July 28, 2008

I was having a conversation with a friend today about how difficult it is to stay positive and centered in the now when life is challenging.  I read once and fully believe that we are closest to God during our lowest points.  I think that is a nice way of saying that we call on God in times of emergency and do not particularly bother when things are easy.  Why in the world would we want to talk to God if we don't need anything?

I don't think anyone particularly thinks or believes that.  It's just how things work out.  We get involved with life and relationships and obligations and if nothing is going wrong, we don't talk to God.

One of my favorite modern day parables is the one about the Needy Child.  Since most people think of their Deity in terms of parents (Mother Goddess, Heavenly Father, etc), the analogy continues into the parable by equating our behavior in regard to the Divine as one of a child.

Who would be the favorite child?  Would it be the one who is constantly begging for something, pulling on their parent's sleeve and saying, "I want this.  I need this.  Please give me that."  Or is it the child who says, "I love you.  I honor you.  I want to be like you.  Thank you for all you have given me.  Thank you for teaching me.  Thank you for caring for me.  Thank you for loving me."

I am convinced that we create our own relationship with God.  Even those within the same church congregation, receiving the same spiritual message from the same ministers will create an individual relationship with God based on their past, on their expectations and on the exclusions they want to establish in that relationship. 

Another friend and I were recently talking about how other people tend to feel an overwhelming need to manage the relationship someone has with God, to tailor it and dictate what it will be based on what other people they trust have told them and on what they feel is real, also based on their own interpretation of the Bible, a text that was written literally thousands of years ago and has been retranslated several times over those years. 

It's scary sometimes how personally involved people get in the spiritual lives of others.

God speaks to me in many ways: through meditation, through EFT, through The Tarot and through actual signs and omens and symbolism sent into my life.  My thought is that it is wrong to limit in our minds and our practice the ways in which God can come to us.  I believe God is powerful enough to speak to us through anything.  I have had God tell me something through a song, through a billboard, through a friend's words or even an enemy's. 

I apply to God the same belief I have about teenagers:  They don't stop communicating first; we stop listening first.  I think we first stop listening usually because God isn't telling us what we want to hear.  Too often, we know in our hearts what's right and what God is telling us, but it is contrary to what we want for ourselves, so block it out and instead do what we want to do, or what society tells us to do. 

The Bible says, "In the silence, you will know me."  I think we also surround ourselves with so much noise and drama and busy-ness that we rarely have the silent moments to just sit and "be" with God and feel the experience of being in the presence of God flow over us.  There is a frequency to God and if we want to have a relationship with God, we have to tune ourselves to that frequency and listen carefully.  If the noise around us is louder than the "radio," we aren't going to hear it.

I had someone recently scoff to me about the idea of a Goddess and I equated it to the same concept as limiting the way God can speak to us.  Why would we limit the way God can appear to us?  If God is all things, then God is also female.  If God can appear as a burning bush or a donkey or a star or a cloud of fire, God can appear as a female image.  To my mind, God can be anything and everything all at once.

All of this analysis of God is taking place despite my primary belief that God is not analyzable.  As humans, we can only view God through our human experiences and filters and I do not believe that is sufficiently broad enough of a spectrum to understand even a fraction of what God is an can do and is about.

I realized as I was typing this that I am doing the thing I just spoke to a friend about that I call a "Laying of Truths."  Whenever I feel confused or feel myself starting to get lost in worry, I begin laying out my truths in a nice row or more literally, on a nice page.  They might not be anyone else's truths, but they are the things that I feel confident are true.  Usually I start with basics:  I love my husband.  I love my children.  I love my community and work from there.  I feel comforted by the standards and structure of what I perceive to be true.  Rarely do I speak in absolutes because there is so much room for variance and knowledge not yet gleaned and above all, perspective.   What is real to me today may not be real to me tomorrow.  My Laying of Truths is the list of things that remains constant for me from day to day, from mood to mood and throughout all of my perspectives.

As blessed as I felt by being able to take my recent trip to the GH Fan Club Weekend and most of all, to be able to have my deep, spiritual talks with Kathy Hardeman, (If I am ever on LOST, Kathy will be my constant) it was a very temporary oasis in a desert of fear and lacking and uncertainty and trepidation.  I am still in ongoing dialog with God, who is fortunately an equally amazing listener and teacher.  The two way flow is wonderful and sometimes feels like all that keeps me walking upright.

Since I am fairly open in this journal, most of you who follow it know that my life is not horrible by any means.  It's actually quite blessed, which causes me to feel ungrateful and ashamed for the emotions I regularly experience.  My heart hurts.  My head hurts.  I experience miracles literally on a daily basis and I am still a needy child.  How does that happen?

I look into my heart for the gratitude I should feel and it is there!  That is the biggest miracle of all.  I celebrate it.  The dark side of my spirit still feels a longing for financial stability.  I am so tired of staving off the wolf from the door a few cents at a time.  I am grateful to have those few cents and that overall, the wolf is easily distracted by sparkly things, but I am so weary. 

Kathy made such an astute point when we were talking that weekend in saying that even the most enlightened people say, "Mind, Body, Spirit," proving that we automatically put Spirit last over intellect and physical form.

She vowed to always say, "Spirit, Mind and Body" from now on.  For me, my spirit tells me that I have to walk away from the battle with fear.  I have to let the wolf do its worst and devour me.  My mind counters with a million reason as to why I have to remain strong.  Eric depends on me to be The Rock and give the faith back to him when he let it go for a few minutes.  The kids can't see me melt because it scares them and leaves them feeling unstable.  Fear, worry, dread all accomplish nothing but physical and spiritual turmoil.  My body tells me clearly that this all needs to stop.  I haven't lost weight in weeks because I am bane to give up even one more thing in my life for fear it will be the crucial element that is holding me together.  Cut back on more calories now that my body has adjusted to surviving on 1800 or so.  Give up what little free time I have to exercise.  It's all great advice and it's all things I want to do, but fear holds me frozen in place.  Will that sacrifice be what pushes me over the edge so that the resentment and anger that I know is lurking will burst into full exposure? 

I feel very emotionally and mentally fragile right now, but spiritually strong.  Why can't some of that spiritual strength blend over to the other two personal elements?

When I sleep, I sleep so hard it's hard to come back sometimes.  It's particularly bad on Sunday and Monday after being out in the 3 digit heat all day at the swap meet selling our products.  Most days, I don't even remember Sunday late afternoon after we get back from town, whether I was awake or asleep.  It's just a big blank.  Monday, I am depleted and drained.

I feel torn in a few hundred directions.  The kids are still young enough to need mothering and a stable home energy.  They are one day less than 2 weeks from going back to school.  The house needs constant care to be presentable in some way.  We have people drop by without calling all the time because as anyone who lives in a tiny community will tell you, that's the country way.  Eric is easily embarrassed if the house is not fairly clean and then the upset from that runs downhill quickly.  When he is here, he helps more than any husband I have ever seen.  I have a number of websites to keep updated on a weekly basis.  I have sewing to do for the company (sunbonnets and monkeys at the moment).  I very much want to rewrite the rest of the CUSP website because I feel it has a very vital spiritual message.  More than anything, I want time for myself to heal and regroup.

I know I will get past this.  I've been here before and I have yet to get stuck there forever.  It just helps to get it out sometimes in a massive wave of self-pity.

Soon, I will be back on top of the Wheel of Life again instead of under it.

Be particular,
Katrina