Since my Uncle Paul passed, I’ve been on a sort of emotional roller coaster. A lot of things in my life have been weird. Some things have been unmanageable. I’ve allowed my emotions to do whatever they wanted to. My mourning process has been a hybrid of big laughs and tough realizations of where I now stand in my life journey. Death is like that. While I understand its place in life, we never know how loss will effect or affect us until it happens. For me, the last two deaths in my immediate family have been hard on my spirit. The good news is that I’m starting to feel a bit more like myself again. Complete with the need to fix my innards. More. Again. Still.
I’ve been through this before. I come to this place–it can be called a kind of purgatory–where I can’t move forward. I can’t move side to side. Certainly–moving backward is not an option. Essentially, I feel stuck. Nothing is “wrong” per say, but nothing is moving really. Progression seems to be stalling. Stuff happens–big stuff–but nothing seems to come of it. Or no momentum. No matter what I do. Like, come on! Or I feel like I’m not doing enough so I fill my plate with stuff to do, but I don’t feel satiated. I feel like nothing I’m doing is right. Sometimes I feel like I’m going in the exact wrong direction no matter what level of brilliance I’m up to. Sometimes I try something completely out of character. To get the ball rolling. To feel excited about what I’m up to, but I end up feeling like I’m trying to jump double dutch with two left feet and a limp. The best way to describe this feeling is “in wait”. It’s like I’m biding my time, and I know I am. But what else can I do? Sit on my couch watching stupid shows and my brain turn into a baked potato, whilst eating bon-bons as I wait for my life to make any amount of sense? I think not.
I was told that when this happens–this stalling–it means angels are preparing a way for me. I’m in a holding pattern because what I’m going for isn’t ready for me yet. I’m starting to believe maybe only part of this is true. I’m starting to believe the actuality is, I’M not ready for what I’m going for and until I do some necessary inner work, I’ll stay right here stuck until I do. By force or by foul.
A Course in Miracles. I bought the book maybe 8 years ago. One time I remember opening the book and looking at the Workbook for Students and cringing a little. I hadn’t read the introduction, so I hadn’t the foggiest idea what in the world I was reading. It seemed like a riddle and I don’t claim to be all that generous with my time when riddles cross my path. Plus, the book is huge. It looks like a dictionary or an encyclopedia volume. While I’ve been known to read a Harry Potter 700+ page book in a day, for whatever reason, daunting doesn’t even cover what the A Course in Miracles book feels like in hand. Drudgery? Close. Plus, all the texts combined, to complete the students and the teachers bit takes a year each. Pffff.
Meanwhile, fast forward some to now. Well, last night. I found myself out in front of my house for maybe 2-3 hours reading through the introduction. Mesmerized by the text and beginning to get an understanding of the riddle I wasn’t ready for 8 years ago. Granted, I wasn’t reading the substantial hard cover I bought 8 years back. That book is packed away in a box somewhere in storage. I can only imagine how I looked crouching in the drivers seat of my car reading through the e-book version on my Kindle for iPhone.
I suppose the strangest part of my revisit to A Course in Miracles is how similarly this same scenario has happened with other books that have crossed my path. The Celestine Prophesy. I may have bought the first book maybe three or four times prior to actually reading it and every one of its sequels in a weekend– maybe 4 years ago. The Four Agreements–although I think I read that one within a reasonable time frame. The Alchemist. A New Earth. The Power of Now. There are more. Something in me is attracted to these books (or was years ago) but couldn’t get through them. Couldn’t relate. I simply wasn’t ready for the riddle. I bought them, thumbed through them and they ended up in storage out of my immediate reach. Years later, in times like these, feeling stuck in some semblance of purgatory, I yearn for them and suddenly, I’m open, ready and willing to take that leap into the words that have been calling me for longer than I’m willing to admit sometimes. So I buy them again. But THIS time I read them. Pffff.
What is it about these books that is so attractive to me on the surface, but won’t let me devour them when the urge first hits? What is it about me now that must revisit them, that craves them, that needs the teachings they present?
I don’t know the answer to those questions. I do know that as far as I may want to get away from maintaining a consistent spiritual practice. As much as I may want to believe that I chart my own course and guidance is a state of mind. As much as I may want to believe that I have most of the answers and that there is something outward that will fill in the gaps I feel sporadically…
I have an end game. For as long as I can remember, there has been an underlying mission that is indelibly present in everything I do. I know what it is. I often see it hanging brightly in some far off part of my life sky. Meanwhile, I feel like there’s a sense of urgency that I may not be ready for. I don’t want to be that now. That’s supposed to be my end game. Or is it?
Callings are complicated. Just how Buffy the Vampire Slayer had no interest in slaying vampires because she really just wanted to be like everybody else. She wanted to be normal. She would have rather eaten glass than slay a vampire–even though she was the only one called to do it. Meanwhile, she did it anyway. Mostly after she ran from it and a vampire threatened either her person or someone else’s. Did she like to do it? Hell no. Did she have to do it? Always reluctantly. Her want of normalcy was calling. What she wanted didn’t really matter to who she was.
Most of us who are called to do something have a persistent inner battle about what we want and who we are. I feel that way often. I’m also beginning to believe, it’s not really up to me. I’m starting to get this lingering feeling that the reason I find my way to these purgatory-like gaps in my life is because there is something I’m supposed to do and I do what I want instead. My inner conflict happens between sitting in meditation or studying the information I’m drawn to and taking serious steps toward who I’m designed to be versus doing anything else at the time instead. Normalcy is calling. Meanwhile, no matter where I run, there’s a vampire to be slain and I would rather eat glass than worry my life about some damned vampire that’s none of my business. The universe has an interesting way of putting stuff I don’t want to do in my face, however. It comes in a stuck-still-can’t-do-anything-but-what-I’m-supposed-to-do- spiritual-equivalent-of-a-kick-in-the-neck. Pfffffffffffffffffffffff.
While these books keep coming into my life. The direction all of them point is IN. They all are telling me essentially the same things. When I feel this purgatory it’s because I created it. When I feel like a poet without words. When I’m waiting for angels to move out of my way so I can get to where I’m going. When I feel like Buffy the Vampire Slayer running from Vampires I was actually born to slay… The only way out of it is IN. There’s something I’m supposed to know. I can’t learn it in college. Apparently, right now, all the things that I actually want to do are connecting to the things I don’t want to do. Apparently, finding my way to a consistent spiritual practice is a part of that. I don’t know why. Right now, I’m so tired of feeling stuck, I’m almost desperate. Fine, I say in my head. I’ll sit for 20 minutes twice a day. Fine, I’ll take this course. Fine.
This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at any given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
T-in-2. This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
So here we are. I’m taking the course. I took my sweet ole time getting to it. Wish me luck. I’ll keep you posted. *Ninja Pose*
The moral of this story? Who knows. Just some food for thought. Thank you for reading this though. Peace and abundant “required course” blessings. Love, -e-