Zero Karma

The psychiatrist told me that I was 90% sane also said something else that sticks in my mind and gives me pause to think at times when my mind turns hostile on me.  He said “Look, it isn’t like you killed anybody.”  I think about that often.  No, I didn’t kill anyone.  I’ve hurt people badly, but they still live.  Because the degree of anguish I feel related to my guilt is so great at times, I often wonder how people who accidentally or unintentionally committed manslaughter find a way to survive.  If they are feeling a degree of remorse that is consistent with their crime, I feel compassion for them, which in no way is meant to minimize the pain and grief of loss felt by the families of the victims.   About a year or so ago I read “The Hour I First Believed” by Wally Lamb.  It tells the story of a woman who commits vehicular manslaughter while under the influence of prescription narcotics, which she became addicted to after her experience in the Columbine shooting.  She became stuck in her mental anguish, the guilt and terror crippled her.  Instead of redeeming herself, she slowly drowned in her own despair, never compensating for the wrong she committed.

I think of that novel and the fact that scenarios like that play out all the time.  What good does feeling guilty and remorseful do if I simply wallow in fear and self pity?  If I fail to act, if I fail to become a better, stronger, more thoughtful, compassionate person, then I’m not redeeming myself, I’m not doing the world a service.  Perhaps I speak of Karma. Maybe it really does exist.  When I went to that psychic, and I hesitate to even reference it, but she said my Karmic level was zero, my lesson in this life is free will.   For a while I tried to figure out what a level of zero meant.  With no success I finally gave up and decided that the whole concept was in contrast to the Catholic faith and decided just to put it all out of my mind.  But, the other day at work I was speaking with the Indian friend I know.  He practices Buddhism and is a Hare Krishna and he mentioned Karma to me.  So I asked him what it meant.  He looked at me and said “You have no Karma left.  You’ve used up all your good Karma.”   My stomach dropped the way it would on the down hill slope of a roller coaster.  I felt sick to my stomach.  I had thought before that at least it meant I didn’t have any bad Karma, but the way he worded it made me feel sick.   Who ever I’ve been, what ever I’ve done, in this life or in the past, must have been pretty lousy and bad.

If I believe that we sign up for the burdens in our life and if I believe that my life lesson is free will, then it makes sense that I’d have a Karmic level of zero.  “Here you go” says life, “You get a clean slate to choose who you want to be, but your life will be challenging, you will suffer pain with no good Karma to buffer it, but no bad Karma to make it worse.  Live your life and decide who you want to be…then be it.”  But isn’t that what we are all supposed to do any way?

Again the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi floods into my mind.  “Lord, make me a channel of your peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love…”  The self control and commitment to be that person, the person who responds to anger with kindness and love, who puts their hurts and sadness aside to comfort the pain of others is the antithesis of who I’ve been through out my life.  I feel the weight of the shame and the sorrow that accompanies this realization, but it doesn’t change what I must do or who I want to be.  As I start my day I think…Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, let me sow love Lord, please grant me the courage and strength to accomplish that task.

Simply Live

Yesterday I missed mass at the Parish I regularly attend so I drove 20 minute to the south and attended an 11:oo Mass at a small  white country church.    Every time I enter it I am magically transported to a time and era when our country was young and churches were the heart of a community. The church is surrounded by a few homes, a small cemetery and an abandoned general store on a long straight away of the main county highway.  I half expect to watch a girl in a floral dress with braids hanging down run across the  aisle as her mother yells “Laura slow down” reminiscent of some scene from Little House On the Prairie. The Church is humble in its size and structure, a small wooden altar and unadorned pews.  There are no grand statues of stone anywhere to be found. The aged building heaves and creaks when you walk upon the floor.   Instead of an organ or a piano the music comes from a single violin, whose clear and solid tones resonate from the balcony above, floating forward towards the altar like a soft and gentle summer breeze.   The message was clear and simple, “Life is  What You Make It.”   The priest emphasized that God can’t do everything so it’s up to us.  Can God make a rock so heavy that he can not move it? Can God make a four-sided triangle?  Can God give people free will and then not allow them to use it?  Bad things happen and they are not always caused by the choice of God.

The message rang out all more powerfully as it was delivered in the modest and ascetic surroundings.  The predominantly elderly congregation stood and kneeled, sat and sang at the required moments instinctively.   I admired their devotion to a faith that seemed so pure.  The procession of the mass was no different from the mass I attended in a large city with a grand cathedral, made of dark red stone.  The cathedral was breath-taking in its magnitude, with two massive bell towers and arched ceilings that piqued towards the heavens, each station of the cross contained life-sized chiseled statues depicting each profound moment so important to our faith.   The altar was large and ornate shining of gold and the preaching podium was only reached by climbing a small spiral case of stairs.  The floor was marble and the choir of a dozen people were robed in white while their voices echoed through the vast open space.  The power and wealth of the Catholic church is epitomized within that Cathedral.  Yet, unadulterated by the glory of its surroundings, the power of the  Mass resonated within me in the same way that the voices of the choir reverberated throughout the cathedral.

So, I am reminded that God doesn’t care where we pray. He simply cares that we do.  The prayers of the devout congregation, in its poverty stricken surroundings are just as purposeful as those from the congregation in the affluent Cathedral. Attending mass is about sharing our faith together, remembering we are never alone.  It is about joining ourselves with others and raising our voices in unison in the same manner that Christ and his Apostles did millenniums ago.  We gather together out of discipline and practice, showing our devotion to our faith. It does not matter whether this practice occurs in a grand cathedral whose magnitude and beauty epitomizes the might of God or whether it occurs in a pious country church with a small hand carved wooden altar.   While the sound of the music emanating from that single violin may be different from the sound of the massive organ, the notes remain the same.

As I ponder this I look around my home and see the possessions I have collected through the course of life.  I look at the bowls of pottery, the stone fire-place, the large and comfortable couch and wonder whether I need them at all?  Not a single one has brought me happiness.  My morning coffee tastes the same from the mug purchased from Wal-Mart as it does in the hand forged cup I bought from an elegant boutique.  The mug does not change the coffee, it simply contains it.  I sit and wonder, why do I need these things? Can I live with out them, should I “de-clutter” my life?  For so long I believed I’d find happiness through the comfort of the material things that surround me, but yet its never come  from them.   I think of those decorative signs that remind us to “live simply” and I reflect upon the contrast of the country Church and the Cathedral.  One simple and one complex, one grand with possessions and one modest and ascetic, yet congregants kneel for the same prayers, and follow the same traditions of the Church that have withstood the test of time.   I recognize that simplicity, like complexity won’t bring me happiness either.  Perhaps instead of trying to figure how to live I should simply do it.   Instead of living “simply” I should aspire to “simply live.” To embrace all that life has to offer, its beauty and its ugliness, its blessings and its pains…just simply live life to the fullest.

The Beauty of This Moment

Throughout out each day I try to be attentive, waiting for that electric feeling that passes through me, starting from the crown of my head and exiting out my feet, leaving its  remnants in my stomach, like a glacier carving out a valley and leaving behind a boulder.  That is how I experience my moments of inspiration when I know what I want to write.  This morning it is slow in forming and more like a fizzle than a thunder clap.  My mind feels like a radio searching for a station, scanning for the right song to match my mood, trying to find a channel with clear reception,  but the rain and grey clouds make it hard to hear.  With each thought or idea I feel my body tell me “no, that’s not it try something else” and then a “nope, that one won’t work either.”  I scroll my mental Rolodex of topics, shuffling through the cards within my mind  and nothing speaks to me.   My frustration mounts and I get angry with my situation.   I wish I were someone else or somewhere else, perhaps on a lake front cabin where the waves gently lap against the shore, or at the ocean with the sand beneath my feet with the wind blowing against my face, or upon a scenic mountain where the world appears so small beneath me.  As vivid as those scenes appear before my mind, nothing inspires me,  I am not embracing this moment, but instead am fighting against, like a salmon swimming up the stream against the current, feeling more fatigued with each inch I move  forward.  I can hear the symphony of birds outside my windows.   The songs of the perching birds, the warblers, sparrows and the nuthatches singing the harmony while the songbirds melodious tunes take the center stage.  The  rhythmic bellow of the raven keeps the pace and is followed by the rapid taps of the distant woodpecker.  How could such natural beauty not inspire me?  I look out my window and see the crab apple tree, shocked by how different it has become.  I wonder when it became so large and full, not just full of leaves from this passing season, but wondering how it’s grown so thick  and tall with so many craggy branches and my thoughts begin to drift to the impermanence of life.  Every thing changes and we can not stop it.  A prolific thought and  yet I’m uninspired.

I am flooded with a sense of failure and disappointment, so I sit in this moment, simply trying to embracing it.  Instead of fantasizing away the discomfort caused by the reality of my situation, I sit with it and explore it, what it feels like, as uncomfortable as this is.  How exactly does a person sit in silence and accept a moment they don’t like, feeling something they wish it would go away instead?  How do you settle for less than what you want and find a way to for it to be okay?  I wonder what is wrong with me that I believe that every second of my day should feel profound and full of purpose with copious amounts of meaning emanating  out of me.  Why can’t I just accept that sometimes the stream of life is simply only a trickle and embrace the awareness that its water sustains my life just the same as the water that flows from a raging river.  There is no difference between the drop of water in a stream that is nearly dry and the drop of water from an engorged river.

The ability to be content with the present moment is not one I posses.  Rare and fleeting are the instance where I can settle for less than what I want. I find it so hard to accept  only what I get.  As I look out at my yard I see the gravel driveway and the portion of the lawn where we’ve just excavated.  It is covered with dirt and mud and is rather unsightly.  But if I shift my view upwards I can see the golden and orange glow of the rising sun, breaching the thick canopy of deciduous trees and it is beautiful.  I can look to my right and see the way the sun has penetrated the forest and warms it wooded floor, gently coloring the cool earth with the brush strokes of its light, magnifying the contrast between the ferns and trees, amplifying their depth and textured browns and greens.  I realize that it isn’t that there is an absence of beauty for me to grasp, I simply need to narrow or shift my focus, telescoping my view onto a single flower petal if need be,  in order to find the brilliance that exists in this very minute, remind myself  of the beauty in this earth.

I Could Not Shut It Out

This morning as I lay in bed, I took my two hands and joined them where my palm meets my writs, my pinky fingers running along each other and I gently cupped my hands.  I placed them over my face like a mask, breathing in my own breath, trying to see if I could create nothing but blackness.  And I could not keep out the light.  When I tightened my fingers to make sure that no light slipped in between and rested them over my eyes, my entire hand would stiffen and unintentionally straighten a bit,  slightly widening the gap between my wrists and the base of my palms, lengthening the sliver of light that seeped in by my chin and my mouth.  If I tried to shut out that light by relaxing my hand and fingers to rejoin my wrists, then the gaps between my fingers grew and allowed more light to shine through them.

Perhaps it seemed this way because I was looking for the light instead of seeking the blackness.  Each time I removed my hands and repositioned them it appeared as if  I had an interval of success where everything seemed black, when my eyes had not adjusted to the change from light to dark and I saw no shards of light.  But as I stayed unmoved and unflinching, my eyes began to adjust and  light gradually appeared.  If I chose to only look for the darkness I would have thought that I succeeded because of those moments when I could see no light at all.  But slowly the light would appear.  The gaps between my fingers and hands remained unchanged, but my vision adjusted allowing me to see the light that was always there.  It’s all a matter of perspective.  Regardless of what it was I was truly looking for,  no matter how I tried, I could not shut out all the light.  A rather profound metaphor for life and for hope isn’t it?  Despite the darkness, even that which is self-induced, light can still exist, and if chosen, can still be seen.    Some times we must  simply sit in patience and in silence to regain our bearings and  allow our eyes to adjust so that we recognize that what at first appeared to be an absence of hope is really only our inability to see it, but it still exists.  Sometimes we must sit in the darkness and let our pupils dilate so that we can more clearly see what is in front of our face.

Similar to the parable of the mustard seed, it only takes a little hope to turn into something grand.  Smallest seed of them all, when sewn the mustard seed becomes taller than the tallest herb or plant, growing branches that reach up towards the sky and leaves that provide shade and shelter to living things around it.  If we allow it,  hope can be like that mustard seed, fragile and small at first, when gently nurtured and allowed to grow it becomes the thing that shelters and protects us.

Hope is always there.

The Unseen Path

Have you ever read the parable about “The Cracked Pot”?  It is a story about a person in India who goes to the river each day to fetch water, carrying two pots, one of which is cracked.  By the time the person walks along the path and returns home, the cracked pot has lost half of it’s water.  The cracked pot feels so ashamed of it’s imperfections and inability to carry water comparing it’s efficiency to that of the other pot.  But the owner of the pot simply turns it around to show the beautiful flowers that have grown along one side of the path and states that it was the pot’s crack that allowed those flowers to grow for every day the pot’s leaking water had nourished them.

If only we were all fortunate enough to have someone in our life point out the strengths of our imperfections, someone to who would teach us that beauty lies in singing, not the pitch or accuracy of the tune.  Too often we allow the loud self-judging voice to dictate how we think and feel, believing that just because it is so boisterous it must true.  Several years ago I took six months off of work and immersed myself in spiritual practice and met weekly with a teacher.  I practiced yoga and Buddhist meditation, walking meditation, carrying mala beads, chanting, and was even guided on a spirit journey by a Native American Shaman.  I spent hours walking barefoot through a local wooded park, often meditating on a large stump that sat at the head of a little pond.  I sat for hours trying to absorb life’s energy so that I could find myself.

It’s not often that a person can just stop their life and reassess it. Kierkegaard wrote: “In the noise and busyness we’ve drawn away from our spirits.  But in the stillness, when we’re absolutely alone in the world, we can sometimes find a vision of justice and beauty that will ever afterwards infuse our lives with purpose.”  That indeed is what happened, I gained some insight and a different way of perceiving life.  It also taught me to better harness the vastness of my mind and allowed me to better develop my ability to feel the energy of life.

Often I would wander along a cut path, it weaved in and out of thickets, apple orchards, pine groves, and by a pond.  I spent so many hours and walked it so frequently that I could do it blindfolded, so it was odd that one day, after becoming lost in thought that when I stopped  to catch my bearings, I didn’t recognize anything around me.  I had the awareness that I was someplace familiar and that if I simply kept walking forward I would find my way again, but the path I was on simply disappeared.  When I looked forward all I saw was a wall of green,  thick and solid, like a brick wall in an alley.  It was a test of faith.  I had walked this path so many times before that a part of my conscious knew it did not end, but if I trusted only what I saw I would have given up.  I simply could not remember whether the path veered off to the left or right.  So I practiced faith and recognized the metaphor  that with each single step my path would emerge before me.   So, I slowly walked, consciously, one foot forward at a time until there began to appear a small opening where the thick brush and foliage began to thin, and in a few moments, my path became visible and clear.

Pema Chodron says:  “Maybe the only enemy is that we don’t like the way reality is now and therefore we wish it would go away fast.  But what we find is that nothing goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”  Stephen Levine writes “It takes confidence to watch doubt without thinking we have to do something about it, trust its natural impermanence to carry it away as long as we don’t pull back from it or compulsively react.” I know that he is right.  This sense of groundlessness, of chaos, of not knowing where I’m going will gradually fade so long as I keep walking, one step at a time, even if I must break my day into 30 second intervals and simply breath through them.   Eventually the thick brush will clear and my path will emerge and I will be stronger for the faith I practiced.

Perservere

I like to write in the morning because there is a stillness in the air and often in the quiet solitude I find perspective.  I find such hope in each sunrise as the darkness slowly fades, it is a rare moment where we watch life unfold, the world change around us and we can’t not know it at the time.  How many other chances do we get for that type of awareness to occur?   They are moments where we can be reminded that what is at this moment will never be again.  It can be unique and yet a simultaneously shared experience.  Two people can watch a sunrise side by side and notice different things, or two people spread by miles can watch a sunrise, the same rising sun, yet not seem at all the same.  On the days that grey clouds fill the air our faith is challenged to remember that the sun is always there, but even though we can’t see it, we don’t doubt that it exists.

So many things in our natural world can guide us and remind us how we’re supposed to live, if we pay attention and allow it.  I once opened a fortune cookie that said “Storms make Oaks grow deeper roots.”  The grass always appears greener and my garden more lush after the rain.  Can we too flourish after the storms roll through our life?

Have you ever noticed the quiet after a storm? The air is thick and heavy, with the weight of the moisture and the colors of the earth, the trees, and sky are always more brilliant as the drops of rain reflect and magnify the energy of life, glistening like diamonds casting rainbows in the air. There is the sound of the occasional drop of water falling to the ground, reminding us that each one drop in millions is easy to ignore, but each drop is still unique and matters to the earth.

I once saw a rainbow in the sky as the sun was rising, it cast a reddish-orange hue across the grey and darkened air.  The bows of blues and greens could hardly be seen as the bands of reds and orange were thick and overpowering.  I had never seen a rainbow so distorted yet so inspiring for the clarity it brought which was the reminder that we need to stop, breathe and pause and appreciate the beauty around us because each moment can be unique and is filled with a series of complex coincidences that create it, unanticipated combinations of situations one that may never occur again.

Breathing in each moment, just one at a time is sometimes what we do to survive when we feel that we are in a dark tunnel with no light on the horizon, when the storms of life are raging and we can not see the sun.  But like those rainy days we know the sun is always there, despite the grey that clouds our view, we simply need to journey on, one step at a time and hold on to faith and we will persevere.

The Gift of Chaos

Recently I’ve been accused of never committing myself to anything long term.  I begin new things with vigor, passion, and enthusiasm, and then I burn out quickly.  I have no staying power.  It’s true.  Only recently have I begun to understand the consequence of that pattern.  I’ve wreaked chaos in my life and now it gives great pause for hesitation to those who need to trust that I’m going to change. I simply hope that each day I get enough right that in a year from now when I ask if I’m proving myself they will reply “I’m still here.”

Lately I have been so humbled by things that  I had not known.  Things that I should have, but simply didn’t.   I just recently gained some insight, similar to that I learned about  love.  Commitment isn’t meant to be easy.  Perhaps you’ve heard the statement that it takes discipline to be a good parent.  Not because you have to punish your children, but because it takes hard work, self-regulation, and practice every day to make the right choices and teach the lessons that your children need to learn.  You must be disciplined yourself.  Finally the light bulb has flashed in my mind, “Ohhhh!” I think, kicking myself for not realizing this before:  EVERYTHING in life takes discipline.    It angers, disappoints, and saddens me that my thinking has been incongruent enough that I never understood that before.  Relationships, having a home, work, hobbies . . . you don’t just walk away, you dig in and work harder.  My heart is weighted with regret for all the things I’ve lost.  I am afraid for all that I can lose because now I understand  more greatly the consequence of actions.

When you take a medication and your experiences change, it’s hard to keep on arguing that there is nothing wrong with your brain.  It is  humbling experience. But yet accepting that there is something neurochemically wrong with almost a bit of a relief, because it means that  its not that I am a bad person, but there are ways of thinking and behaving that aren’t 100% my conscious choice.  But yet,  that is the hardest part of my life right now.  I compare it to being an alcoholic who made foolish mistakes because their brain was intoxicated. When  you sober up you have to face the consequences, ask forgiveness, try to make amends and but also avoid getting drunk again.  The irony is that the pain you tried to avoid by getting drunk has only caused more pain.  But if drunks and addicts can recover and remain sober for the remainder of their life, who’s to say that I  can’t change as well?  Change is hard and takes work, but it can be done if you chose to practice the discipline.

I find that  I am at a crossroad.  At first I thought it was because of my mental illness, but now I am more inclined to think that sooner or later we all reach a point like this.  It has  less to do with madness and more  a consequence of life.  In Everyday Simplicity, Robert Wicks writes “In the end it is how we stand in that darkness that really matters.  More over sometimes it is paradoxically during faithfulness in the darkness, not in the light, that we see what is true and dear at a deeper level.  At such times, we find ourselves at a crossroads; our spiritual attitude either matures or it is crushed.”   I want to mature.

There are endless quotes of wisdom about the benefits of chaos.  Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says “Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news.”   Echart Tolle explains “Every disaster is also an opening into something deeper.  Suddenly all explanations do not make sense any more.  One could almost say it is as if a hole were appearing in the fabric of existence . . . and sooner or later the hole will appear in everybody’s fabric, no matter how comfortable their life is arranged right now.”    Robert Wicks also states that “any occurrence that moves us out of taking life for granted is a gift . . . The question is whether we listen to and take advantage of these periods of imbalance.”  Okay . . .  so I get the point.

What profound advice . . . but where are the instructions that tell a person exactly how to do it? How do normal people do that?  Is it even normal for a person not to know how to do it? Does everyone need advice from others or am I abnormal here?  Someone once asked me “why do you always have to think you’re so different from everyone else?”   I don’t remember how I answered it but I remember what I thought, “What do you mean?  You mean I am actually like everyone else?” It’s not that I want to be different, I just always thought I was.  I have spent my life half searching for answers and the other half ignoring the answers that I got.  But I’ve reached the point where stakes are just too high to ignore things anymore.  So what do I do?  Well, I try to carry on even when the feelings of depression weighs oppressively on my back.  When grief, sorrow and a sense of loss consume me,  I get up and I write. I take a shower, go to church and just simply focus on making it through that moment.  When I get that sickening feeling deep within my gut, the type that makes me want to scream in rage and give up on life, I simply say a prayer.  I walk on the treadmill with music blaring in my ears.  I play my violin. I do the dishes, fold the laundry, I read a book to my kids.  All these things feel so rote and mechanical,  they are missing joy and happiness.  Instead of valuing life and soaking in its splendor, I am just surviving.  Everything hurts right now and I think it will never change.  I’ve resorted to surviving with  structure, to buckle down with discipline so at least I have a life.  And maybe sometime a day will come when the hurt has lessened, maybe there will be a day that I will find peace and meaning to this devotion, but right now it seems to much to ask.

Living First

Do you ever start the day in quiet contemplation?  Perhaps sitting with the rising sun, searching for the one insight that will unlock the secret to a long and prosperous life?  I do.  Each morning I rise early, coffee in my hand, and I try to think of one important thing, one simple statement or lesson I can learn, something to reflect on and practice throughout the day.  Sounds great right?  How profound . . .but it’s some how gone awry because I’ve made a shamble of my world right now.  

The thought this morning that keeps percolating with me  is one that I can’t recall exactly where I heard it, but suspect that it was at a presentation at a natural wildlife museum,  It was a statement that was meant to engage children and remind them why they should be quiet.  The commentator said “You have two ears and one mouth so you are supposed to listen twice as much as you speak.”  It’s funny the bits of personal insight we gain in the most unexpected places.  I talk too much and listen, truly listen too little. It isn’t a conscious or intentional thing. I suspect it’s been fueled by a mix of anxiety and fear, not too mention a brain that at times feels more like a freight train barreling down the tracks then a part of me that’s meant to control my entire being.  In The Art of Pilgrimage, Phil Cousineau says ” Listening closely is nearly a lost art, but a retrievable one.  The soul thrives on it . . .words heard by chance have been known to change lives . . .Listen as though your life depends on it. It does.”

Somewhere along this path of life I became too self-involved and self-protective to listen to the wisdom and needs of other’s around me. It’s a sad and lonely way to live really.  I’ve succeeded at keeping people an arm’s length away while always blaming them for failing to understand or accept the real me.  Thinking and behaving this way becomes an unconscious habit, you talk simply because you can, and then it’s hard to quit.  Talking helps me keep the control to the point that it’s almost painful to keep silent.  If you truly listen, not with your mind, but with your heart, then you might have to hear something you don’t like, so it’s just easier to talk.  A quote by Robert Wicks says ” when we recognize how easily we can be hurt, we tend to be more gentle with others.”  I can’t help but wonder what has happened to me along this way, because instead of softening and being kinder to others, I got angry with the world and have taken it out on those around me, to the point I’ve nearly drowned in the pity I’ve created for myself.

Pema Chodron describes the meaning behind the Tibetan word  “ye tang che”  which describes an experience of being completely hopeless, totally and completely exhausted and then she explains that ” If we’re willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation.”  I think that’s where I went wrong.  Instead of realizing that I’m hurt because it’s part of life, I have always seen my hurts as things that shouldn’t have happened, that if I tried enough I could find a way to have an impenetrable life, that I could eradicate all hurt and suffering instead of just accepting it for what its been and gently moving on.  I’ve reached the point where I realize there is no place to hide, there is no defense mechanism that will soften my aches or my pains. Ye tang che am I.  Robert Frost says it well “the best way out is through.”  It’s time to give up trying to find a different route, I’m ready to  begin.

A line within Rollo May’s book Freedom and Destiny says “The purest form of love, the warmest kind of love. . . the most exciting love is knowing that these feelings are not mine for another but mine for me.  I am just beginning to see how scary it is to live first for myself.”  Boy he got that right.

I have a friend that told me that my challenge now is to stop trying to fix others and to focus on myself. As they spoke I felt the storms of fear and panic rise and swirl within me because I know they wouldn’t say such a thing if it weren’t true, but I don’t know how to do it and the thought scares me. I am constantly trying to deconstruct myself and I have mistakenly thought that this was taking care of me. Perhaps instead of taking myself apart, it’s time to start putting myself back together.  In a poem called “Mothering Myself” there is a line that says “I’m learning that fulfillment can’t be attained by giving myself away.  But through giving to myself and sharing with others.”

I am not sure that I know how to do that.

Open Up Your Heart

“Let us endeavor to live that when we come to die even the undertake will be sorry”  (Mark Twain); what a poignant quote.  Let us live in such a meaningful way that a man who must become calloused to the emotional grief of death will be awakened from that mechanical slumber upon our own.   Who doesn’t want that?  I’m not referring to the attention of a large and grand funeral ceremony, but to have lived a purposeful and meaningful life, to have lived so profoundly that little pieces of us have been shared and dispersed and carry on the good that can truly be the core of our nature.

In Riding the Dragon,  author Robert Wicks says ” Too often in an effort to be a better person, we only wind up trying to be another person.”  How many of us are conscious of this when it happens?  I suspect that most often we are embarrassed and ashamed, we deny that it is what we’ve done, if we know at all.  But what would it mean if we knew it at the time and we did it any way?  Would it make us an obsessive stalker?  A fraud or just insane?  Is it something sinful or just kind of sad and pathetic all the same?  I can’t quite comprehend why my accomplished life was simply not enough for me, why I could only see the things I didn’t have.  Until recently I have been so fixated on all the hurt and pain that’s been done to me that I began to emulate the wrong things in this world.  While my heart was kind and always wanted to do right, I’ve been stuck in this false trance, going through these motions that perpetuate my pain.  I saw a person whom I admired greatly for the person that they are, for the way they raised their kids, and how they’ve built their home.  For how their home felt safe and warm and I wanted it . . . because it all seemed so perfectly, well normal.  And rather than creating those things for myself I simply fixated on feeling like someone else.  In hindsight I realize that it makes for a great horror movie, a person becoming obsessed with another being.  How is it that I’ve become that tragic villain that scares and victimizes a person they so admire?  An involuntary spasm just shuddered through my spine as I reflect on how warped and disturbed that sounds and I deeply exhale a breathe that begins in the sternum of my soul.  I feel such shame and remorse.

But, yet I know that I am not alone, that over the course of history others have erred this way.    In Eat Pray L0ve, Elizabeth Gilbert paraphrases the Bhagavad Gita: “It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody’ else’s life with perfection.”  Ohh . . . yeah . . . right.  I guess I missed that line.

Robert Wicks says it quite well, ” awareness is not possible if our hearts are filled with preoccupation, with the desire to control, or with worry about our image.  The beauty of nature and the simple gifts each day brings will go unnoticed of our minds are elsewhere.”

It is just finally time that I get life right.  I am tired and I am weary and I can not live this way.

But where does forgiveness and redemption start?

Once while eating Thai Pad noodles  with a Catholic priest, for I have the fortune of befriending one,  I began to gush.  And how he managed to remain kind and empathic as I blubbered and rambled on, a long oratory of all the things that have and are wrong and wounding me, he began to tell me about the apostle of Saint Paul, perhaps one of the most influential of them all.  The most educated of the disciples of Christ he had a sordid past as a fanatical zealot of the Jewish law.  He participated in murders, imprisoned Gentiles who followed Christian ways, with a fiery temper he left destruction in his path.  Then one day, on the road to Damascus, he met the risen Christ and as Joseph Callewaert explains  in The World of Saint Paul “just as an earthquake can change the course of a river or a stream, so too the apparition of the Risen Savior completely changed the life of Paul of Tarsus.”

The scriptures read that for three days after his meeting with the Risen Christ, Paul could not see and he neither ate nor drank, and I imagine why.  Filled with grief and sorrow, remorse, and with shame, I’m sure that he was battling the demons within himself.

Then when Paul began anew, on the side of right, those who’d known him as Saul doubted and didn’t trust him.  They’d seen what he was capable of, the damage he had caused, they despised and questioned the sincerity and loyalty of his transformation.  God simply explained ” he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:13-16).

Redemption has its price.  So I am learning.  And others will learn this too.  Redemption has its price.

For those of you who find yourself in a position like mine, I offer one bit of parting advise, just remember this  “being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage ” (Lao Tzu)…so don’t hold back, open up your heart and let yourself feel love.

Light of Hope

The other night I lay weeping, drowning in despair, pleading to God for forgiveness. Sometimes the journey to redemption is a long and winding route.  It requires that we expose ourselves, fully to a select and trusted few.  Stripping away each layers of deceit until there’s nothing left.  Even though the process is cleansing and brings a chance to finally become free, it feels more like sinking into a black abyss of pain.  The current of the churning angst drags those you love down with you.  And forgiveness only comes to those who truly feel a sense of remorse and then commit themselves to changing their course, which brings about growing pains you’ve avoided all along.

It’s hard to accept the awareness when you are the source of hurt to others.  To watch those you love bleed from the wounds you have inflicted.  It brings a raw cruel ache to know that your once warm and comforting touch now burns and makes them recoil.  I had the chance to be a person who brought others peace and healing, but through self-indulgence fueled by my pain and fear I chose the path that now solicits  hatred and outrage.  This realization brings an indescribable, inescapable, all-consuming sense of grief.

In hindsight I see the path so clearly.  I know where I veered left when I should have ventured on the side of right.  I know where I could have rerouted my self, where I could have rested along this craggy, arduous path, regaining my footing and finding myself allowing me to make a choice that was fueled by thought and wisdom instead of panic, fear, and rage.  But what’s done is done, I can’t go back and make those choices now.  I can only try to learn from them and try to understand those parts of myself that I have avoided admitting that they even exist.

Self awareness shouldn’t have such a heavy price and I wonder if it is that way for others.

As I lay sinking in the swirling abyss around me, pondering these thoughts, the room  around me became  filled with light as the moon graced the windows that face the southern sky.  Although it wasn’t full, the white and bluish hue shone intensely in a strange and eerie way that some how brought me a sense of comfort and of peace.  The room glowed in the softened light and my skin began to tingle.  I felt the warmth of the light, like that of a sunny day and it traveled in, deep within my soul and in that moment I found my hope that some day this way of life I’ve always known will stop and I might know something different.