“We teach what we need to learn the most.” – – Richard Bach from “Illusions”

My urge to write has a will of its own. More specifically, I was doing some reading just a minute ago, albeit of the inspirational variety, and all of a sudden I’m sitting at my keyboard. I’m hesitant to quote my Source. I am equally hesitant to say out loud that I feel lately as though I’m being “guided” to send out a message regularly, one that may benefit not only myself in helping me to vent and clear my own slate, but also to possibly benefit others who may be looking for a viewpoint to relate to. It seems to me that the job of healing others through words, as lofty as my perception of such a vocation or avocation may be, is to be reserved for someone more “accomplished” in the world, or someone who has demonstrated at least a striving toward the position of a spiritual leader. It challenges my lifelong, likely worn-out notion that only people like Eckhart Tolle, or the Dalai Lama or Marianne Williamson are to be charged with such responsibility. And then I’ll remember being floored by the spiritual insight of someone with one day of sobriety in AA. That type of thing happens to me often. We are all One. Aren’t we?

I’m hardly a bible scholar but if I remember correctly, old testament or even new testament prophets were rarely if ever painted as perfect. New testament Paul prosecuted Christians before his conversion. The old testament deliverer of the Jews from Egypt (I sometimes forget if it was Moses or Charlton Heston before he joined the NRA) killed a guy with his bare hands. More recently, Neale Donald Walsh wrote a series of books detailing his Conversations With God. Throughout his writing, Walsh points out repeatedly how he’s an ordinary Joe, a not so long ago homeless, several times divorced, failed this and that regular human like the rest of us. One of the benefits of the ‘spirituality-for-sale” era as I see it is the common theme of all of us in the world being equal. I’m not a billionaire, but my soul is still as much a part of the Whole as that person. I am not a modern day prophet like Tolle or Walsh, yet I’m still as much One as they are. They tell me so. More importantly to me, I’ve never forgotten something I read over thirty years ago in A Course In Miracles: “You are here to heal the room.” You. I think that means me. And you.

I love public speaking. It just seems to light a fire under me and the expectation of an upcoming speaking engagement brings about in me a yearning to clean house, to allow as pure a message to pass through me as possible, from a Source which isn’t my ego. It took years for me to look at this practice and not think of myself as being supremely arrogant for believing such a thing could happen. I would frequently project my doubt onto others and scoff at the thought that they had the audacity to think God would pass through someone like them. Of course, the Self-doubt and projection were both products of my lack of self esteem. It’s through years of at least trying to adhere to a spiritual practice that I’ve learned that there is a difference between self-esteem and Self-esteem. Sam Keen wrote a book years ago called Fire In The Belly, about males coming of age into their own masculinity. Concurrently I saw the movie The Fugitive and felt that Tommy Lee Jones as the Samuel Girard character gave a living recitation of the book with his performance. “Fire in the belly” is the term that is coming to mind most often for me lately to describe my need to write out my process. For all I know, ten people will read this. Maybe less. Maybe even less than that will glean something productive from this article. The point in continuing to publish them is that my gut feeling is so strong to do so that’s it’s very difficult to not interpret it as the proverbial voice in the wilderness. In addition, it feels joyful. I’m not going to argue with that.

Last week I was at an AA meeting on Thursday night. After the speaker shared her perspective on Step Nine, I walked out of the room and was intercepted by a young lady who began to complement me profusely. “You’re a great speaker,” she said. “I’ve heard you twice at the Recovery Church. You always get straight to the point.” I don’t recall ever having met this young lady but I will certainly remember her now. I felt a sort of grateful embarrassment at being showered with such praise. Me? Really? Apparently my ego was dormant enough the night she heard me for an effective message to find its way through me. And then I remembered: when someone praises the better of me they are praising the highest of me. And I will take a deep breath before I type out the next sentence. They are praising the God of me. Or whatever you want to call it. I find the word “God” to often be limiting, but I also have to confess it’s also the most convenient to get my point across. I remember Roger B. giving a talk once at a meeting and he mentioned a sponsee of his who had much difficulty with the word “God.” Roger told him to call it whatever he wanted to. The guy chose “Pedro.” If being in contact with his “inner Pedro” helped this fella to feel more connected to Source energy (something I’m a little more comfortable with personally) then who’s to argue? And since the guy chose a Mexican name it sure won’t be me. That same Spirit, by whatever name, resides in all of us. Is it arrogant to believe that a Supreme Spirit resides in me? To the contrary. I’ve come to believe that it is the height of arrogance to believe It does not.

“You are here to heal the room” speaks to everybody. Not just me. “We teach what we need to learn the most” speaks to everybody. Not just me. These statements temper any lingering arrogance I feel that accompanies this sense of urgency I feel for writing. Some people reach into the spirit of others through their words of wisdom. Some by playing beautiful music. Still others do so by opening a door for someone or maybe just by smiling. Or making someone laugh. My current challenge is to bring this attitude of “carrying the message” to the many people I talk to daily on the phone at work. It is not an easy task. I don’t think I’ll be in that workplace much longer. However, I also remember feeling stuck in a job years ago and a minster telling me “You’re not going to leave that job until you love it.” I’ve not written an article twice in a month since I started doing this column in 2012. The flame that burns in me to continue writing is getting stronger, and I know more and more each time that I’m writing for my Self. What I do for myself, I do for another. What I do for another I do for myself. Or the Self. Writing in itself fills me. The idea that it may actually be an act of service makes it even more blissful. Am I possibly getting a late start in life in a new direction? I sure hope so. Regardless, I’m finally doing something I’ve ignored the craving to do for years: I’m following my bliss. Thank you for reading.

Peace

magicianstouch.net

“Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.” – – David Bowie

As many of you know, earlier in the year I had an argument with a patch of ice and tore my right quad muscle. Even though I saw my checking account flash before my eyes, I called paramedics to cart me away to United Hospital where I had surgery less than twenty-four hours after my accident. Only now I’m questioning if indeed it was an accident. After six months of depression, frustration, hopefulness, and sometimes resignation, I’m starting to see a larger purpose in what appeared to be misfortune.

While being visited by what felt like a hundred nurses during the first month home from the hospital, I gradually went from wearing a brace and being told to keep my leg as straight as possible even when sleeping (don’t they know how much those damn things itch???), to its grateful removal and getting around with the help of a walker. In retrospect, my initial stages of recovery went by faster than they seemed to at the time, and before long I was needing only a cane for support and was able to return to work.

I’ve been a runner for nearly fifty years now and have relied on my solitary workouts to keep my endorphins flowing and my dysthymia (I’ve had a low-grade depression since my youth) under control. At my age it would be prudent to have a backup exercise plan for yoga or maybe tai chi, but right now running just plain feels good to me. I’ve heard it said by a few different people “It’s impossible to evaluate an insane thought system while engaged in the same system.” So I really have not been able to honestly assess where I’m at mental health-wise. Its only recently that I’ve fessed up that my depression has traveled a grade lower than normal. The early prognosis was to run again at four months after the accident, June 8th. That date came and went and I was still not able to run. July 8th came and went and I was still able to only do prescribed exercises from my physical therapist, none of which pointed to putting the necessary pressure on my injured leg for running. I implemented them lethargically. After a few treadmill walk/jog sessions at my gym, I was finally able to run outside for the first time last week. A combination of walking and running netted me a distance of one half mile of actual running time. Heaven. I sincerely did not know how much I had missed my workouts.

The unplanned emotional ups and downs of the last six months have been trying to say the least. In their midst I’ve felt energized at times, and amazed at the progress of my rehab, but also depressed at missing the effect of one of my favorite activities. Meditation has usually been my savior, along with reading inspiration material, but neither have worked to lift me out of the abyss I’ve been unwittingly swirling around in. It has led to a time of contemplation over the last few weeks, questioning everything in sight: my health, my age (sixty-six), my purpose in life, and why I’ve come to dislike my job so much lately. And I don’t remember seeing a statement in my high school yearbook next to my picture saying “most likely to spend his life in a call center.” My AA sponsor once told me he thought I was “the most underemployed person I’ve ever met.” The work I do for a living provides a very valuable service. Still, over the years I’ve felt that I’ve always been an underachiever, an intelligent person and yet one who sits on the sidelines and marvels at the performances of people around me who seem to know so much more than I do and who “go for the gold” so to speak in the form of promotions. That is to say, more often than not I’ve felt like a square peg in a round office.

The synchronicity of the reading material I seem to have magically gravitated toward over the last three weeks has been astounding. On a “whim,” I went to a Barnes and Noble on my lunch hour and picked up a copy of “Many Lives, Many Masters.” I needed to have my faith restored again in the complexity and wonder of what we call our universe. It worked. From there I’ve gone on to the “Conversations With God” series, the books by Neale Donald Walsh that stirred controversy in the nineties, as books that claim to contain the actual words of God will do. During my downtime my outlook has become jaded. Muted. Dulled. I feel like I’ve been living in a slow motion insane, boring movie. As my anticipation of childlike wonder just around the corner grows in me, my attitude is ever so gently becoming one of looking for possibilities, of expressing my creative side once again. I had an unmistakable nudge to write again today (it’s been four months) and am following up on it. I feel a bit rusty, but the only way to get better at writing is to write. Or so I’ve heard. It also has a healing effect on me, and I also enjoy that it seems to reach a few folks here and there who find resonance in the words that pass through me. That is a pleasure. As is running. And entertaining an audience with song and stories. I’m getting a bit worked up just thinking about it.

Age sixty-six is not dead. I forget sometimes about the rhythms of Life, and that every day I’m going into uncharted waters. We all have conversations with God. I’ve read “Many are called but few are chosen” modified to “All are called but few choose to listen.” I’m listening again. With the assistance of lots of beautiful reading material, lots of meditation, and an occasional beautiful dream, I seem to be sacrificing boredom in favor of wonder. It has not been an easy sacrifice, and just the same I agree with the words of Alfred Adler: “A dream left unexamined is like a letter from God left unopened.” Dreams while I sleep have often given me useful guidance. It’s time again to let my waking dream do the same. I know this may not come easy. But I am determined. I’m very open to being in a very different place than where I am now in say, three months. I’m not at all sure where that might be, but that’s what makes life an adventure. At the expense of sounding very childlike, and maybe a bit naive, I will see you at the corner of excitement and wonder.

Peace

magicianstouch.net