Auntie Em's Spirit Talk Blog

My Personal Statement of Faith

What God is, I cannot say.
What I am, I’m only beginning to understand.
What I believe changes from day to day,
sometimes moment by moment as I learn and grow.
The truths I stand on are like small immovable stones,
scattered randomly across the breadth and length of a great unfathomable river.
It’s course cannot be charted; it’s depths cannot be known.
It flows from eternity to eternity, wandering where it will.
If the river is God, then the rocks are faith, little islands of solidity amid the raging currents.
If the river is the Tao, then the rocks are God, emerging from chaos, providing safe passage, 
one step at a time through life’s journey.

Beliefs are changeful. Faith is absolute.
Beliefs are of the mind. Faith is of the heart, intuition, the soul.
Like a child first learning to speak, I hear the sounds of language, 
not knowing their meaning but sensing there is something to be understood.
Instinctively, I try to imitate the sounds, the rhythms, the expressions, 
before I comprehend their meaning.
I struggle toward God, Original Source, My Destiny.
Without understanding what or who God is, I know I am made to join with it.
It is my nature to do so.

Like an infant bonding with her parents, I cannot but trust that God is good.
That the love I feel sustaining me is real.
The God Of Many Names speaks in many ways.
Reaching toward us to teach us, and hold us, and guide us.
It is God’s nature to do so.
Life is an invitation to dance with Great Mystery.
God is Great Mystery, and so are we.

By: Ember Baker

Message from a Friend: Katie's Second Sermon

Katie Hotze at Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis

I want to refer you to a video of a sermon by a young friend of mine, Miss Katie Hotze. Katie is a student minister, and in this video, she delivers her second sermon at Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis. The above link will take you there.

What Katie has to say in this sermon struck a powerful chord with me. She talks about Christ being risen from the dead though he still bore the wounds of his crusifixion. She goes on to explore the mystery of our individual woundedness and resurrection, and how by sharing our story, others can be healed by our wounds as we are healed by the wounds of Jesus.

I have been wallowing in my wounds for a while. Been stuck in them. My health problems, weight, diabetes, arthritis, and on top of all that, I fell several weeks ago on a spilled drink in a local restaurant, and injured my knee. It is not healing, and is causing me severe pain and even more restriction in mobility than usual. I have taken to walking with a cane as a result. In all of this, I am looking at myself as a spiritual teacher and healer, and am left silent. I see the irony, the apparent contradiction, and have no explanation. My weight is completely out of control, and I have been unsuccessful at all attempts to address it. I can barely walk, and yet, I presume that I can help others along their spiritual path. I teach others to pray and meditate, and yet I personally find it almost impossible to feel any connection to Spirit, or to find comfort or guidance in prayer of late.

Katie's message hit home for me at two levels. First the message of her words – that healing or resurrection do not necessarily erase our wounds, and that our wounds can be a part of the story we are meant to share with others. This validates and gives me hope. Secondly, Katie is one of my spiritual babies. She was the youngest member of our prayer group a few years back, one of the ones I taught and guided. As she delivered this sermon, she wore a white shawl around her neck as a minister's stole. That shawl was given to her by our dear mutual friend, Cyd, on a retreat for the prayer group a few years ago. It carries the message of being open to the Spirit's guidance and healing presence, and the memory of that powerful retreat experience. Her wearing it in this way, sent a message to me, as I'm sure it did the others who participated in that retreat. She has made that experience a part of her. She has taken the lessons in, made them her own, and is now sharing them in a uniquely personal way with others. I feel like a proud parent when I see Katie preach, though I certainly had little to do with her being who she is. And the fact that she wore the shawl, that she holds the experiences we shared, confirms for me that despite my own woundedness, my work has made a difference, and has value.

Listen to Katie's sermon and see if has something to say to you.

Talking Stick

I went to a local drum circle Friday night. It's one I used to attend often, but energies and priorities shifted and I got busy doing other things. So I have not been back there for a couple years. The leader of the group was one of my first shamanism teachers, and I have been wanting to reconnect with him. Also, I was looking for soul feeding and for inspiration. It was a pleasant experience – relaxing, enjoyable. We met outdoors and had a campfire. John brought sage, and we did a little ritual prayer, throwing the sage into the fire. The aroma filled the air. The weather was perfect. It was nice, but I can't honestly say that it fed or inspired me.

I seem to be in one of those empty spaces between what was and what is to come. Spiritually and emotionally, I feel blunted. I continue to teach others how to pray and how to do energy work, but my perceptiveness and enthusiasm are somewhat dull at this point to tell the truth. I feel like I am running on three cylinders instead of the usual six. Oddly, my car feels the same way. It's running rough and loosing power on the highway. Hmm . .  Never connected that before. I do find that when awareness is trying to break through into consciousness, mirrors often show up in our physical reality to help point our gaze at the thing we are trying to learn or need to pay attention to. When we are drowning in work, for example, our basement may flood.

One thing that did speak to me about the drum circle, if you'll pardon the pun, was the talking stick segment. For those who are unfamiliar with the tradition, Native Americans traditionally use a talking stick at group discussions. The stick is passed around the circle, so each person gets a chance to speak their mind. The person who has the stick talks. They can say anything they want, they can talk as long as they want, and everyone else has to just listen. As the talking stick was being passed what struck me was not what the individuals were saying. No one had any great revelations or timeless wisdom to speak of. The way the process slowed us all down, and how it honored everyone's need to be heard, were what impressed me. We humans do need to be heard whether or not we have anything important to say at a given moment. We have an innate need to sit around in a circle, and be heard by fellow humans, and too often in our modern world, no one has time to do that.

Perhaps blogging is the last resort for the human spirit, a globalized version of this basic human instinct to gather in small circles and hear and be heard by one's fellow travelers. A kind of modern reflection of the Canterbury tales. We are all on our pilgrimage through life, and we each have a story to tell. I know that in my life of late I have become acutely aware that this experience of  talking, conversing about ordinary everyday things has been absent. I live alone, and my physical health issues have curtailed my ability to get out and do a lot of the things I used to do. My family and close friends have moved farther away, and we just don't hang out like we used to. I get along okay. I have a high tolerance for solitude, in fact I need a lot of solitude, but no one can be creative in a vacuum, so it takes effort to write sometimes. I don't often feel loneliness, but I have been lately.

I had lunch with my favorite professor from college last week. We lost touch a few years after I left my job at Webster University. We made brief contact a few months ago at an event at the college. She was being honored with the establishment of a scholarship fund in her name. It was a busy day for her, and though I handed her my card, and we talked about catching up, it didn't happen until last week. It felt good, to talk with her. The cold hard edge of her otherness was grounding, and familiar. It felt like I was reattaching a piece of myself that I had laid aside for many years. Almost like a soul retrieval. Her intellect, her humor, and her strong, blunt personality were all welcome stimulation.

It has me thinking about my recent vow to try to reconnect with people who have been important to me over the years. That coupled with this odd emptiness I am feeling is somewhat familiar. There is a sense of gathering and reclaiming past connections with others and aspects of myself. A sense of tying up loose ends in preparation for . . . well, I'm not sure what. A new phase, and ending of the current phase? Feels a little like reviewing for final exams in college.

What possible relevance could any of this have for any of you? I don't know, but I often find that one one person is experiencing, others usually are too. Does it mean anything? You tell me. But it is the truth of where I am and what I'm experiencing at this moment, and honesty is important. If I only shared the up times, the profound moments, the inspiring experiences, that wouldn't be honest, would it? So here it all is, the good, the bad, and the mundane.

 

Finding a Moral Stance in a Very Messy World

On a retreat a few years ago, Jane Maxfield, the facilitator talked about how we all have two sets of lists in our heads. We got them from Mom, church, Sunday school, etc. and they are labeled “Morals,” One list has all the rights and the other all the wrongs. The point of these two lists is first, to keep us from thinking too much, secondly, to keep us from getting into or causing too much trouble, and third, in due time, to get us to heaven.

But in reality, moral choices are rarely simple or clear cut. People are complex and our choices, if they are to be truly moral ones, need to be complex as well. Basically, the lists -- both of them -- are a lie. We are living organisms interconnected with a lot of other complex living organisms and systems of organisms. Finding absolutes -- either “rights” or “wrongs” in that soup of interconnected and interdependent choices, is not really possible.

A few years ago, I went to see the play, Little Shop of Horrors, with my family. My seven and six year old great niece and nephew sat next to me, and my twenty-something year old niece sat next to them. The play challenged them all in different ways. The children, enjoyed the singing and dancing and the color and puppet plants, but I could tell that their sense of morality was being challenged, not only by the content of the play, but by the reaction of the audience to that content. Laughter and glee juxtaposed against murder and dismemberment, rattled them a little.

Several times, each of the children needed reassurance that this was just make believe, that the actors were all really okay, that it was okay to be enjoying ourselves together in the face of all this wickedness. My niece, who is mother to one of the children, was caught between the hilarity of the play, and it’s somewhat “adult” moments. She was uncomfortable with the moral messiness of it, and the questioning of those two lists in her own head, but especially in the children’s heads. As we left, she commented what a good play it was and how much she enjoyed it, but expressed the fear that it’s not really a “kids’ play.” I knew instinctively that she was wrong, and I assured her that the kids were fine, but it was an inarticulate moment for me. I wasn’t sure how I knew it was okay.

People are Messy. Relationships are messy. Life is messy. The lists are a lie. Morality is not a predefined set of absolutes. It is a process of looking at the situation in all its complexity, looking at the available choices, and weighing the likely results of those choices against your needs and desires and the needs and desires of the other people who will be affected. It’s often a nebulous and scary place. Allowing the children to see that reality, to feel it in their physiology, in a safe place with people whom they trust, is a good thing. It is not completely comfortable, but it provides some precious teachable moments.

Truth be told, I think we all still have within us the children we were, children much like my young great niece and nephew, who are trying to understand and learn to navigate a complicated moral world with an inadequate and obsolete moral map of absolutes. It is often necessary to step in and parent ourselves through the formation of a new, more complex moral code rather than relying on that old list of dos and don’ts. This is where the stories of Jesus’ life and interactions with other people offers us a wealth of guidance. If you actually cut through all the theological dogma that has piled up around Jesus, his life and his words, and take a fresh look, you will see that he wasn’t much impressed with lists of dos and don’ts. He related to people and situations, not based on the law, but on the assumption that everyone had value. His sense of morals and values were starkly different from many religious people of his day. He was a messy man surrounded by messy people with all sorts of messiness in their lives. He offers a great example of someone who was guided by some inner compass rather than by a stagnant list of rights and wrongs.

It’s easier to judge people based on those two lists we have in our heads than it is to love them in all their complexity. It’s safer to build walls around our lives to shut out those whose behavior or perspectives don’t align with our inner lists, than to let their messiness contaminate our space. It feels more secure to judge ourselves based on those same lists, restricting our choices, abdicating our responsibility as adults in the complicated arena of human morality than it is to step into that fray. But if we do that, failing to parent ourselves through the complex moral issues of life, we remain spiritual children. We misjudge others and ourselves. We lead a life of separation and denial rather than engaging life fully. We lose many opportunities to love and to grow in wisdom. We nurture within ourselves a theology based on fear of separation, rejection, and condemnation, rather than one based on love and unity.

Surprised by Grace: Partners in Healing

NOTE: This article was originally published a few years ago in LifeLink, a publication of Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis. I am republishing it here because it is still relavant since so many poeple in our society are recovering from childhood sexual abuse, and it speaks of healing and the grace of God. I hope you enjoy it.

Surprised by Grace: Partners in Healing

I was sexually abused as a child by multiple male members of my family. Like many survivors, for years I minimized, and/or repressed the experience. I never told anyone till I was a young adult, and then, only one person--my best friend. After years of silently struggling with my feelings of inadequacy, shame, and isolation, I began the long process of coming out as a survivor and healing the damage through education, therapy, and reclaiming the lost pieces of my life.

Finally, when I had slain all the dragons in my memory and stopped defining myself as a person by what was done to me by others, I discovered something new about myself. I was a lesbian. As I began to meet other gay people, my perspective shifted. I felt the need to compare notes with other lesbians who were also survivors, so after determining that there were no existing therapy or support groups for lesbian or gay survivors, a male friend of mine and I decided to start one.

Remember, I started the group so that I could talk with other lesbians who were survivors, but almost all the people who came to our group were men. Since I was the facilitator, I found myself week after week, using my experience and knowledge as a survivor, as well as my feminine sensitivity, to help a group of men find healing. Needless to say, I had some issues with men as a result of my abuse. Until that point, I had seen sexual abuse as a women’s issue. But now I was being challenged to let go of the "answers" I had found comfort in for so long, and look with my male counterparts for a deeper level of truth, for the common human experience we shared.

If you have ever facilitated any kind of group, you know that the facilitator doesn’t get the same things out of the experience as the participants do. The facilitator’s job is to keep focus on the needs of the members, and pretty much off herself. I certainly didn’t get what I was looking for from the group, but I got something much more important. I got what I needed--a depth of healing around my issues with men, that I never would have believed possible or even desirable before. As I focused my energies on holding a safe space for them, and guiding them past the misconceptions, shame and self-doubt that all survivors deal with, I was connecting deeply with their humanity, and together, we were able to discover how much we had in common.

It was a remarkable experience in many ways. I am a better person for having done it. I am more whole because these courageous men allowed me to know them and minister to them. And my bond with them has been the ointment that helped me release and heal my resentment and anger toward men in general.

When I was a child, I had wonderful friendships with boys. I never had any girl friends; girls scared me. But boys, I got. I enjoyed their company. We had long conversations, long comfortable silences lying in the grass looking at the clouds, wonderful adventures. Puberty changed all that. After the awkwardness of puberty, there were the years of avoiding any situation or relationship with a man that might, a) remind me of the incest I had repressed, or b) force the sexual orientation issue.

After coming out as a lesbian, and especially after the paradigm shift I experienced as a result of facilitating a mostly male survivor’s group, I got my ability to be friends with men back. I love men. I love their energy and their perspectives. I didn’t realize how much I had missed having a feeling of connection with the male half of humanity until I got it back unexpectedly, through grace. I thought I needed to talk with other lesbians but in fact it was much more helpful and healing for me to be forced to sit there week after week in a room full of wounded men, while I held the space safe for them. It was a sacred trust. I couldn’t help but love them, comfort them, and do my best to empower them to heal, and in the process I received a powerful healing myself. One I certainly would have missed if God had given me what I asked for instead of what I needed.

Shootout on Oklahoma Highway: When Headlines Turn Personal

I got some disturbing news last night. A young friend of mine, a former foster child of my sister’s, ran away, stole a car, and was in a shootout with the police. The boy is chronologically 15, but emotionally and psychologically is much younger. I can’t imagine what he was thinking. My sister and I watched a news report on the web regarding the incident, and the reporters kept referring to him as a “man.” I keep seeing him in my mind at age 11 or 12 wearing his silly green rubber monster hair on Halloween. I know that it’s true, but just can’t reconcile in my head and heart this boy with the sad but beautiful black eyes, wearing his green rubber hair, and the image of the young man sitting in a wrecked car firing at state troopers, and becoming their target as they pumped six rounds through the windshield. He was hit in the hand by one of the troopers’ bullets, and is currently recovering in the hospital. I can only assume that a squadron of angels must have been on duty on that Oklahoma freeway protecting everyone from serious bodily harm. And for that, I am truly grateful.

Still the possibilities that lie ahead for this young man, and the gravity of his foolish and reckless actions, are just incomprehensible. He has traveled such a difficult path already, having been taken away from his mother and her abusive mates more than once, separated from his two younger siblings, having been denied for most of his childhood the stability, love and guidance all children need and deserve, and now this very dark turn in his life. There are those of us who have reached out to him and tried to help, but he needed so much that he never got for so long, we and he hasn’t had time to catch up, to fill up that reservoir of need.

Now he may never have that opportunity. If the court tries him as an adult, and he goes to an adult prison, this beautiful boy will be gone. The man that will emerge when his sentence is done will not be the man he could have and should have become. He will be lost and relegated to a life of crime and a likely death by violence. If the prosecutors have the grace and wisdom to see what a child he still is despite his size and the severity of his crimes, perhaps he will get another chance. Or perhaps the inevitable will just have been postponed. There are no guarantees that no matter how many chances he gets, he will ever truly recover from what life has done and has failed to do for him.

Faced with realities like this one, what possible response can those of us who love this child offer? What aspect of this problem should we target? The immature, irresponsible, addicted mother? Her abusive man? The boy’s absent father, or the system that took him out then returned him to his parents time and again? The foster system that failed to protect him or provide adequate therapy and support for him and his foster parents? The foster parents or his grandmother who were -- perhaps foolishly -- hopeful that they could make a difference in his life? Shall we go back even farther and ask what caused the mother to be so disempowered and unable or unwilling to provide for and protect her children? Shall we bring in the issues of race and history since the boy is half Native American? Or do we simply shrug our shoulders as a society and blame the kid driving a stolen car down the wrong side of the street and shooting at police officers. I don’t know how to address the confluence of societal problems that caused the green haired 11 year old to become a 15 year old who steals cars and shoots at cops. But I do know one thing. This boy was and is worth saving.

I hold him and his grandmother, and his family in my heart and lift them toward heaven, holding open, with all the power of my being, the possibility of mercy and grace coming in to transform this horrible situation into an awakening for all involved. And I especially hold open the possibility that this dear but troubled boy be miraculously turned through this experience toward a lighter and more life-affirming path. That his chances have not run out due to one terrible action taken in a moment of desperate teenage despair.

Here is a link to the video report on the incident from the local TV station.

http://www>koco.com/video/19054901

Prayer and Meditation: What, Why, How?

                                          

As I’ve mentioned before, I am currently working on a book. The working title is Prayer 101. It provides a series of exercises that introduce the reader to an eclectic array of prayer forms in an attempt to enrich their spiritual life and their relationship with the Divine. It is my intention to offer from time to time, some of the material in the book here on this site. When I learn how to do so, and can access the proper equipment, I hope to include guided meditations, background music, and visuals to enrich your experience on the site, but in the mean time, we can discuss and learn a few things about prayer using the written word.

What Is Prayer?
Most people in our culture tend to define prayer as “talking to God.” For me, that definition is inadequate. Prayer is much more than that. It is communing with the Divine, whether speaking, listening, just being present, or doing. The focus of the attention and our intention are what constitute prayer. One can pray by baking bread, gardening, by meditating with an empty mind and heart, or by conversing with God or with others about spiritual things -- a form of prayer I like to call, “sacred conversation.” So my definition of prayer is very broad, and is constantly evolving.

Why Pray?
In our hectic world, times of quiet and solitude are increasingly rare and immensely valuable. Spending a portion of our “downtime” in prayer or meditation allows us not only to connect with God, but with ourselves at a deep level, and attunes us as whole beings to that which sustains us emotionally, physically, and psychologically as well as spiritually. It is easy for us to get off track and out of balance as we travel from day to day in our busy lives. We lose sight of some of the things that are important to us individually, and as a species. We lose track of our sense of connection and purpose, our awareness of who and what we are beyond the demands of family, friends, work, and ego. Prayer allows us time and space to reconnect and refocus. It allows us to remember who we really are as beings, and it allows us to recharge our batteries by helping us plug in to the source that sustains us.

Beyond all that, prayer makes a difference. It has the power to change circumstances, and perhaps more importantly, it has the power to change us -- our perceptions, feelings, expectations and attitudes in amazing ways. Whether our prayers take the form of supplication, affirmations, adoration, ritual, or chants, really does not matter. Where faith and trust join with attention and intention, prayer has power.

What’s the Difference Between Prayer and Meditation?
Technically, I suppose it is possible to meditate without it being prayerful. And it is certainly possible to rattle off some cursory words of prayer without it being meditative, but in reality, for the spiritual seeker, any line between the two is fairly irrelevant. Generally I see the two as having a slightly different color, but the same substance. I tend to use the two words interchangeably depending on the situation and the audience. Some people tend to think of the Divine as being external, someone or something exiting primarily outside ourselves. These people tend to call it prayer, and to use supplicatory language. Others primarily focus their attention inward to find the Divine within themselves or to find their connection to the Divine within their own consciousness. These people tend to use meditation or contemplation.

How Do I Pray?
Many religious groups have a lot of rules about how to pray. To whom specifically you address your prayer, what words must accompany your prayer, what you may ask for or what you are forbidden to say.  That’s all a lot of hooey in my opinion. There is virtually no wrong way to pray. I am not saying that all the rules of all the religions are worthless. Some are logical, and may help guard against foolishness when taken within the context of the whole faith tradition. For example, in the Jewish tradition there is a rule that you can’t pray for God to change something that has already happened.  This is logical if time is linear. It also makes sense at a metaphysical level not to struggle against what is. It guards against simplistic, selfish and magical thinking when taken within the whole Jewish tradition. But the new physics as well as ancient traditions such as shamanism teach us that time is not linear. And the rule, or the breaking of it, does not make it a good or bad prayer. Bottom line: there is no wrong way to pray. If you reach out to the Divine, by any name or through any method, the Divine will reach back.

                                

Inner Resistance and Recreating the Self

                                   

Interestingly, as a sidebar 

• In physics, ohms are the measure of resistance to electrical current.

• In Buddhism, ohm symbolizes the merging of the divine feminine and the divine masculine, that which created and creates all things. Chanted, ohm is said to be the sound of creation.

In my last post I talked about trusting the current of events and people that influence us and direct us as we move through our days. I would be less than honest if I did not speak about the flip side of that concept. For all my experience of providence and learning to trust the flow of circumstance, I must say that there are still points of resistance in me. I do find myself wanting to cling, afraid or otherwise resistant to let go of habitual ways of being and seeing.  In my spiritual life, my finances, and my emotional life, as far as I can tell from my current perspective, I am pretty trusting. But where it comes to my daily physical life, my living situation, my eating habits, my daily activities, my social life, I have a lot of sticking points to put it mildly.

I sometimes find myself in direct opposition to myself, part of me working hard toward a goal, and an inner part working just as hard against the changes necessary to accomplish that goal. It’s a kind of inertia that seems almost to have a personality and a will. It’s been some time since I had a face to face encounter with my resistances, but a number of things in the past few weeks are bringing it to the fore. This writer’s journey, for example, is challenging me. I have wished for an outlet for my spiritual writing for a few years, but the reality of facing a blank page on this blog everyday, or even once a week and reaching down into my being for something that might be of interest and benefit to others, that kind of self encounter, is taxing sometimes. I’d rather play games on Pogo than churn through my gut for abiding truths.

The book I’m writing is also bringing up resistances. It goes against my instincts and my whole personality to promote myself. I see myself as a fellow traveler, not an expert or a leader. Yet in order to find an agent and eventually a publisher, and then to promote my book so that people actually know it’s out there and perhaps pick it up to read it, I will have to become very active in promoting the book as a product and myself as an expert. Even using the word expert in relation to my name makes me uncomfortable. I feel like a fraud. At the same time, I know that I have knowledge and experience that can benefit others, and I do want to share. I do have the ability to teach and to write which many knowledgeable people lack. This is what I am meant to do with my life. It is integral to my personality and to my life’s journey. It’s not that I think I can’t do what’s necessary to get the message out there. I know that I have all the innate skills necessary. It is just that I am not used to operating that way. I am used to having a lot of downtime and a lot of privacy.

Had a conversation yesterday with a good friend. She was mentioning her and her partner’s recent change in diet. They are doing a low carb, modified Atkins type diet, and she was telling me how much better she feels. She looks great, has lost almost all her extra weight, and has lots of energy. She was gently trying to encourage me to try a lower carb diet.   Between us, there is no sense of judgment, I knew she was coming from a place of love and concern as well as knowledge. She happens to be a registered nurse. I didn't mind talking about my weight and I didn't mind her nudging me toward health. I am a diabetic and have a very serious weight problem. I have had new health issues arise over the past year and have had others worsen due to the combination of diabetes, insulin resistance and obesity. As a healer, I have encountered a number of people who ask for healing, but really don’t want or expect to be healed. Their illness gives them their identity at some level, so they resist any changes toward health. I don’t think mine is that kind of resistance. I want to be healthy, mobile, pain free, and to have more energy.  In my mind I can see myself living and feeling much healthier. In my spirit, I am that slimmer, more active, healthier person. I hate being this heavy; I really do want that to change. But I have to say there is resistance to making the changes needed. A split will within me. And I am not sure why the other part of me resists, or if there is a reason to it.

Sometimes, when I move in a new direction, or take on a new project, I know I am on the right track because things fall together effortlessly. Ideas flow rapidly. Creative energy abounds. I navigate the obstacles quickly and smoothly. I know the universe is with me, all is moving to create this new thing I am working toward. At other times I know I am on the right track because I come face to face with my deepest resistances and fears, my "shadow self" as it is referred to in shamanism. Encountering that self, and finding a way to incorporate it into one's identity, and use it productively is part of what gives a shaman his/her power. This kind of self-knowledge and self-acceptance also increases our psychological health and allows us to live with more integrity and openness.

If you are at a point of wrestling with your resistance, I would very much like to hear from you. Please make a comment and share your experience with working through your resistances and fears, and any insights you have gained in the process.

                                        

Trusting the Current that Carries Us

Got a call today from a long absent friend, one who introduced me to alternative healing, Reiki, energy work, and led me to a few of my key teachers.  Odd how life has a way of ringing our bell when we need to wake up. I’ve been thinking about my circle of acquaintances over the past ten years, and feeling led to maybe try and get back in touch with many of them. But frankly, I’m not very socially inclined, and I’ve been keeping myself pretty busy between editing my book, starting my blog, and a few other things that have moved up on my priorities list in the past two months.  I may or may not have made the effort, but after this call from my old friend, and a call out of the blue from my closest current friend, confirming what I was feeling, I will make a concentrated effort to continue to reconnect and rekindle beneficial relationships from my past. Where it wants to lead me, remains to be seen, but when the Spirit calls to me like that out of the blue in unexpected ways, I try to trust and follow. I don’t think it’s ever led me astray, though it has often led me where I had not planned or expected to go.

There is a wonderful book by Richard Bach called, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. In the first few pages of that book is a kind of parable about a race of creatures living at the bottom of the river. They cling to the rocks and plants for dear life. But one of these creatures one day decides to let go and trust the current.  I won’t tell you the rest of the story because I want you to read it for yourself in Bach’s words. The reason I bring it up right now is that I believe the current knows where it’s going, and it can be trusted. Even when the places it carries us seem bad or difficult, or if we feel alone, or the path we’re moving along seems illogical and erratic, the current can be trusted. And a key part of learning to navigate is learning to trust ourselves as well. We were really designed for this work of riding and living in the current of the river of life. It is here, in this flow, as violent as it can be, and as deep and still, that we learn what we came here to learn, create what we were designed to create.

It seems crazy. It makes no sense. There’s no solid ground to stand on; everything is constantly changing.  Still, my faith and my experience tell me that there is order underlying the chaos, and that we are not just living in the river, we are a part of it, and it of us. I do not know if God is a He, She, It, They or We. I do not know if the word, God, really fits. Perhaps Great Mystery is a better term, or Chi, or Life Force, or Universe. I do know that it is not my enemy. I do not know if it loves me as we humans love, or better or worse. I do know that it is a part of me and I of it, and I cannot help but trust it as I trust my own heart, or eyes, or feet.

It is popular to say, “There is a reason for everything that happens,” or “God has a purpose for our lives.” I hold onto the hope that this is true, but I cannot prove to you or even to myself that there is any reason or purpose beyond the adventure, the blessing and the challenge of living in the current right here and now. Perhaps that is reason enough. Perhaps this moment, this experience is enough. So many religious people and even spiritual people who claim not to be religious, focus so much energy on the hereafter. Whether they are talking about heaven, or an ascended Earth, or some other utopian vision, they are all about the not yet.  Perhaps now is all we have. Even so, isn’t it worth it all? Isn’t it an adventure worth having? Need there be a reward at the end? Isn’t the ride in the current enough?

            

Can we Move Beyond the Rhetoric on Stem Cell and Abortion Issues?

I saw on the news yesterday, that President Obama signed a bill that reverses the Bush policy on stem cell research and allows government funds, (read tax dollars) to fund that research. I usually avoid the political fray as much as possible. I am just not a political animal. It’s not that I don’t care about policy and the political environment in the country or the world, it’s just that trying to swim in that current saps my energy and hope faster than anything else I know. For my own mental and emotional well being, I don’t get heavily into it. Also, in recent decades especially, the rhetoric on both sides of almost every issue is so polarizing, so designed for the 15-second sound bite, that honest and thoughtful discussion is almost impossible. Stem cell research and abortion are certainly two issues about which there is a lot of talk, but not much listening. I am a democrat, a feminist, and a liberal, and I voted for President Obama, not just because he was the Democratic candidate, but because he indicated time and again that he wants to move the political tenor of the country away from mindless and inflammatory rhetoric and toward a real and enlightening exchange of ideas. We have yet to see if that is possible, and if President Obama is able to make good on his promise.

                          

In the mean time, I thought I’d give it a try in my own little framework here on the net. I wonder if it is possible for a group of intelligent individuals to honestly and rationally discuss the issue of stem cell research, and its sister hot button issue, abortion. Let me start by saying that I believe whole heartedly in scientific advancement for the betterment of mankind. And actually, as a diabetic, I am one individual who might eventually benefit greatly from stem cell research. Some scientists seem to believe that it might hold clues to an eventual cure for many diseases and conditions including diabetes, spinal cord injuries, organ failure, and many more. However, I did not celebrate the reversal of the Bush policy on stem cell research. I have an uneasy feeling about creating embryos and then destroying them to acquire stem cells to use in research.

There is a fine line there somewhere, isn’t there? It seems to me that we need cures for diabetes, cancer, organ failure, and all the rest, but it also matters how we get there, doesn’t it? Is our integrity and our moral values as a society less important than our physical health? We are becoming increasingly aware in our society of the behavior of unscrupulous and reckless leaders in all fields of human endeavor. Do we really want to give cart blanche to stem cell researchers? And even though we don’t all agree on abortion, and on the question of when exactly an embryo becomes a human being, absent any proof one way or another, shouldn’t we be humble enough to admit that we don’t really know except as a matter of faith, and that we might do well to tread lightly here for now?

Personally I am against the reversal of Roe v. Wade. I think that unfortunately, we need abortion as an option for some. I do believe that an embryo represents a human life. What else could it be? A frog, a monkey, a not quite anything yet? But honestly, after long years of experience and observation, I think there are worse things that can happen to an unwanted child than being aborted in the womb. And the idea of the government legislating what happens inside a woman’s body is a preposterous and frightening concept. Just look at the other end of the spectrum in The People’s Republic of China, where the government, having assumed the right to legislate on human reproduction, forbids couples to have more than one child. Now I understand that government’s concern about trying to curb overpopulation, but still, it is horribly intrusive to have people in the work place spying on women, keeping track of the menstrual cycles of the workers, and so forth. Infanticide and the abandonment of infants, and of course, abortions are all part of this reality. Do we, the United States of America, want to jump into that boat with the Chinese government? Would we still be the U.S. if we did?

When we discuss abortion in this country, very often we don’t look past our own neighborhood when casting votes and forming opinions. This was made crystal clear to me some years ago when I was working as a research assistant to the head of the Philosophy Department at Webster University. Reagan was in office at the time and the hot button on that day was his withdrawal of U.S. Government funds to any organization that anywhere at any time provided or recommended abortion. Planned Parenthood was one of the main organizations that provided birth control and pregnancy prevention education worldwide. It also in some cases provided abortions abroad.

As a part of my research, I ran across an article in a nursing magazine. I believe it was World Health magazine, but it was many years ago, so I could have the name wrong. In the article they used Planned Parenthood as an example of the way this new U.S. policy could cause more abortions as well as mother and child deaths worldwide. It said that in many of the most populated third world countries, Planned Parenthood was the only real help available to women for birth control. It also pointed out that in many places around the world, where food is scarce, babies are nursed by their mothers until they are at least two years old, because otherwise, competing with adults for the little bit of food available, the youngest children would starve. Mothers of infants who became pregnant again before their baby was two, would wean the first child early, almost guaranteeing the death of that existing child. The lack of birth control and education would insure the necessity for more abortions, and the death of women and children who would be fine if they had been able to get timely help from Planned Parenthood or similar organizations. But when making the decisions and casting the votes, most people in this country thought only of people living as we do, who have lots of control over when and with whom they have sex, and what kind if any preventative measures they take. They thought of people who might become pregnant as a result of promiscuity or irresponsible behavior here in our modern society. Almost no one, including me even considered the way our national decisions would affect an impoverished, powerless, and struggling young woman and infant living in Bangladesh.

I am aware that the way the media frames the arguments in the public debate over both these issues, someone like myself really has nowhere to stand. My beliefs and opinions may seem contradictory, even impossible. They are certainly complicated, and shift slightly from one situation to another. But isn’t that a part of what intelligence, reason, and morality do for us? Don’t they cause us to constantly examine and re-evaluate our beliefs and assumptions, and measure our own wants, needs and feelings against the needs and feelings of others?

I invite you to respond to these issues thoughtfully and honestly. Tell me what you see that I am missing, or what light your spiritual understanding sheds on this national debate. Or perhaps you have something to add about the debate itself, the social and political environment that keeps us so polarized. I invite your comments. I am listening.