual guide, like the life coach, does not tell you what to do or what path to follow.  The spiritual guide listens with an open heart and hears the voice of your soul.  The spiritual guide highlights "soul moments" as they appear in your sharings and helps you see the spiritual path unrolling in front of you.

I offer my service as a spiritual guide to you, my readers.  Please contact me and accept my offer of a complementary phone session.  Email me at anneclarice1@gmail.com or go to my website beyondyourfearcoaching.com

Roxie

Mayhem and the Big Dude

I tend to think feelings are truth!  I've learned to check myself and notice they are a passing show and often have no relationship to facts or truth.  For example, someone tagged me on Facebook and made what seemed like a judgmental comment.  I felt outrage!  I wanted to blast this person back, skewer her with sarcasm.  What's up with that?  Where are feelings in the bigger picture of spirituality?

Another time, my brother noticed that I was bashing the Michigan State football team (being a Michigan fan) and just below that I had posted a Buddhist statement about accepting all comers, something like that.  My "fan" feelings seemed to contradict my Buddhist beliefs.  Why IS that?  Why were we even given feelings?  What is their spiritual purpose?

Checking out the cartoon I posted just below, I wonder if the Universe has a wicked sense of humor.  Can't you just hear some minor god begging the Big Dude as follows?  "Oh, c'mon.  Let me stir things up a bit.  These humans think they're so important and smart; let me give them, I don't know, some kind of inner gadget that messes up their thinking and makes them do ridiculous things.  What d'ya say, Big Dude?"  Obviously, the Big Dude said yes and here we are stuck with the ebb and flow, face it, sometimes the MAYHEM of feelings.

As a result of feelings, I tend to think I'm in a state of grace when I feel serene and connected.  Most of my friends see it that way too.  What if feeling serenity has nothing to do with my overall spiritual health?  I'm pondering this because 10 minutes later I can be livid at my dog because it ate my ham sandwich.  Serenity and anger are both feelings, right?  Why is one considered "better" in the spiritual world?  I think about the Course in Miracles staple that you can't feel love and fear at the same time and, of course, its belief that love is the greater state of being.  Is that true?  Or, are feelings just the passing show and pretty much unrelated to spirituality?

When I look around me at the Universe, I see diversity which runs on a spectrum from decay to birth.  Even black holes are now shown to spew creative elements back into the universe whereas they were previously seen as only sucking energy our of the universe.  Everything seems to be on a cycle of decay, death, rebirth.  So, one is not greater than the other, just another face of the whole.  I wonder if feelings are like that.  They, too, seem to cycle around from serenity/joy to fear/anger and everywhere in between.  Our human need to judge and compare makes us decide that one set is better than the other

Somehow, we get from there to equating positive emotions with spirituality and "negative" emotions with chaos that ought to be gotten rid of.  Yet, the Universe seems to encompass all with equanimity.  Possibly emotions of all kinds are gateways or lessons to spirituality and are not to be confused with spirituality itself.  Serenity feels wonderful but it isn't the God.  Fear feels terrible but it isn't some demon to be exorcised.  Maybe I could see my ever-changing feelings as elixirs on the spiritual journey.  A flask of serenity now and then can renew my commitment to the spiritual journey.  Truth be told, a bit of terror in the old wineskin can renew it in a different way.

This needs more thought.  Any ideas, my readers?  Roxie

It's a Re-Mix, Baby!

Seriously, need I say more?

Particles, Waves, Tide, The Ocean, Baby!

I've always had a mad jealous streak quite at odds with my theories of spirituality.  I felt like I had been dealt a raw hand by the Big Dude or whatever.  This feeling that I had been cheated allowed me to covet what others had and also to cut corners myself.  I figured since no one seemed to have my back, as the saying goes, I had to do whatever it took for me to survive.

Fast forward many years.  Last week, I faced my jealousy head on.  I was visiting my best friend for several days.  She has a perfect home, the perfect modern family, a successful marriage, and abundance in every aspect of her life.  Grandchildren!  Grown children who are happy and successful and who come to her for cozy conversation.  A job she loves.  No major health issues even though we're about the same age.  Need I go on?

So, there I was ensconced in that picture-perfect home for a few days.  I felt loved, protected, and richly engaged by her spirituality and intelligence.  It came time for me to leave and I was sitting in her picture-perfect family room surrounded by at least a hundred pictures ranging from grandchildren to grandparents.  I felt like an outsider and a big, fat LOSER.  As I sat there quietly, things began to rearrange themselves in my awareness.  Suddenly I saw her as another soul in the universe.  I remembered her origins. I saw her striving to go beyond her family.  I saw the little girl who had to grow up fast and didn't get a chance to play.

I stopped comparing my life to her life and realized I was obsessed with the trappings of life.  The bottom line is the same for both of us--to wake up to the God or whatever that is manifest in our very own selves.  That's it.  That's all.  When I am jealous and lonely, I am like a drop of water in the ocean.  I'm only thinking about that drop.  Once I realize I am part of the ocean, I'm amazed.  My friend is a drop of water and so am I.  It takes many drops of water to build an ocean.  All of us moving in divine harmony make up the tide and waves.  Wow! Roxie