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A MULTIDIMENSIONAL JOURNEY
by Carol Massey
PREFACE
I have a tendency at times to look back over my life, and wonder why it took me so long to become conscious of the fact that Spirit is the architect of my life. The doer of it all, the planner, designer, builder, I mean the “whole ball of clay!” One day I ask Spirit to explain the reason for this, and this was His reply:
“Think about it, Carol”, and as I sat looking out the back door of our cabin, staring at the rocks I have grown to love, Spirit reminded me of my love for rock wall building, my rock patio, and rock gardening. Some of my rocks have names, and always, I am amazed when I find one that just doesn’t look like he belongs in the neighborhood. I always wonder, “Where did you come from, or how did you get here?” For several years I have been building rock walls, and as crazy as it may sound, my greatest enjoyment in the process is “getting to know the rocks”. Each one is unique and individual and has its own special place in the wall. I look for each one separately that will become a part of the whole. And always, there is just the perfect one waiting to fill its role in my plan. It may be broken here and there, and slightly irregular in its shape; nevertheless, it is indispensable in the wall because it is the only one which will fit precisely so in the particular spot that I have designed for it. Now granted, it may have a few rough edges on the surface, and it may require a little preparation, but I see its potential, and I am delighted to work with it until the desired result is achieved. And then, “Presto”, it proudly takes its place in my grand scheme. Now I stand back and enjoy my creation, marveling at how each rock is “happy” to be just who he is, and sees himself as a harmonious part of the entire wall.
IN THE BEGINNING,
I was awakened in the middle of the night by a tingling sensation surging through my body. It felt like waves of energy, as if I had been plugged into some “major” power source. I was transfixed. I could neither speak nor move. I sensed that I had been purposely immobilized. The sensation was very pleasant, like nothing that I had ever experienced before. Something that I did not understand was happening to me. This was an extraordinary event, something outside of normal waking consciousness. My mind seemed to expand, and was being imprinted with the most important message I have ever received. I should also add that while these strange occurrences were taking place, I was experiencing a total absence of fear. My impression was that for a brief moment, I had merged with some Infinite source of love and intelligence. The information that I received is as follows:
THE MESSAGE
“You are to create a center where people may come for help.
After receiving the message, and returning to a near normal state of consciousness, I thought “I must get up and write this in my journal so I’ll remember it.” Instantly, I received another message.....which said, “You need not write it down, you will always remember it.” “Amen”, I said, and went back to sleep.....
For a long time after this strange experience, I could think of little else. I thought if this was real, I should dedicate my life to finding a suitable place for this center. I had no doubt that somehow Divine Intervention had occurred in my life. But...what now? I didn’t have the vaguest idea about what to do next, and besides, my life was filled with so many complexities, I just didn’t have the time to dedicate to such an enormous task. “And why me?” I thought. If any one was ill prepared to carry out some mission for God, it was me... I was in my early thirties, and I felt that about my only success in life had been to thoroughly screw it up, and now, God wanted me to do something for Him. It just didn’t make any sense. What follows is a brief personal history that may explain the reason I felt so inadequate for the task at hand.
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AN INSIDE VIEW
I had married when I was twenty, and the marriage had lasted eleven years. Much of the last year, I found myself caught in a state of depression that blinded me to any future happiness in the relationship, so I did what I thought was my only choice. I blamed the marriage, and got a divorce. Our daughter was three years old at the time, and careful consideration was given to her need to still feel the support and love of both her parents. We agreed to share parental responsibilities, long before the courts decided that co-custody was a reasonable approach to parenting after divorce. I have never experienced emotional pain such as that time in my life. I cannot explain, even now, the motivation that caused me follow the course I did. All I can say is that I did it, I suffered greatly for it, my actions hurt many other people that I love, and the guilt and sadness that I experienced nearly killed me. But somewhere, deep inside me, beneath the anguish that was my constant companion, I knew I was still a person who loved. In spite of the havoc I had caused, I was aware that my basic integrity was still intact. This became a lighthouse for me. A small glimmer of hope that I would survive, and so would all those whom I had wounded so deeply.
The events of my life leading up to the divorce appeared on the surface to be quite normal, and to most of the people I knew, it looked as if my life was unfolding quite nicely, according to some preordained plan that society accepts as valid; however, beneath my practiced, cool exterior, I was a hotbed of emotions silently screaming for expression. I did what I felt was my only option at that time. I destroyed my life as I had lived it, and decided to start again. I walked away from everything familiar, and into the unknown.
The “unknown” meant having a space of my own, physically, and psychologically, spending time with myself, staring at my own reflection in a mirror, saying “Hello” to the stranger that stared back at me. I wondered what she was really like, and I realized that up to this moment, her sense of self had to a great extent, been defined by the others in her life. Like a stage puppet, she had danced through her life with others pulling her strings, never knowing the who and wherefore of things. Just blind obedience to some noncausal, inner directive that always said, “Be pleasing to others, stand on your head to make someone happy, sacrifice yourself so that others may live comfortably. Don’t ever cry if you hurt, or if you must, please have the good taste to do it alone so you will not upset others by your show of emotions.”
I was definitely out of balance and I knew it. I now thank God that I knew it because that recognition is what changed the course of my life. Physically, I was a wreck. I lost thirty pounds in just a few short weeks, and I would throw up every time I would try to eat. The psychological rejection of my life was also manifesting itself physically, but I had a will to survive. I wanted to live, really live, but first, I must find out just what that meant. I remembered a few times in my life when I had been able to talk to a couple of close friends about what life really meant, but that time was long ago, and the friends, far away.
One such friend was Peggy. She was wise beyond her years, and carried herself regally. She could have been Mary, Queen of Scots in a previous life. She just had an aire about her that demanded respect from us lesser teenage gods, but she was my friend, and in her presence I felt like her lady in waiting, an enviable position by many of our peers. Peggy was gifted in a multitude of ways. Scholastically, she was the top of the class, and musically, she was pure genius. She played the clarinet and the piano beautifully. She loved literature and poetry, and in contrast, I loved a blue-eyed boy and Elvis. We were an unlikely pair of friends, but nevertheless, we forged a bond that to this day changed the course of our histories. The turning point in our lives happened quite innocently and was unplanned, a gift from the universe to two young girls who knew only how to live in the moment. It happened one summer night many years ago. Peggy and I both lived in the country in the hills of East Tennessee. We had spent the day together biking. We knew all the roads and trails within a five mile radius of our homes, and on many summer days, we would set out on our bikes to roam, maybe wade in the creeks, or walk in the woods. Whatever we did, it was just something to do while we talked and listened to each other. We were living by grace, and it was natural and good. We shared our deepest, and sometimes darkest, secrets, and knew that nothing could ever be so bad as to alter our friendship and love for one another. The day had been beautiful, and Peggy had invited me to spend the night at her house. Her house was a very big, old farmhouse without air conditioning, of course, so everyone spent as much time outdoors as possible. We knew we could stay up all night if we wanted, as the next day was Saturday, so we decided to sleep out on the lawn, and under the stars. The old farmhouse sat on a hillside surrounded by several acres of lawn, dotted here and there with huge oak trees. It looked like a Grandma Moses painting come to life. We positioned our blankets so that we would be able to see the stars, and as darkness descended on us, the stars became visible, and my friend and I began to talk seriously about things that mattered. We wondered about what was beyond the stars, why we did not know where we came from, or where we’re going when we die. We realized that we had many questions, and that somewhere, there must be answers. We questioned the answers we had been given by our church, and decided that the next day we would go have a talk with our pastor, and just tell him that we wanted to know the truth, and not just “the Ten Commandments”. We wanted to know why, the “why” about everything. We had pretty much decided that religion didn’t have a lot to do with the powerful God who had created the stars and the planets, and the sun and the moon. We thought, and we talked, and we wondered, and we were made stronger by our search for answers. Without a quiver, the next day we walked into the office of our pastor and presented him with our list of questions regarding God, the universe, life, and last but not least, the devil. We listened politely to a dissertation on faith and belief, but after all was said and done, we thanked our pastor, got on our bikes and rode off....none the smarter. I believe that Peggy and I made a nonverbal pact that day that we would not be satisfied until our questions had answers. We haven’t seen nor talked to one another in twenty years, but our relationship stands for me a shining example of the principle which states, “Where two or more of you are gathered, there I will be also”, or, “Ask anything in the name of the Christ, and you shall receive”. My deepest appreciation for my lifelong friend, Peggy. I believe that our sincere desire to understand life’s meaning, and our burning curiosity about the nature of reality awakened within us both “the sleeping giant” that would lead us and teach us as we traveled through our lives.
As I changed the direction my life was going, I began to question many of my foundational beliefs about myself. I knew that I did not really care for the person I had become. I wondered why I hurt so badly, why it felt so wrong for me to cry, to express my anger and frustration, to scream out loud. At least I had the sense to know that the way I had been approaching life was sure and certain death, perhaps slow and smoldering, but death nonetheless. I came to realize that my quiet, friendly, smiling exterior, complete with Cover Everything makeup, was sitting on a powder keg, or a ticking time bomb, and time was running out. I sensed that somewhere inside me there was honesty, and a part of me that wanted nothing more than a chance to live, and feel the sunshine and the rain, and to laugh, and to love.
Now, there seemed to be three of me. One, a very young child who felt abandoned, yet knew that she had done nothing wrong, and also knew that she was fully capable of creating a beautiful life experience. Then there was the insecure adolescent, who by her might and willfulness, decided that she would take control, and in so doing would manipulate others into loving and needing her, guaranteeing her a safe place in the world. She had a tremendous need to always appear strong, capable, beautiful, confident, and in control of everything. Not a “holy terror” perhaps, but indeed, a proper terror. She was constantly on guard to squash any sign that the “child” within might emerge. That would surely blow her cover of maturity beyond her years. She would never allow an unseemly giggle, or a tear to ruin her makeup. After all, this mask was vital to her well-planned future success in life. The adolescent grew older, and life became for her what she had envisioned, but then came the third me, the adult, and as time passed, she became increasingly distressed because her life was only an “appearance”, and one she felt she had no other options than to keep up. Outer show, inner misery. There was disharmony in thought and action, creating only anxiety, depression, and feelings of hopelessness. Then the adult me also became a mother. The great awakening began. All the years I had so carefully made sure that my inner child had been quiet and proper acting, never allowing her to express “improper” emotions, and now, to have my own child, who behaved just like a kid! My education was beginning, and I knew I had better learn something here...
For the first time in my life, I openly acknowledged that I was a seeker of truth. Religion had never given me the answers to what I considered my most important questions. Why was I here? What was the purpose of it all? As a child, and into my adult life, I had attended several different churches, tried to fit into their programs, to do the things they taught, to believe as they believed......but it just didn’t work. None of them had the depth my soul was searching for, so I decided, I'll do this thing my way or not at all. Even then, I was trusting something within, an inner guiding light, a strength that I knew was supportive of me.
During the next couple of years, I tirelessly explored every pathway that I thought would prove insightful or helpful in my search. Search for what? I didn’t know, but I knew I would know it when I found it! I had met and married Jim, now my husband for over twenty years, and I had a partner in the crime of swimming upstream against the current tide of culturally held beliefs. The two of us agreed upon a plan of action for our lives. We became involved with others like ourselves, who were interested in learning about spirituality, and how it interacted with daily living. We rediscovered church, but this time one which invited us to question, to use our intellect, and to open our minds to infinite possibilities, and to understand the teachings of Jesus in a new light. It was in this rich environment, with like-minded people that our hearts and minds began to expand. Life was good, and for the first time in my life, I felt like the puzzle was being solved. The pieces were falling into place. I had discovered that I was a multidimensional being, and like a kid with a new toy, I just couldn’t get enough of metaphysical teachings. I was intrigued by knowledge. I read hundreds of books, and attended many, many seminars. My mind was saturated with religious teachings, philosophies, techniques, and etc…..I began writing, keeping a personal journal, and a dream journal. I learned that I could ask a question before I went to sleep, and I would have a dream that would provide the answer. I was becoming conscious of an inner intelligence, one that I could communicate with. Little did I know then, that now, twenty years further along my path, I would still be working on the lessons assigned to me by my constant inner companion, the Whole Spirit, or Holy Spirit.
This is the story of a very ordinary person, and her quest for the Holy Grail. It contains highlights of the journey along her very own unique path to God. The path has wended its way through valleys of despair and up mountain peaks where nothing but God exists. It is also about the truest of marriages, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, together, a spiritual union with God. One that no man can put asunder. This story may be accepted by some as encouragement to find their own unique and beautiful path leading to God’s heart. Others may reject it as blasphemous fiction. It is not being written to appease, and certainly not to insult anyone, but only to share one person’s account of her experiences, and what she has learned by fully living. The motivating force behind her desire to do this is the Loving Self that she has discovered within.
Many people have said, “When the student is ready, the Teacher will appear”, and in my experience, that is precisely what happened. I remember the appearance of one of my earliest spiritual teachers many years ago. I was attending a retreat in Scottsdale, Arizona with many other people from all around the country. For several days and nights we enjoyed life in a way that seemed quite different from normal, routine, and repetitive daily living. There was an atmosphere of unconditional love, and total acceptance by the entire group. We gave ourselves the freedom to be real. There were no judgements, no expectations, no dos and don’ts, no past, and no future. There was only the perfect NOW moment. The air was pregnant with expectation that something wonderful was about to happen. We were actually being in a higher state of consciousness. As the retreat was drawing to a close, I was experiencing a lot of emotion as I reflected on the past few days, and I realized that truly, “Perfection was somehow within our grasp.” My heart was overflowing with thankfulness, and I began to cry, and was filled with Love unlike I had ever known in my life. I knew in that moment, I had found what I had been seeking, and then I laughed outrageously when I realized that it had always been there. My heart opened that day, and in that moment I knew what is was to be thankful and awestruck. Out of nowhere, I heard a message in my mind that said, “Give your teacher and friend a gift to show your appreciation for the gift you have received today.” Without hesitation, I gave her a gold heart I was wearing. My husband, Jim, had made the heart and given it to me as a symbolic gesture of his love, and now I was passing it to another, representing the unending cyclic nature of love. I learned a great lesson that day. I receive only that which I give away. I spent a lot of time thinking about this lesson, and came to the understanding that in some way, very special, we are all united. Many unusual and wonderful things were happening, and I was becoming aware that some Divine Intelligence, not of this world, was running the whole show. As soon as I thought that, I turned to leave the hotel, and came face to face with a sign that simply said, “In All the World, There is Only One”.
Spirit just gave me this thought in inject at this point: When A Seed Breaks, A Flower Grows, and When A Heart Breaks, Love Flows. Thank you, Spirit.
The trip home from Arizona was uneventful, but my conscious awareness had tapped into a source of knowledge that was redefining every belief that I had ever held. This stream of consciousness that was flowing into my mind was manifesting itself in two ways, simultaneously, it was reprogramming my mind, altering everything that I perceived going on around me, and radiating my entire being with loving energy. There are no words to adequately describe this experience. This process continued on for many days and nights, teaching me that this loving energy is always there and available to me. The Power by which everything in the physical world is manifested and sustained. During this time, my intelligent and loving Teacher within was showing me how every thought I had, or every question that I had, out pictured itself in a way that I could perceive it in my physical reality. If I had a question about anything, the answer immediately presented itself, in some mysterious way, through any part, or all, of my physical senses. A book, a magazine, paper, television, song, or people all became couriers of information for me. I was learning that a Power from within was intimately involved in my life. “May the mind that is in Christ be also in you”, came to me. I was in heaven and I knew what it was to walk among the angels. Everything had changed, and nothing had changed. A paradox. Outwardly, my life was continuing in the same way. I was still working for a living, having lunch at the same restaurants with the same friends, laughing or complaining about the same things, but contemplating inwardly about these new, other-worldly experiences that were happening within me.
One morning during this supernatural period in my life, I was seated in front of a mirror, doing my hair, when suddenly I was not me. My ego sense of self vanished, and in less time than the blink of an eye, God, in all His Glory, was Everything, had always been, and would always be. This flash of recognition lasted only an instant, and, as I was again given back to the self I knew, my eyes immediately fell upon a pin stuck on the edge of the mirror that said simply, “Happy Birthday”. I cried and cried with absolute joy. Now, I thought, “What in the world do you do, when you know it is God living you?” The truth is I didn’t have the slightest idea what to do next. I truly knew there was no thing to do, but a body just can’t do no thing. This obvious connection to God showed me that I was a part of a planned and ordered universe, regardless of my interpretation of it. I, and everyone else, were united, and were One with God. I realized that I had never done a single thing apart from God. Everything was contained within this loving, powerful God. Regardless of appearances to the contrary, there was nothing outside of God. Where had all this hullabaloo about a devil come from? I still had much to learn. I was very thankful at this point that I had never given the devil much power anyway. Never in my life, had I considered him worthy of even negative attachment to me, so overcoming even the slightest belief in some malicious power apart from God was a relatively easy thing to do. I would not squander my learning time by dwelling on him.
My dream life was filled with information. I looked forward to going to sleep at night, and entering a classroom for my continuing education. I discovered that I could ask questions of my Inner Teacher, and I would receive answers in a dream state. I sensed that a common language was emerging. The objects in my dreams were being defined, and given meanings which were recognizable in my waking state as well. I was learning much about symbolism and how to step down the information from one level of consciousness to another. For example, one of the first dreams of this nature that I recall was that of a black man on a white horse. He rode up to where I was standing, and stopped. There was a white board fence separating us. When he stopped, I stood transfixed as I stared into his eyes, and was given the understanding that I was standing face to face with the Christ, the Absolute. I woke up abruptly, and recorded this event in my dream journal. I asked Holy Spirit to interpret this for me, and this is what I learned. The black man is the symbolic representation of the activity of the Christ, the Truth, in my life, a messenger, on a very personal level. The fact that in this life I am a white female, meeting the black (male), is symbolic of the union of opposites, a reminder for me that the appearance of duality in this world is not valid on a higher, spiritual plane. And the fence represented a barrier of sorts between my personal consciousness, and my higher, Christ consciousness; however, the fence was not a solid wall separating these two states. It contained many open spaces that allowed for easy communication between the two planes. The white horse needed no interpretation, because first, I happen to love them, and second, the good guys always ride them. The following dream was fun and humorous, and taught me something of immense value. I was attending a spiritual class on a higher level. There were many students, and we were having our lunch. I am having great difficulty eating my food. I keep missing my mouth. I have food all over my face, my clothes, and my hands. I awoke feeling a little out of sorts. I am given the understanding that as I integrate spiritual knowledge into my physical experience, I may appear a little messy at times, but to have patience with myself while I am growing and learning. Just to get the message home, the next morning I observed my five year old daughter, Barbra, eating her breakfast. Her face and hands were covered with grape jelly, and she was grinning and loving every bite of it. I heard Spirit laugh inside, as He said, “See, I told you learning is fun”.
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DAVID’S STORY
David was a dear friend, and one of the finest spiritual teachers I have ever known. He was the minister of the Unity Church I was attending at the time I was experiencing this spiritual rebirth in my life. He was a man with a magnetic personality, brimming over with enthusiasm and energy. As a congregation, we were indeed blessed by the spiritual radiance of this man. Wednesday nights were class night at our church, and always well attended. We had many classes during the week, but Wednesdays were David’s classes. He decided to teach a six week class on information from Dr. Jerry Jampolsky’s book, Love Is Letting Go Of Fear. The book is based on teachings from A Course in Miracles. I and many others, had been studying this curriculum for quite some time, and we were thrilled that David was going to have a class about it. Many people came to the class, eager to learn how to apply its teachings in their daily life. Suddenly, about half way through the course, David announced that he would have to discontinue his teaching because of acute back pain. His suffering was so great that he would have to stop until the problem was resolved. He always wanted us to take notes, and that last night was no exception. At a certain point in his lecture, he emphasized that we make special note of a particular statement he was about to make. I just sat there, and David looked straight at me, meaningfully, and with fire in his eyes, singled me out of the crowd, and said in a very loud voice, “THAT MEANS YOU, TOO, CAROL”. I sank in my chair, and quietly picked up my pen. I began to write as he spoke. He was giving us the definition of a word. The word was Apocatastasis: In the seed of every apparent disaster is hidden the flower of glory and reward. Soon afterward, the class ended, and we said goodnight, and went home. A day or two later, we got a call from David at our office. My husband, Jim, is a dentist, and I am the hygienist in our office. David explained to us that he was having pain in the upper right posterior area of his mouth. He came into the office, and after a thorough examination, Jim found no reason for the pain. David left the office, and that was the last time we ever saw him. It was discovered a few days later that he had inoperable cancer, and a very short time to live. Although I didn’t see David again, during those last few weeks of his life, I knew that our minds and hearts were joined. Many times I began to cry and I would sense that David was crying too. They were tears of release, the kind one cries when they just simply let go of anxieties or fears. We always teach that which we would learn, and how obvious the truth in that when I remember that David was teaching Love Is Letting Go Of Fear. A few days later, Jim and I were going out to dinner. He was driving, and I was day dreaming as I am often prone to do. I was imagining what it would feel like to me if I were the one dying. As I thought about it, I found that my greatest sadness would be leaving those I loved so dearly in this life. Knowing the love in my heart for my little girl, Barbra, and how very dependent she still was on me, the sadness I felt at just the thought of being parted from her was more than a heart can bear, or so it seemed. My eyes were brimming with tears, and I realized that I could not hold them back. The grief was much too great to hold onto. Instantly, the Holy Spirit was there, and showed me how deeply she was loved by so many other people. She would always be safe, loved exceedingly, and cared for by no less than angels. With this “knowing” in my heart, I released all my cares, worries, and concerns about everything, and as I did, those things just fell away from me, and I realized that without the weight of my imagined sadness, I stood forth as a radiant being of light. The pain, misery, suffering, anger, fear had all been a dream. Nothing but a dream. I cried for joy, and told Jim that I was certain that David had made his transition and I had somehow made it with him. David had indeed learned the lesson that he taught, and did not leave this world until I had learned it too. I thank God for my beautiful friend, David. What happened next is one of the greatest events that I have ever witnessed. We arrived at the office early the next morning, and a friend called to tell us that David had made his transition the afternoon before. Just moments after the call, a new patient came into the office with a hurting tooth. I walked to the reception room to greet the patient and escort him back to the dental operatory, and who to my surprise is there? A beautiful black man, Mr. Montgomery, and my mind instantly recalled the dream message I received about the Christ messenger. Like David, this man was also a minister. I couldn’t help laughing, and he laughed with me. I was feeling giddy, and I thought I’m not acting very professional here with this person who has a toothache. I regained my composure, and inquired of him which tooth was hurting. His answer was “This one”, and he pointed to the same area that had bothered David, but then he went on to say, “It hurt really badly yesterday, but today it feels just fine.” He got up out of the dental chair, shook his head and said, “I really don’t know why I came here today.” And with that he thanked us and left the office. I smiled, and said a prayer thanking Holy Spirit for so kindly letting us know that David was well and happy, and I gave a big “Thumbs Up” to the spirit that I knew was my friend for a road well traveled, however brief. David was only thirty-nine when he left this world. I have no doubt that his purpose for being here had been fulfilled. As I sat down to write David’s story, I opened a book that I hadn’t picked up in several years, and in the front of it was a poem someone had given me a long time ago. I had used it as a bookmarker, and I’m including it here because, as I was thinking of David, and inviting his loving spirit to help me with his story, I have no doubt that he used it to communicate with me again.
Our lives have been joined in Him
I was experiencing a paradigm shift is all areas of my life. The world I had lived in up until this time had certainly seemed solid enough. I had thought that it obeyed physical laws, but life was showing me things I had never seen before, and opening my mind to infinite possibilities. I was finding out that mind and matter were linked. So were mind and body, and mind and emotions, mind and healing, mind and ability, and on and on, with endless connections. Read any book, attend any seminar, and these were the “in vogue”, new age methods for making your life work. I was caught up in a place on my path where the going became rough and steep for a time. I felt fragmented. A part of me had been lifted by grace high enough to see beyond the horizon, while other parts of me still had many lessons to learn. It was into this very complicated period that I invited my dear friend, God and His Holy Spirit, to take the lead and show me how to maneuver this part of my journey.
I was entering a stage of learning about the F word. I had to acknowledge FEAR, not in order to make it real, but so that I could learn the unreality of it, and in some measure, be free of it’s hold on me. I was given the insight that my belief was paralyzing my spiritual growth, somehow fencing me into a very small and separate space where I felt alone, and vulnerable to forces outside of me. I prayed long and hard about that one, and sometimes I find I have to “chew” on a problem for a very long time, and let my mind exhaust itself before I finally give up, and simply ask Holy Spirit to show me the truth. One of the attitudes that I possess, and I thank God for repeatedly, is the ability to laugh at my quirky and upside-down approach to problem solving. Immediately, after remembering to ask Spirit about this fear thing, I could sense his Presence, and hear Him say, “I thought you’d never ask.” I knew He was laughing, too. His answer came in the form of a dream that night. I was sitting on the edge of a circle painted on the floor, and I was observing a snake in the middle of the circle. There were five baby kittens in the circle with the snake, and very methodically, and with intention, the snake began to devour the kittens, one by one. I was aware of feelings of fear within me, and as I stood up to turn away from this distressing sight, the snake became aware of my presence, and instantly lunged toward me and sank his fangs into my stomach. I took hold of the snake, yanked him out of my belly and held him dangling in front of me. An amazing thing happened then; the snake underwent a metamorphosis, and instantly changed into another me. So there I stood looking at myself, the real source of my fear. As I began to integrate this knowledge into my life, I learned that fear was a product of my own separate and “little self” imaginings. It had a host of other relatives, too, such as anger, depression, hate, loneliness, sadness, misery, deceit, condemnation, jealousy, and so on. These are attitudes which I began to notice had a divisive element about them. In order to experience their effects, I must be imagining myself as separate and apart from the situation or event causing the upset. If the devil had any role in earthly life, I figured it must be to cloak him self in the many costumes of fear. Now this was a lesson that I wanted to learn well, so I prayed that the Holy Spirit would continue to open my mind and heart to a fuller understanding of this paradoxical situation. The devil and his right hand man, fear, would be for me exactly as I imagined them to be. They would become strong participants in my personal (illusory) reality if I chose to give my power and energy to a belief in them. Conversely, I could choose to acknowledge only the Power and Will of God in my life, which I knew to be Divine, Creative, Loving Energy, and then they would be seen for no more than the shadow beings that they are in truth. God only knows I have not integrated all of this understanding that Spirit has given me, but at least I keep working on it.
I feel very blessed that every now and then my path in life crosses the path of another person, and we take the time to really communicate. We discover that although we may have many outward differences, we are spirits in common. Our stories may be very similar, or entirely different. It doesn’t matter. What matters most is that there is recognition, acceptance, and that we experience joy when we spend time together. I once had a neighbor and a friend like that. Her name was Lydia. We both loved to garden, and, weather permitting; we would spend all day outside tending our flower beds, visiting over iced tea, or making trips to the greenhouse. Lydia laughed all the time, and had an appreciation for life that drew people to her. Kindness, compassion, and understanding flowed from this woman like water from a fountain. Whenever she learned of a particular need of anyone in our neighborhood, Lydia was always there to help in any way she could. She gave herself away every time the opportunity presented itself. I was aware that she had not had an easy life, but through her experiences, she had learned an appreciation for it that is rarely known. One winter evening, Lydia came to our house, visibly upset. I opened the door and there stood Lydia, crying. I could not imagine what was wrong. I put my arm around her, and led her in from the cold. She sat down in our living room, and began to tell Jim and me about many personal things that had caused her to be so upset. Her husband had started a new job in another town about one hundred miles away. Lydia and her daughters would move there after the school year ended. Until then, Lydia would drive up to visit her husband every Wednesday and he would return home every other weekend. This schedule had become routine, but the past couple of weeks, she had been under a lot of stress, and just needed someone to talk to. She talked for a time about the things that were bothering her, and the sadness she had been feeling seemed to lift. She stayed two or three hours, and as the mood lightened, she began to share with us the story of her life. It was an incredible journey that began in Poland, living in a communist society, and the long and arduous passage to freedom. It was a testament of belief, faith, and will in action, a courageous story of the human spirit’s ability to overcome adversities that stand in the way of freedom and happiness. Lydia never spoke of God, but the obvious needs no name. If I hold a bluebird in my hand, I need not give it a name to appreciate the reality of it. As she started to leave, she was apologetic for talking so long, but we both told her that she had truly honored us by sharing her life experiences with us. We wished her a good trip tomorrow morning, and we hugged her good-bye.
During the night, I dreamed that Lydia and I were sitting together on the cold stone floor of a very old gothic-style cathedral. We were the only ones there, and Lydia was very sad. I was holding my friend, and trying to comfort her. We were sitting in a circle of light. The rest of the huge room was in semi-darkness. The size of the room and the height of the ceilings were typical of what I imagined an old cathedral would be like. As we sat there in the light, I became aware that it had qualities about it that could be felt. It was warm, tender, gentle, and loving. We were both being bathed in it. Lydia had her back to the source of the light, but as I sat facing her, I looked up, and over her shoulder I saw a round window near the top of the cathedral. There was a man’s face centered in the window, and the light seemed to be flowing through him and onto us. I knew that Love had brought him to this place, and he was Lydia’s father, who had died when she was very young. His presence was there as reassurance for Lydia that everything was going to be just fine. Before I could tell Lydia to look up, or relate to her what I had seen, I woke up. I was amazed by the dream, and I woke Jim to tell him about it. It was three a.m., and I asked him if he thought I should call Lydia and tell her about the dream. He felt that I should wait; as she needed all the rest she could get before starting her early morning drive to visit her husband. I agreed, but made a mental note to tell her about it when she returned home on Thursday. I thanked the Holy Spirit for this reassuring dream, and returned to peaceful, uninterrupted sleep. The next morning at work, I was aware of a cloud of uneasiness around me, for no reason that I could define. I sensed that something had happened, and Lydia was very much in my mind. About mid-morning, I received a phone call from another neighbor, Deane. I knew as I picked up the phone, that Lydia was dead. She had died in a car accident on the way to visit her husband. At that moment, I understood that the dream was God’s gift to me for reassurance as I entered a time of grief and sadness at the loss of my friend. That evening I spent writing a letter to Lydia, reliving the joyous times we had shared, and I told her about the dream, and how I wished that I had called to tell her about it. Maybe if I had, it would have changed her time schedule. If only I had……..if…..if….if. I asked Holy Spirit to help me understand, and through the difficult days ahead, I was very much aware of His presence. The next day was Thursday, and my intuition (which is another way the Holy Spirit communicates) urged me to spend some time alone with Lydia before events became hectic. Friends from back east and loved ones from Poland would be arriving soon. I felt that I needed to be available to help in any way that I could in the days ahead. Intuitively, I knew that in order to focus on the many things that would need to be done, I had to first release Lydia, and in so doing, let go of my own grief. I recall the effort it took to get myself ready for a last long visit with my friend. I stopped by the florist and chose the most beautiful rose, a white one for purity, as a parting gift for Lydia, along with the letter I had written to her. I spent most of the afternoon at the funeral home in silence and in the presence of the Spirit I knew was my friend. I was also thanking God for touching my life in a very special way through the personage of this beautiful woman. As I thought that, I realized that God was teaching me again that life is Love in action, and a Power that the appearance of death cannot touch. I knew that God and Lydia were One, and I smiled as the Light of God shined away my grief and sorrow, leaving only Love, the same Love, the One. The hidden flower of glory and reward had revealed itself again. The white rose. The lotus blossom. God.
On the following Sunday morning I went to church, and I was visiting with a couple of my friends, when out of the blue, one of them looked over my shoulder, and behind me, and said, “Look, there goes Lydia. Doesn’t she look great?” He was referring to another friend by the same name, but I said silently, “Thank you, Holy Spirit”, knowing it was also meant as a very special message to me. Later that morning I was teaching a Sunday school class of enthusiastic six year old children. I asked them to draw a picture of someone very special in their lives, and we would share our stories about them. Most of them drew pictures of mom or dad, or grandparents, but one little boy drew a picture of his dog, and as he shared his story with the rest of us, he explained that she was very special because she loved him so much. I asked him, “What is your dog’s name?” “Her name is Lydia” he answered.
The day after writing this story, Spirit validated it for me in such a wonder-filled way that I decided to share it with you. I was at work, and my friend, John Craig, my husband’s partner, came walking down the hall, and as he passed me, he tossed me a curious round package. His wife, Deb, had sent it to me. It was wrapped in bubble wrap, and secured with enough tape to wrap a package ten times its size. If you have ever tried to remove tape from bubble wrap, you have some idea of the task I was confronted with. It was not my birthday, or any special occasion that I could recall, and I asked John why Deb was sending this surprise package to me just now. He said it was something she had gotten for me some time ago, and she remembered to send it to me just this morning. I opened the package, and was astonished as I looked at the gift she had given me. It was a ceramic “pie bird”. As I held it in my hand, I realized it was “blue”. I was speechless, and I could hear Spirit laughing. I cherish the “bluebird” and my friend, Deb, who gave it to me, and of course, Holy Spirit, the Grand Conductor of all our lives.
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INNER DEPENDENCY
I was entering another phase of learning about spiritual life. I enjoyed my church and all my friends there, the classes and activities, and the depth of teaching by very “well qualified” people, but one day, I received a message from Holy Spirit that said quite clearly, “I am your Teacher, follow Me”. The role of church as teacher came to a close, and from then on the Holy Spirit became my Mentor in residence. I learned the most fascinating things, maybe trivial to the Holy Spirit, but He good-naturedly went along. Things such as asking Him to wake me up at 5:30, or 5:40, or 6:15, and to the minute, my eyes would open at the precise time on the clock. I was truly beginning to understand that He is always present, always conscious of my needs, and always, always Loving.
It was during this time of learning that I went on a trip by myself. It was about a five hour drive, much of it through the mountains of northern Arkansas, and it was very late at night. I must have fallen asleep at the wheel, and instantly, I experienced a surge of something that felt like an electrical current from my elbows down my arms and through my fingertips. I woke up abruptly and never got sleepy again. I thanked the Holy Spirit, and He suggested that I stop for a cup of coffee. The rest of the way home I wondered “How did you do that?” He never told me. Of the many things I have learned about God, and His Holy Spirit, His love of pure joy and laughter constantly amaze and delight me. So much so, my license plate reads “DLITE” to honor Him. One day while sitting in my office, I was thinking of a friend who was going through a difficult time. I asked the Holy Spirit if it might be possible to send him a messenger of Love, something like a beautiful rose, or perhaps a butterfly on his shoulder, and then I just let the thought go. A little while later, I walked outside the office, and watched, amazed, as a yellow butterfly flew over to me and lit on my shoulder. When I went back inside, I was saying to Holy Spirit, “I really want to know how you do these things!” As I thought that, one of my favorite songs was playing on the radio, and I laughed as I listened to “I heard it on the grapevine”.... Grapevines were particularly meaningful to me and Spirit, of course, knew that because of a dream He had given me recently. In a dream, I had a clear vision of beautiful outdoor furniture constructed from grapevines. The following morning when I awoke, I spent several hours drawing pictures of the furniture. Soon after, Jim and I were in Tennessee where I grew up, and I wanted to show Jim a very old and unique gazebo that I remembered from my childhood, and explained to him that I would love to have one just like it someday. While we stood looking at it, I realized that it was made of grapevines. I remembered my dream. But it wasn't to end there. The next time we went to our cabin, I was surprised to see that one of our friends who lives nearby, had adorned a couple of old wagon wheels in front of the cabin with, yes, grapevines. So when I received the “grapevine” message on the radio, I had no doubt who was playing games with me again. I have often heard it said that the best teachers are the ones who make learning fun, and the student- teacher relationship that was developing between me and the Holy Spirit certainly showed me the truth in that. The knowledge that was imparted to me during the most intense learning times was not given in parables, or symbols, rather it was straight forward, plain and simple information that my mind was hungry to integrate. It brought to mind the lessons that Jesus taught in a way that left no room for doubt: ears that hear, and eyes that see. This divine, loving intelligence was constantly breaking through the surface of everyday physical noise and activity, and somehow directing my eyes and ears to receive precisely the message that Spirit wanted to convey. I felt that I had reached a point where the Holy Spirit was working full speed ahead to fine-tune my faculties. I was beginning to understand the “way things work” for me, and I was loving it. One evening as I sat on the sofa talking and listening to Holy Spirit, I heard Him say, “I'm always sitting on your shoulder”, and within just a matter of seconds, Abby, our dear old black cat, jumped upon my shoulder. She is twenty years old, and that is the only time she has ever done that. So, as I sat there feeling the undeniable presence of Spirit, I ask if I had made the right decision regarding church, and this is what I heard:
“The Message you were given was absolutely correct, although initially it was quite confusing to you. (I knew this referred to the Message that I received regarding the Center). It set you upon a path seeking to understand it, and the way you received it opened your mind to possibilities undreamed of before. As you became conscious of Me, I was able to teach you through experience, and bring you to a place where you had no doubts about My Reality. There was a time when you recognized My Presence through church fellowship and activities, and you benefited greatly from that experience. As time went on, and you began to hear from Me directly, you began to understand that you are One with Me, and with everyone else, although there are many who have not awakened to this knowledge yet. Everyone will in God's time. So in the meanwhile, your accelerated learning is only possible without distraction. You didn't “leave” the church - You are the church - You don't have to go....any where to church - it is where you are. The same is true regarding the very real Message you received. You don't have to build a physical Center. You are the Center - wherever you are, the Center is. Everyone is a center of consciousness in the Heart of God. Heaven is simply being that Center, expressing that Center through every thought, word, and deed. That center is unselfish Love. Love that is constantly giving of itself, and by giving of itself, ever increasing - a universal expansion of Love. I inspired you to follow Me, in other words, I did not want you to see your church affiliation as a necessity to the realization of your spiritual potential. I did not want you to be satisfied with meeting the Buddha on the road. There is far too much more for you to become aware of, and you must not stop short of the Kingdom within. As your Teacher, my role is not to help you become a “better” person, but to bring you into the realization, the full realization, that you are still as God created you, have always been, and will always be, God's perfect idea in expression. His Child, and like Him in all respects. God has only One begotten Son, and though you perceive this Son as being a myriad of separate lives, split off and apart from yours, in Reality, this is not so. As Jesus taught, “What you do for the least of these, you do also unto Me”, also becomes, what you think, speak, or do to anyone else you also experience because of your connection to them. I am teaching you this by showing you that just beneath the appearance of separateness and duality in the world, there is a continuum of events, personhood, and that it is all part of the One and Only Begotten Son of God. In the light of understanding this, you understand that the judgments you have made regarding others always come home to you. Indeed, there is no other place for them to go.”
I have learned to listen to the still small voice within that constantly reminds me that the path I'm on is the right one for me. As I stay in the consciousness of “faith”, I can see the unfoldment of my life, and the way that it interacts with the lives of others. Beautiful events seem to magically happen to the mutual benefit of everyone involved. Every time I release fear and doubt, I experience Reality. Love, Harmony and Peace. It's as though my heart and mind both open, allowing for the natural flow of feelings, emotions, and true intelligence. The Inner Voice that I have learned to be obedient to expresses itself in limitless ways. The Loving Essence, which is It's only nature, is the reason that I refer to Him most often as the Holy Spirit, and sometimes, if I'm really sunny and happy, He becomes Holy, the Friendly Ghost, and those times when I'm feeling rushed, He becomes H.S., for short. He has a great sense of humor, and is my best, wisest, and closest Friend. So to sum up my relationship with Him, these are the most important factors:
1) I acknowledge His Reality, and know that it is my own.
2) I put my life in His hands, meaning I put my faith, trust, and belief in Him.
3) I move over and allow Him to work through me.
4) My greatest responsibility is to engage the moment, or be here now.
5) Being here now means following His leadership, my intuition, acting or speaking when it is called for, or being still and allowing the fullness of non-action to shape itself.
I have learned do this because I know that there is always activity whether or not I perceive it. The analogy Spirit is giving me here is very good. It's like the calm before a storm. Having experienced that calmness (non-action) wherein everything seems to be still, not a leaf stirs, nor a bird sings, but I am aware that a great tempest is building, and then suddenly, the energy contained in the quiet, still space burst forth into physical manifestation. When I try to find solutions to problems that seem difficult to solve from my small ego-perspective, my first inclination is to “seek and not find, seek and not find”, and then “run to and fro” looking for answers, and He waits, and He waits, and He waits, until I remember to ask for help, and then He says, “Be Still”. It's all so simple when I remember to ask for help.
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The following is from a journal entry made March 19th1999, 6 am.
Early this morning the Holy Spirit woke me up explaining my past experiences of feeling fragmented, alone, or apart. As I mentally retraced some of the events of my life, I saw them from a new perspective, that being a different point to view them. For example, if I choose any one singular occurrence in my life and decide that I will label it “good” or “bad”, I have made a judgement concerning “it”. I have frozen that experience in my mind, and my mind, in time, works to recreate the same thing over and over, because that is what my mind likes to do. I must come to a point that I realize that I don't have to understand, label, or judge anything in the world, and by refraining from labeling “it”, I allow “it” to take “its” place in the natural order of things that happen in my life. All I really need do is refer this situation to my Helper-Teacher, Higher Power, Holy Spirit. From my personal point to view, I have realized that I see only fragments of a larger picture, and therefore, my judgement is senseless. If I am shown a particular color that does not appeal to me, my response may be “Ugh! That color is awful”; however, if I am shown a painting my Monet which contains much of that very same color, I am witness to a thing of beauty created by no less than the Master Painter. The same is true for my life. I can journey back in my life and lovingly reclaim some fragmented piece that I lopped off because I didn't like it, and say “Holy Spirit, please help me see this rightly, and in a truer context of the entire picture of my life”. A new picture emerges, and I see that this piece has become an integral part of the whole. I have now gained a better understanding of “All things work for good” by standing still and recognizing the activity of God in my life. “Be Still and Know That I Am God” elevates my awareness from the separate, ego-centered self that thinks it is wise and good and smart to my higher, spiritual Self that knows only wholeness and unity, and sees all things from that perspective. This Great Overseer is always there to lift me from my ego-imposed constraints of limitation and separateness to the unlimited state of being unconditionally loving.
I am reminded of a particular thread of experience that has woven itself through my life for many years. Somewhere in my youth, I learned that my father had quit high school just weeks before graduation, and the reason he did that was because his senior English teacher made him angry. She was always telling him to sit straight in his desk and face the front of the room. I guess she got tired of repeating the same thing over and over, so one day she walked over to his desk, grabbed him by the ear, and jerked his head around. Of course, this made my father very angry, so he just stood up, gathered up his things, and walked out of school, and never went back. She had reacted to what I assume she thought was rudeness, indifference, or maybe just the arrogance of youthfulness. I don't know what was in her mind, but she was obviously provoked. My father was also provoked, and moved to action by the righteous anger he was feeling. He felt justified, because from his perspective, his posture in class was not the result of a defiant attitude. He was simply doing what he needed to do in order to hear his teacher. He was deaf in one ear. Shortly after hearing this story I began my freshman year at the same high school my father had attended, and as I used to say, “as luck would have it”, now I say, “as life would arrange it”, I was assigned the same teacher for my freshman English class. Needless to say, I was not excited about that class, and my prejudiced and closed mind colored my perception for the entire year. Every day that I walked into that room, I reminded myself how unjustly this woman had treated my father, perpetuating my own anger, and for what I thought was “just cause”. It would have been a challenging class under the most ideal conditions, but infused with my negative attitude, I had created for myself a very miserable experience every day for the entire school year. We were required to memorize, memorize, memorize, and I thought if I ever get finished with this class, nothing in life will ever be this bad again. And the year did end, and I passed with a reasonably good grade, and I filed the experience somewhere deep in my mind, and labeled it AWFUL - NEVER DO AGAIN. Almost forty years later, I woke up in the middle of the night listening to a poem being recited in my head. I said, “Holy Spirit, what's going on here?”, and He told me to get up and write it down. So it's two a.m. and I am writing down a poem that I had not thought about in forty years. The poem is:
Out of the night that covers me
In the fell clutch of circumstance
It matters not how straight the gate
I thanked the Holy Spirit for the awakening, and giving me another beautiful example of the continuity of threads in the tapestry of my life even when my ego-self says, “This part is bad, and I don't need it.” This poem is one I had learned in that freshman English class, and I can now bless the teacher who insisted that I memorize it.
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And the beat goes on....................
Several years ago, a friend gave me a very unusual catalog. It was a mail order catalog for clothing, unique in that the articles for sale were depicted by drawings rather than typical color photographs. I was attracted to one item in particular, a reproduction of an old cloak, commonly worn in Ireland around the 1100's. I just couldn't get that cloak off my mind. I kept the catalog, and time and again, I would pick it up and look at the cloak, wondering what it was about it that I was so drawn to. It was a puzzle to me. Some time later, I received a pattern catalog in the mail, and as I was browsing through it, I saw a pattern for the same Irish cloak, so I ordered it, knowing that someday I would construct that cloak. When it arrived, I read all the instructions, and decided to file it away until I had time to make it. I knew that it would be a complicated garment to construct. Several more years passed, and I had forgotten about the project except on a few occasions when I would run across the pattern filed away with other projects to be done someday. Then on Wednesday morning, November 6, 1996 at 6:30 a.m., I woke up, heart pounding in my chest, scared out of my wits from a dream I was having. I recorded it as follows:
The time period seemed to be 1100-1200 AD, somewhere in Europe. I was dressed in all black, black lace up boots, and a black Irish cloak. I have long hair, in a large braid, hanging down my back. Two knives are fastened at my waist, and a large one, a sword, is hanging down my back by the braid. I am very frightened and lying face down on the floor in some type of house or building. The hood of my cloak has my head completely covered. There is a woman with me, and she is trying to console me. She is hiding me from a group of men searching for me. I am somehow involved with a group that has been labeled “heretics”. I may be an alchemist, but I'm not sure. When I finished recording the dream, I decided not to inquire about the meaning because somehow I knew that it was not finished, and I did not want to project my interpretation on to it; instead, I wanted the dream to reveal it's own message in it's own time.
Six months later, on a Sunday afternoon, I laid down to take an afternoon nap, and in that drowsy state just prior to falling asleep, I watched the return of the lady in black. She stood up straight and tall, with great confidence, head erect, and reaching back over her right shoulder with her right hand, withdrew the sword and pointed it toward the sky, and instantly there was a brilliant white light emanating from it. It left me with a feeling of great confidence in the ability of my Inner (spiritual) Self to care for my needs in ways that can only be described as wonder.
Later that same day, I recorded a message that I was hearing in my mind, as follows:
I am a Crier
The following day I was browsing through the mail, and on the cover of one of my favorite magazines, in very large print, was the title of the feature story inside. It was A Sunday in May. I decided that day to begin construction of the cloak, and in so doing, I knew that ritual was the most important aspect of making it. I blessed every cut of the fabric, every pin, and every stitch. It was becoming a gift to the Universe, God, and the Holy Spirit within, for gifts that I constantly receive. It was amazing how quickly I finished the project, with only a few minor errors that were easy to correct. A short time later, I took the cloak to a monastery in North Carolina, and presented my gift to a friend who resides there, and then I left, continuing on my journey. Jim and I were making the trip together, and as we began to travel westward again toward home, we decided to follow the suggestion a friend had made that we make a short side trip to Beckley, West Virginia. We would find in Beckley, a center called Tamarak, which displayed and sold artwork created by W. Virginia artisans. It was a beautiful place, filled with wonderful things, all creations of obviously inspired and gifted people. We purchased three thumb pianos, which we felt were truly irresistible, one for each of us, and a third one for Jim’s mother, who plays the piano by ear. We knew that she would be just as excited as we were with this little wonder. The trip home flew by. I was totally absorbed in learning to play this magical instrument. Little did I realize that Holy Spirit was setting me up for my next lesson. Music.
I have always loved music, and like many of my friends, I had taken piano lessons as a child, but had long since forgotten anything I might have learned. I decided to try again, and for the next year and a half, I practiced and practiced, endless hours. I was extremely fortunate to have a wonderful teacher, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning to play the piano. It was exciting to learn about music, and although I am no longer taking lessons, my appreciation for the musicians in the world has greatly increased. I truly thank all the musically gifted souls for filling the world with beautiful sounds.
I had reached a very interesting point in my life, and in January 1999, I began to receive definite instructions from the Holy Spirit, and I realized that my path was taking a different turn. The only way to describe the experience is to say that rather suddenly my life was “coming together” in an intentional way. The Holy Spirit was urging me to organize my notes and journal entries that I had been keeping over the years, and put them into a story format. Initially, I said, “No way! This is crazy”. But the idea kept returning, and one day I said, “ OK, I’ll write, but you must be the storyteller.” And so it began. Each time I sit down to write, I invite the Holy Spirit to give me the inspiration I need to tell of our relationship, the closeness, the intimacy, the never-ending story of Love that is the predominant theme of our life together.
As I sensed this new direction for my life, I sat quietly one evening, and reviewed many of the accomplishments in my life and thanked God for always being present, especially during some of the roughest of times. I felt that my major goals had been reached, and parental responsibilities had largely been met. Our five wonderful children were now adults, and had set out upon their own paths. All of them were truly a joy, and we were enjoying their successes. In a very real sense, I felt that my “job” was done. Then I heard a wee small voice that said, “What about the spiritual gifts you have received?” My first response was that as I neared the end of my life, perhaps God had revealed Himself to me to alleviate any fear of dying that I might have had, but then I realized that this was absurd. If that had been His intent, He could have accomplished it instantly at the moment I left this world. No, it was something more, and suddenly it dawned on me that I needed to redefine my purpose for living, and I asked the Holy Spirit to help me do just that. He replied by saying, “Write it down!” I laughed, and had this funny picture of Him just sitting on my shoulder with His motor idling, waiting for me to exhaust my “thinking”, and get down to the business at hand. So on the evening of January 31, l999, that is precisely what I did, to wit:
MY PURPOSE FOR LIVING, REDEFINED
1) To bring peace, goodwill, love, understanding, and forgiveness to all the events of my life - whether they are relationships with others, relationships with things, relationships with goals, or constructs of the psyche, dreams, or the body I now inhabit.
2) To share the joy of being a Live Spirit.
3) To become a conscious channel for Spirit.
4) To become dependent on the guidance of Spirit at all times, in all ways, referring all my doubts, fears, worries, concerns of any kind to Him, and waiting for His answer before acting blindly.
5) To live in the awareness that God is not in my heart and mind, but rather that I am always living, and moving, and having my being in the Heart and Mind of God.
6) To stay in constant communion with God.
7) To affirm Reality, which is God, which is Love.
8) To listen to the voice of the One Mind (the Christ Mind), and the Voice of the Holy Spirit, God’s Whole Spirit.
9) To celebrate Thanksgiving continually.
10) To see beauty, to creatively express beauty and love, to radiate the love I feel inside, to feel it wash my path, and all I encounter on my path with light, love, peace and joy.
11) To walk lightly upon the earth.
12) To know I am being uplifted by God’s Spirit, always, always, always.
13) To be a Center of consciousness, centered in the Consciousness of God.
Need I say I was a little embarrassed because my ego-self had thought it was about finished with its part, or its purpose for living, when in Reality, we were just getting started. The feeling I had when I received these new assignments brought to mind an event that happened many years ago. I had discovered that I could have out of body experiences. They were very real and quite pleasurable. I decided to learn how to leave my body at will, and I had a small measure of success a couple of times. But one night as I was practicing my technique, I received a message that said, “You are in a body to function in a body, so please stay in your body”. And now, again, I was receiving a message that said, “Why would you be thinking your work is done, when only now have you remembered your purpose for being here.” Duh…….
In my humanness, I’m a little slow in understanding these things, but the Holy Spirit has His ways of keeping me on track, and explaining things in a “most” logical way. Thank you, my Friend.
The Holy Spirit has taught me that all Life is Miraculous, and although I may not always experience mine as a “bed of roses”, I do know that God is always there in the midst of my challenges, just as He is present in all my celebrations. I am never separate from the Peace and Love that is God.
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A PAINFUL INSIGHT
Pain, as teacher, can be very convincing. Through the years, I have had recurring bouts of pain, sometimes very intense. I convinced myself once that it was my gallbladder, so I had it removed. The only thing I learned was that it is no fun recovering from surgery. I healed quite nicely, but soon I was aware that the pain was still there. So much for that theory. I decided that instead of fighting the pain, I would befriend it. I invited the Holy Spirit to help me with this one. I felt that Pain was trying to communicate something very important to me, but I needed Holy Spirit’s help because it is extremely hard to focus my attention on learning when pain has me in his clutches. I thought that if I ever needed Divine Intervention, it is now. One night when I was relatively free of pain, I asked Holy Spirit to enlighten me about pain. As I slept that night, I had a dream. I was in a large shopping mall with many other people. A man dressed in white with long hair and a beard walked up to me, and motioned for me to follow him. He led me down into a basement area, and into a huge room filled with electrical boxes of all shapes and sizes. They were mounted on metal poles. We walked over to one, and he opened the box. There I saw hundreds of wires, all brightly colored, red, blue, yellow green, orange, black, white, purple. They were running in all directions, and hooked up here and there. This man was some kind of a Master or Teacher, communicating with me by thought transference. He never opened his mouth to speak, but he was explaining to me that this electrical box was like my body: a power center designed to carry out its function while I have need for it. It is an energy source, in much the same way that all the boxes in this room are the source of power for this huge mall. My experience of pain is simply the result of blocking the natural flow of energy in my body (box). Trying to resist the pain I feel only increases my experience of it, and the exact same thing happens when I resist ventilating my feelings and emotions. He also told me that once I release these things, my body would function normally and pain free again. With great love, he also reminded me that my body was a vehicle created for my use while I am here, and in its design is programmed a factor for its demise when I am finished with my human experience. I will simply exit it when the time comes. End of dream. I inherently knew that what he told me was right, but sometimes knowing and doing are miles apart. I will continue to work on this lesson.
My inner Guide is always showing me ways to reduce stress in my life. Fundamental to doing that is recognizing how much of my life has been goal-oriented, rather than process-oriented. My striving to attain goals was blind-sighting my experience of the “now” moment. In other words, I was not seeing the process, much less enjoying it. My rush, rush, rush, do, do, do attitudes have been a mean taskmaster for a large part of my life. Somewhere in my youth, I guess I had learned a co-dependent approach to life, and set myself up to become a “driven” personality, meaning I was not in the driver’s seat. Work hard, gain praise. Nothing new here, almost everyone I know learned the same thing to one degree or another. When I began to look at these attitudes honestly, the Holy Spirit gave me insights that are helping me change my approach to work and life in general. They are as follows:
I will recognize that I am in truth, a Spiritual being, created by God, and in His likeness. Perfection is my inheritance. I do not have to become Perfect, for God has already established that. I do have to accept it. Some call that grace.
I will recognize that I have created all of my experiences in life, and in so doing, I will recover the power I have given away.
I will not blame others. I will meet the events that I magnetize to me with humor, joy, happiness, sadness, compassion, forgiveness, etc., as I honestly feel.
I will recognize that I am not the emotions that I feel, and that they are as changeable as the clouds in the sky. And that’s OK.
I will be thankful that a wiser and more Loving Intelligence than me is the director of my life, and the lives of all the persons that I come in contact with.
I will release yesterday, and live in this now moment, recognizing that it is indeed,
the only time there is - literally. IF I DO NOT EXPERIENCE NOW, THEN I HAVE MISSED THE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME.
When I first became aware of my “driven” personality type, I immediately judged it as not good, and I sought to change it, but as I listened to my Teacher within, I was given the understanding that it was this determination characteristic that kept me pursuing the Loving Power within. All things work for good! Now, for goodness sake, I do not have to be ruled by it, and I can utilize it as a tool for beneficial reasons if I choose.
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PRAYER
As I travel through my life, I discover more about the power of prayer everyday. Spirit is always teaching me that in order to live intelligently, I need only be where I am now, and to use my tools of observation and discernment to facilitate my decision-making processes. With my friend, Holy Spirit, always “on my shoulder and whispering in my ear”, it has become relatively easy to think, speak, or act in accordance with God’s will. That sounds pretty presumptuous on my part, to “know” God’s will, and I suppose it is, but when I think of not knowing God’s will, I am reminded of the dark ages. Suffice it to say, “I choose not to go there”. I will live in the light of my understanding that God is the Absolute, Love, Power, Energy, the Creative Source of All That Is.
The nature of prayer has changed for me through the years. Initially, it was a petition to some “unseen” God to grant some “good” thing to me, or to someone that I knew. The requests were always accompanied by an ample dose of doubt. First, because it had been ingrained in me that I was a sinner, and owing that, my logical conclusion was that I didn’t deserve much consideration from God. I had also learned that Jesus died for my sins, and everything was OK now, but I just couldn’t accept that God, the Creator of the Universe and all within it, could design such a “Passion Play” for my salvation. I wonder now why I wasn’t taught instead that Jesus “lived” that I might learn the truths He taught. Period. I think that I felt very guilty as a child because somehow I thought I was responsible for what Jesus had endured. Suffice it to say, my understanding of prayer was very limited, and likewise, the results. I didn’t know then that my every prayer was answered, but looking back with perfect hindsight, I can see now that I didn’t have the foggiest notion of what was meant by “prayer”. With the Holy Spirit’s help, I am learning more everyday about how to pray. Every thought that I entertain is a prayer, every word that I speak is a prayer, every action, and every deed that I initiate is a prayer. The totality of my experience is the direct result of the Power of Prayer. Even writing about it now, it seems to me that the word “prayer” is very fuzzy and mystical. I need to simplify it for myself for the sake of clarity. Prayer is the vehicle that moves me through my life, now moment to now moment. As I give, so do I receive, and so goes my life. My judgement begets judgement, my awareness of Oneness with God and others begets the experience of Oneness, and to the contrary, if I separate myself and feel alone……Bingo. I realize the instantaneous result of my prayer. I know that if I choose a negative thought, I experience the negative thing, or a positive thing from a positive thought, so all day, everyday, I think (pray) and experience the results of prayer. When I lived in ignorance of this phenomenon, I wavered back and forth between these two states (duality). After all, that is what the world is about. I ate a lot of apples from that tree of good and evil. If I affirmed that health food was good for me, I was also acknowledging that some foods were bad for me. If I prayed for prosperity, I was acknowledging lack. I just couldn’t get away from the old “you can’t have one without the other” routine. I realized that the only way I could live intelligently was to live the truth that Holy Spirit had been showing me for so long. I made the decision to relinquish my judgements and my preferences regarding outcomes. I recognize that the Center Spirit was telling me about in the Message that I received so long ago refers to that Holy Place within where I can commune with my dearest and best Friend, and from this point on, I will simply pray, “Dear God, Thy will be done.” “Amen”. I was enabled by God to release my tight grasp on the world that I had thought was real, and in so doing, I learned the truth of “being in the world, but not of the world”. I was the prodigal son, returning home, and I determined that no matter what I encountered afterward, I would meet it with the fullness of my understanding that it was my Higher Self, God within, that was the Thinker, Doer, Planner, Problem Solver, Creator, and All in All. My part was very simple. I had only to stand aside and allow Him a space in which to move. My only action was to affirm the Presence and Activity of God, and to remain attentive to the Voice of the Holy Spirit. If an action was called for on my part, I would hear the message, and act accordingly. My awareness of the Omnipresence of God liberated me from the feeling of isolation and aloneness in the world, and the recognition of my unity with God and the world around me, allowed me to see that this was true for everyone. Now the world was reunited with God, and He became, from my point to view, ever present and available. The following story I would like to share with you as an example of the working out of this principle.
I once knew a young man named Larry, and in the prime of his life a terrible accident befell him. There was a propane explosion in his home, and Larry suffered severe burns over a large part of his body. He was rushed to the burn unit at one of our local hospitals. Upon hearing of his accident, I began to acknowledge the truth in this young man’s life, that being the fact that God was the Life of this young man, and no “appearance” in the world could change that. I maintained my position of “knowing” this one truth, and holding fast to that one true thing, I waited and became still. Occasionally, I would be tempted to think of the terrifying aspects of Larry’s accident, but ever so gently, the Holy Spirit would guide my thinking back to truth. One morning shortly after the accident, I awoke and had an inspiration from Spirit, and knew that it was a call to action on my part. Spirit had softly said, “You have a very healthy body, covered with healthy skin, and your friend Larry has a great need.” So I immediately called the hospital to determine the proper channels to go through to become a skin donor. Finally, after going through a maze of telephone connections and being referred here, there, and yon, I spoke to someone who was knowledgeable about skin grafting. She informed me that the procedure of donating skin tissue was not done for complicated reasons, and also because they now have the ability to generate skin tissue to be used for that purpose. I thanked her and hung up, and continued dressing for work. I said to Holy Spirit, “I’m certain that I did not misunderstand your guidance here, but if by some wee chance I did, then show me.” I went to the office, and doing what has become routine over the years, I was putting on my lab coat and preparing to begin my workday when I noticed a book lying on the desk. A friend had dropped it off a few days earlier for me to read. I had been too busy to start reading it, but now, I picked it up, and as I usually do with any book, I turned it over to read the back cover. I quickly perused the summation of the contents of the book, and what I read there was Holy Spirit’s answer to the confusion I had experienced earlier regarding the origin, nature, and directive of the “skin grafting” message. To paraphrase the one sentence that contained the answer, it described the activity of Spirit as if Spirit’s message is always, “Enflesh me”. Again, God was showing me that I live in Him, and in Him alone, and He wants me to become fully conscious of that. Everything in my world is contained in God, and an expression of God for one purpose, and one purpose only. That being to teach me, as Jesus said, “The Father and I are One”, and where I perceive separateness, there is, in Reality, none…..not even one little bitty bit. My friend recovered from his severe burns, and went home much sooner than had been anticipated by his doctors; however, functioning in the world was difficult for him, and very painful. A short time later, he died, taking his own life. Or so it appeared. I knew that Grace had brought him to this place, by Grace he had lived, and by Grace, he left the world, and by His coming and going, my understanding has increased. What greater gift could anyone receive! His Spirit lives on eternally, and I offer my gratitude to this dear friend, who, through his suffering, brought me into closer communion with God. I thought the story ended here, but as I closed my notebook, the Holy Spirit whispered the two lines of the poem “Invictus” that I could not recall earlier.
They are:
I have no doubt that there is only meaningful orderedness in life: a methodical and harmonious arrangement of events even though “on the surface” the appearance may seem chaotic. Holy Spirit tells me that my lesson here is to “Judge not by the appearance of things”.
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THE PAPER TRAIL
When I feel inspired to write, I never worry about the subject matter, for I truly feel that somewhere deep inside the Holy Spirit is dictating every word to me. Sometimes, if there is something I hear but do not clearly understand the meaning of, I’ll stop writing and we may “chat” about it for a time, and occasionally, we just need to work out the logistics of it. For example, I promised my friend Earline, my piano teacher, that I would practice for thirty minutes before I write. Last week, as I sat down to practice, the Holy Spirit was off and running with a new story, and I had to say, “Just hold on a minute, you know very well that I have to play for thirty minutes first, and then we’ll write. In the meantime, you may help me practice, but please be quiet!” I think that I was presented with this choice to teach me in a gentle way that I am the one in the pilot’s seat, and He is my Co-pilot. I decide what, when, and where, and he supports my decision, and empowers me to move confidently along my path. At other times, if I feel uncertain, or hesitant to make a decision, He provides me with the insight I need to intelligently determine what my next step should be. Learning to trust in His guidance means taking that “next step” in faith, and the greater the willingness on my part to do that, the greater the reward. To experience His Omnipresent Mind at work and play is beyond description. When I first began to experience this state of expanded consciousness, I felt blissful, peaceful, and totally at one with the universe, and then for reasons I didn’t understand, I would find myself, my awareness, back in the world of separate minds and ego-oriented life. It felt like I’d been kicked out of heaven, and I would begin to convince myself that what I had experienced must have been my imagination working overtime. Life would then return to what I had thought was “normal” for me, meaning that I would fall back into my old habits of judging by appearances, blaming others, manipulating others, or being manipulated. All typical ploys of the ego to keep its sense of “self” and “others” strong. These blissful times of awareness of unity with God and others were generally chaotic, meaning they had no discernable rhyme, reason, order, or predictability that I could comprehend. For a hard-core control addict, these happenings were a real frustration because I had no way to control their “coming and going”. Looking back, it seemed to be a koan: a problem that I could not figure out how to solve. I began to keep journals, and writing was my way of dissecting and defining the confusing situations that I found myself in, psychologically, emotionally, and sometimes physically. I thought I was writing to give voice to my other selves, and indeed I was, but what I didn’t know at first was that the Holy Spirit was tuned in to all my communication. At some point in this process, I assume that He decided, “This one is sincere in asking for help.” Of course, I know now that He was always there, just waiting silently to come forward and lead me out of the darkness and into the light. One night I dreamed that I was riding in a speeding elevator, and when it was ascending and descending, I became frightened because I knew it was coming to a jolting stop. I awoke feeling nauseous and disoriented. I asked Holy Spirit to explain that one “If you please”. I learned that in my previous experiences of expanded consciousness, I had thought that I was “all” there, and then, when my attention was again focused in my physical world and body, it felt like I had “fallen”, and landed hard into my constricted ego sense of self. He said, “This will be easy when you realize that you are all here and all there, always, and you don’t have to “go” anywhere. I thanked him for that piece of information, still wondering if I was going to be sick. He was right. I do have a tendency to make things more difficult than they need be. That was a few years ago, and this is now, and I think I’m getting the hang of it.
Occasionally, I rest awhile and consider the path I have chosen to follow, and there is enormous satisfaction in the realization that I continually create, with Spirit’s help, situations from which I can learn and grow. My life keeps me stretching, but my greatest breakthroughs in understanding and remembering who I am always come in the stillness of perfect peace.
The following excerpt from my journal dated Saturday, July 5, 1997 records such a time:
A RE-MEMBRANCE
Two years ago, I went on a long walk. It was in the fall of the year, and an unusually crisp and chilly October day in the Ozarks. I wore jeans, a sweatshirt, and hiking boots, and a heavy, gray wool cloak that is one of my favorites. I left the cabin with no destination in mind. I walked along Sugar Camp Creek and up the mountain on the far side. Frequently, I would stop and sit a while, absorbing the richness and beauty all around me. Dry leaves, glistening gold in the sunlight, swirled around me and crunched beneath my feet. A covey of quail sprang up on my left, and a little farther on, a red fox watched as I walked past. I knew that somehow, mysteriously, I had slipped into a slightly altered state of consciousness where these things were ordinary. The fox did not fear me. As I made my way back down the mountainside, I came upon a deer standing at the edge of Sugar Camp Creek. We acknowledged each other’s presence, and continued on our way. The creek empties into a secluded, man-made lake before it becomes itself again. After a very short journey, it becomes one with Swan Creek. I was standing at the edge of the lake, observing a cleared area along the shoreline, and feeling a twinge of frustration with mankind’s obsession for tree-cutting, when suddenly, and inner urge moved me forward until I was close enough to see that no man had done this. This was the result of the natural law of beaverness. At that moment, I realized that the feelings and emotions attached to my frustration were indeed my own fabrication, and they were unrelated to the natural and intelligent order in the universe. Several things happened at once, simultaneously, I laughed and the frustration was gone. I loved, and looked up to see an eagle soaring above me, circling me, and I heard the words inside me, “Woman who walks with Spirit”. I cried. Eventually, I made it back to the blacktop road, and I walked home, knowing that somehow, I was forever changed by my experience that day.
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IN CONCLUSION
I have shared bits and pieces of these stories with friends over the years, but this is the first time that I have attempted to fit the pieces into the puzzle, to put them into a framework that illustrates the living and ongoing nature of them. I want to state very clearly that the unique and wonderful events that have occurred in my life have never taken precedence over routine daily living. Never once has my Friend, Holy Spirit, said forsake all others or my daily responsibilities in order to discover God within. No. Never. I have learned that God loves to cook, do laundry, carpool, play Scrabble, work for a living, go to the movies, shop at the mall, and etc., etc. I hope that what I’m trying to say here is obvious. My highest calling, I feel in my heart, is to be available, to interact with the events that take place in my daily life. I kept journals, and I am so thankful I did that, even so, there were times too hectic to write, and sometimes months, or even years would pass and I would not make a single entry. That was OK.
As I look back over my life, and the road I’ve traveled, I am reminded of all the experiences I’ve had, and all the beautiful people that I’ve had the pleasure of sharing time and space with through the years. My heart overflows with Thanksgiving and Love. I grew up in an atmosphere of Love, the daughter of caring parents who set me on a course in life that allowed me to dream and to seek the limitless within myself. At the same time, they were practical and realistic in their approach to life, and taught me the importance of becoming self-supportive. They taught me how to navigate through life using both sails and rudder. They never said, “Don’t make any mistakes.” They said “Learn from them.” They were forgiving of my errors, and by their actions and their Love, they taught me to do the same. I feel very blessed to have had such wonderful parents, and continually ask Holy Spirit for guidance that I may be such a blessing to my children.
I am older now, and the emphasis of my life is shifting. Now is the time for me to review the lessons life has taught me and to share my experience with others. I see and understand things in an entirely different “light” now. Everything that I perceive is symbolic of the truth that supports it. Loving energy in manifestation. I see that we are all artists, and, as we paint, or sing, or sob the stories of our lives, true appreciation for our creation only comes with the realization that we have done it ourselves. Our heart tells our mind this, but we cannot hear this life-giving message until our mind opens. Again, there be the role of grace, God’s gift to us. Many times that Grace is given unexpectedly, and paradoxically, when we feel least deserving of it. Grace is always life affirming, forgiving in nature, and has the ability to overlook our tendencies of wrong doing and thinking. It is the Son rising, and with its warmth, melts away the walls of our limited thinking. The heart may now enter the mind, and the two become One in that Grand Marriage which cannot be put asunder. Imagination and Love have become wed, and Unity is restored. And on that Grandest of Wedding nights, when the Heart and Mind stand revealed to one another, in total and complete nakedness, they give themselves totally, one to the other. On this great occasion, Mind says “I have found my soul-mate”, and realizes that Heart has always been there, and aware of even the smallest details, good and bad, that have brought Him to this Holiest of Holy places in His Life. And Heart responds by saying, “I have always loved you and have patiently waited for you to invite Me to share your Life. I have been with you every step of the way, although in your darkness, you could not see nor feel my presence, I have always been with you nonetheless. Now you know, and as I give Myself to you this night, You will forever more be aware of our Union, and as One, we will go forth and multiply in beauty and harmony, all the wondrous, creative adventures that Our Creator has planned for us.”
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LIFE'S GREATEST LESSON...
HAS been, for me personally, to understand that NOW IS ETERNAL. NOW IS LOVE. NOW IS REALITY. GOD IS....... NOW ...... I have learned that the roles we choose for ourselves and others are only valid in our “dreamed up” world of limitation, and are perpetuated by our belief and faith we bestow upon them. If and when we have had enough hurt, sorrow, pain, and sadness, and we have grown weary of this “repetitive motion syndrome”, all we need do is ask for help from God's Wholly Spirit, who although unseen, has been our constant Companion all along. If we are sincere in requesting help, nothing will prevent the Loving Activity of God's Spirit from manifesting in and through us. Our tools of Unconditional Love, belief, faith, and hope, when used appropriately in the service of our Higher Self, God, establish us right in the Center of the Garden of Eden, which we only dreamed we left. The Holy Spirit is incapable of attack, and will not “fight” to change the world of our dreams, but He will use the dream stuff that we have made to awaken us to the Reality behind it. As the mist rises, Avalon, in all it's beauty and splendor, stands revealed. It has always been there, patiently waiting for us to Re-member it.
IN CLOSING
I think, “Wow! I've really done it now. This serendipity approach to living will certainly receive its share of criticism.” Holy Spirit responds by saying, “Well, what's Our Life about if not to share Our story of Love and Faith and Belief, and so what if We've discovered the Miraculous in Our ordinary Life, and in so doing have been moved to Live in such a way that our Grandest Desire is to perform random acts of loving kindness as we journey on our path?” “Yeah”, I say, but a little wordy, don't you think.... Look at all those green squiggly lines on the computer screen!
You do not have to worry about how help may be given.
I will be the one who brings them to you.
I will be the one speaking through them to you about their needs.
I will be the one that tells you how you may help them.
You do not have to worry about how the center will be supported.
I will be the one supporting it.
It is to be a center of loving kindness and support for all.”
Our hearts bound by His Love
Together we have known laughter and tears
We have shared dreams, and overcome fears
And the Love that we know within
Shall the space between us transcend
Someday we’ll meet again
Because we share the precious name, Friend.
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
I have not winced nor cried aloud
(I searched my mind for the next two lines but could not find them, and then went on.)
How charged with punishment the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.
I cry for the man on the cross
And for the woman at the well
For things before and things to come
I wonder when will my crying be done
I am a Joker
All dressed up for tea
With myriad of ladies who look just like me
Out from under the brim of my hat
I laughingly wonder as I stare at the throng
How did I become so like that
Something must have gone terribly wrong
And then on a Sunday in May
I saw the woman dressed in black
No longer cowering and afraid
As she walked in peace down a dusty path
That magically sprang up before her as each foot fell
She stopped for a moment and listened to me
Then together we trod and knew we were one
Her world and mine collided that day
On a Sunday in May.
My head is bloody, but unbowed.