One of the questions I have been subliminally aware I've been chewing on lately is "What is valid?". I mean for me, personally. For instance, recently I was in a guitar store playing a few of the instruments there. And as I played them, a part of me noticed that there was no conflict within me at that moment… there was just the playing of the guitar, and the feeling of the joy of music as it flowed out. So I got from that sense of wholeness that it was 'valid' for me to be being that Being right then.
Later in the afternoon, I sat in my painting studio looking into my cactus & vegetable garden area, listening to the sounds of the birds and feeling the wind, and again, I felt a similar validness. I felt surrounded by a lovely blessed moment of inward peace. And I felt a deep gratitude for the moment, like it was a gift….
There have been other moments, plenty of them, that have been more like 'learning moments'… and I have sometimes learned easily, and sometimes not so easily…. (and fyi & btw, the reason I share them in writing is that there is also a clear sense that it is 'valid' to do so… because by so contributing…. perhaps from my sharing my miss-takes somewhere somehow an 'another myself reader' may avoid creating the same (or similar) experiences for themselves…)
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This week I was involved with servicing several pianos here locally in Yuma in preparation for a touring spiritual pianist's performances. Tuning pianos is not an everyday thing for me anymore, not since painting took center stage years ago, but it is a skill I appreciate having practiced professionally as an earlier career for many years, and so I still do it when requested. These tunings were in churches and a retirement home.
The retirement home visit was triggering…therefore, a bit of a difficult experience. To do it true justice I would need to dedicate the entirety of this weeks journal…so, I will necessarily incapsulate it. Contextual learning scenario: The piano was a very poor quality grand somewhat abused and mightily neglected with many problems. Thus, I quickly come to see I am supposed to be a miracle worker and somehow transform the instrument into something that is concert ready, but only be paid for 'tuning it'. Given the excitement being expressed by the management about the upcoming concert, I choose to go ahead, understanding this is 'service/Seva' and resolving to do what I can as peacefully as I am able. As I worked, I realized I had not spent much time in a retirement home for a couple of years…not since my father died, in fact. It was interesting to observe the homes residents, and to interact with a few of them. As I had experienced before, some were 'quite sharp', others weren't. Then, my big lesson arrived as I was nearing completion, which was also quite close to the evening meal time (and the piano was in the large hall where that happened). I was even warned by another resident… 'Don't pay any attention to her… she is a chronic complainer…'. And boy, was she. 'She' was upset by my simple existence, which was to her an affront to the way things were supposed to be. And she let me and everyone know that I have better be done really quick or she was going to raise hell. Other people tried to tell her that I was just trying to get the piano ready for a concert the next night etc, but she was unrelenting. AND, of all things, her assigned table was right next to the piano. Thus tested, the 'little boy that was wrong' in me that wants to please Everyone started sweating, and as I worked feverishly to finish, she sat there glaring at me and saying nasty things about me to whoever would listen. When I necessarily tested the piano by playing it a bit (thinking this might make her happier) she plugged her ears with her fingers and mouthed silent screaming, writhing-in-pain faces at me. Most people seem to love my piano playing, so that hooked me more. I found myself wanting to (at a minimum) tell her that she was just about the rudest woman I had ever met, she had so gotten to me. I didn't, thank God. I just got out of there, after receiving the profuse apologies of the management. And as I sat and breathed a bit in my car afterwards, I remembered 'everything is either an expression of Love, OR, a call for help…' (ACIM). The only real difference I could see between us at the moment was that I knew I was calling for help…. 1. to learn to have more compassion on a being who had arrived at the ending of her life having apparently learned so little about being gracious, and 2. to help me unravel the stuff of my trigger mechanism that was right then exposed--most probably something put in place early in life by some shaming incident involving my little boy and a female authority figure.
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Another learning came as I attended one of that pianist's concerts on Thursday night. I had met the him when tuning on Tuesday, and had discovered that he was an extraordinarily talented musician. I liked him, and thus inspired, I had even sent out an email to local friends encouraging them to come hear him. But sitting there in that Seventh Day Adventist church attending his concert, I found myself grateful that only one person had accepted my invitation… as instead of the kind of program I'd expected, what WAS was more like a fundamentalist revival, with the pastor praying several fervent but dualistically-based prays, and stand up hymn singing and Bible verse lookups and readings between each musical number. I was personally OK with all that… it's just that that was not what I had invited my friends to come to, and frankly, if I had realized that was what was up, I wouldn't have gone either. Because, in living in freedom, I am (and must peacefully be) willing to accept that what is valid for other people is not necessarily always valid for me….
It's not that the Bible is INVALID or anything. It's just that in my view it is invalidly understood by most people…I think because most 'believers' live inside a box of many unexamined beliefs and assumptions about Christianity… a box of perpetuated sacred cow blind spots that are 'religiously' (which means to me 'irrationally') protected from direct examination. That seems to be one of my soul karma's … to contribute to creating and sharing a win/win 'right understanding' of the Bible as a spiritual teaching (being that I was raised in a preachers family, with the clear expectation that I 'follow in my father's shoes')(which I am doing, only in the way that is 'valid' to me…being Rev. WYSIWYG). Inside that karma, a few days ago I was in a grocery store (and when in stores, I have trained myself to notice what people put in their baskets, as I see that as a consciousness clue indicator). When I noticed a probably multi-racial man with nothing but produce in his basket, I commented, "Hey, you know what's good for you, don't you?" To which he answered, "You bet, I watch it close these days…". And with that beginning, we struck up an interesting conversation that after a while led to my asking what he did, to which he answered, "Since I can't work, what I do is study the Bible". Normally, I do a sidestep at a point like that…. but the guy was pretty open, and a sweet affinity had built up, and so what I heard come up and what I spoke back was…"Hey, that's great… maybe you could teach me some about it?" To which he lit up and answered "That's my greatest joy". Once that deal was struck, I went onward by revealing my motives… letting him know I was a Sufi Cherag, and that I studied all religions etc…. So that I was not wishing to 'be converted'… I was just interested in learning the deeper wisdoms of the Bible. He was great about this, letting me know he respected every persons right to make up their own mind. So…. that moment felt 'valid' to me… like maybe I had just been led to my next perfect door-opener (in regards to the Bible). So, to be continued, right?…..
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As I mentioned at the beginning, there has been a questing inside me this last week or so about what is now valid for me. It's been kind of like, ok, what is the next part of my life going to be used for? How do I respond to the things I am seeing in the world…. And in the process of my being with myself as a mind/body/emotional matrix feeling all sorts of positive and negative emotions, I have found myself gratefully simplifying. Last week I said (basically) that I had come to see that the planet was in serious trouble. As a 'teacher of God' and a 'miracle worker', I was and am immensely stretched by this, as, though I am intelligent, the complexity and immensity of the planet's issues were weighing very heavily on my heart and I was being very saddened by what I was learning and seeing. Personally, it was like I had bitten off more than was really mine in a way, because it was quite difficult to feel my natural happiness. I saw I needed to let some of it go… to find a way of being that would allow my heart's joy to lead me into my personal destiny.
Thank God I began to get some sanity creating messages. I can't recount them… they just appeared in dreams and ah-ha moments, and then departed. The summation of them? That what I can do for life, for earth, for humanity WITH LOVE AND JOY, that is my valid path of service. Like creating music… it gives me joy, it give other's joy too (errr… usually). But the message from my Godness voice…. it was & is exactly the same as Richard Bach wrote in Illusions, the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah… that it is in the path of our own happiness that we will find the lessons that we came here to learn. One learning which is above all, to always remember that this life and everything in it (excepting Love) is… an illusion. This is why the Sufi repeat the zikar…. to remember that only God is real.
I pray to stay so simple. I pray too, that we will together heal each other and our earth as we are inspired and guided. I pray that in that, that Love will always be our guide.
My favorite message this week, which arrived via facebook: Worry is like praying for what you don't want. I got I had been doing exactly that. I have now once again stopped.
And today as a result, I lived a beautiful day again. This beauty of simply being…of seeing God by not worrying…by letting God guide…. that is what I would share with you.
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