Eat, Pray, Exercise » miracles

Sunday Something: Good News Sunday

LyricalFool — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:15:50 +0000

Christ. Baha’u’llah. Rumi. Blake. Gerard Manly Hopkins. Buddha. Marianne Robinson. Maynard, for God’s sake.

Of all the people I could have quoted from in order to demonstrate my point, I chose Garth Brooks.Really. I quoted Garth Brooks. In church, no less.

Today was the day. I had meant to practice what I was going to say, but with everything (and I do mean everything) going on, I kept thinking I’d get around to it. So this morning I get to church only to realize I have no idea what I’m going to say. The purpose of the speech is to highlight how Unity lessons have impacted my life. It was held in conjunction with their “Membership Sunday” in which new members of the church are officially inducted.

And, yes, it was noticed that the first speaker of the first Good News Sunday of the first Membership Sunday did not join the church, but I jump ahead of myself.

There’s a Unity song that goes something like, “You are the face of God, you are the mouth of God, you are the way of God” etc., and I couldn’t remember it, so while I’m sitting in the back row, trying not to hyperventilate (I still don’t do well with public speaking, by the way), the phrase “I am the lips of God,” kept going through my head.

Not exactly the image I was going for, but I guess it worked.

I started off by mentioning the last time I was asked to speak in public at the Unity Center. It was about a year ago, and Reverend Christy asked me to read the Daily Word. I wanted to simultaneously melt through the floor and jump through the window and never, ever, ever show my face there again.

Before I opened my mouth, I knew this would be how I’d start. I’d make a little joke, express my nervousness in a way that disarmed it, and dive in.

Only I didn’t know exactly what I’d be diving into. That’s where I got hung up. The biggest thing in my life right now is something that, while isn’t a secret anymore, isn’t exactly public, either. I didn’t want to go into that, and yet it’s central to where I am now and central to how Unity teachings have changed my life.

So I talked about the first time I stepped through the door of Unity Spiritual Center, which was December 31, 2006. I talked for a minute or two about visions. How mystics and prophets had visions, not ordinary people.

Certainly not ordinary broken people.

And then I described mine.

The first time I stepped foot in this Unity Church, they were having a burning bowl ceremony. I talked about the feeling of going somewhere new being surrounded by unfamiliar faces. And I talked a lot, a lot, a lot about fear. I guess it was appropriate that I started off talking about fear of speaking. I talked about the ceremony, and I talked about what happened while I was sitting in meditation in my very first Unity service.

I saw a cup. A chalice-type cup, with red wine falling into it and spilling over the sides. That was it. That was all. There was no “voice of God” in my head, there was no explanation or interpretation or translation. There was only a promise, and I knew. I knew at the very moment I saw it what it was. And as I mentioned the Sunday services and the Monday night classes, I explained how the wine had begun to flow, slowly at first, then almost wide-opened, like a faucet.

I don’t know if I mentioned that it wasn’t the flow of wine that had been restricted, but rather the receptivity of the cup, but I don’t think it matters.

And I explained that I, standing in front of them, talking to them as a group of people, have learned that the meaning of grace is not learned through the removal of fears, but rather the passing through them. I talked about miracles, and the most basic nature of mine: connectivity. Connection to self, connection to God, connection to the world around and the people in it.

Connection, connection, connection. I talked about that moment when you “know what you know what you know” — which is, exactly who and what you are. I talked about annoying friends that you keep around because they remind you who you are. I said that this remembrance was the core of Unity: Unity teachings remind you who you are.

And then I tried to quote Garth Brooks. I set it up as a lyric from “Belleau Woods,” which is a song about (a supposedly true story) two sides fighting a war who stop long enough to sing “Silent Night” at midnight on Christmas morning.

And I couldn’t remember it.

Charles spoke after me, a lovely speech that said much of what I had wanted to (had I thought about it, and much of what went through my mind as soon as I sat down) of progress, of giving up anger and loss, of magnificent, ebullient, healing forgiveness. And he spoke how Unity teachings changed his life.

As he finished, before they began the Membership Service, I jumped up and grabbed the microphone. “I remember! I remembered as soon as I sat down!” I said. And so I shared it:

Heaven’s not beyond the clouds,

It’s just beyond the fear.

The induction ceremony was simple and beautiful. The minister spoke of commitment, over and over, and I was struck by how much like a wedding ceremony it was. I watched some of the people that I am most fond of be embraced by the presence of the church, and it was an amazing thing to watch.

And I didn’t feel excluded, really, because I was there honoring their choice and their commitment, and it was simply powerful. I did feel a bit strange, however, when they took a group picture, and some members tried to get me to come up, and the minister had to explain that I hadn’t actually joined the membership.

“Why?” someone asked me.

I explained that while I loved the church and the people and the classes and so very much about it, I am Baha’i. I cannot commit to one church when I am of a different, defined faith.

It’s kind of ironic in that “This is your life, Nancy” sort of way. Hearing of the Baha’i faith led me, in a way, to Unity, which in turn led me back to the Faith.

And it was good. So. Very. Good.

Miracles Part II

LyricalFool — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:02:43 +0000

When ink joins a with a pen, then the blank paper

can say something. Rushes and reeds must be woven

to be useful as a mat. If they weren’t interlaced,

the wind would blow them away.

Like that, God paired up

Creatures and gave them friendship.

Rumi, Essential Rumi, trsltd by Coleman Barks

I read over the Part I part, and I realized I went no where near where I meant to with it.

So I’ll try again.

Apparently it takes a really long time for something to slip down between the folds of my psyche. I’m slow like that at times.

One of the big sayings at the Unity church which I attend is “Know that you know that you know.” Which, on an intellectual level, I got. There is a difference, obviously, between intellectually understanding and really, really getting something.

I don’t know the particular moment that I got that I got that I got it, just that I didn’t at one point, and then I did.

There was a particular moment when I realized something absolutely wonderful, though. There was a shining, singular moment when something spectacular and fabulous and utterly wonderful occurred to me. There was a shining, singular moment when I realized something so profoundly simple.

That I didn’t have to be fat anymore.

This is how I knew that I had been healed. Completely, irrevocably healed. Because I didn’t have to be fat anymore.

I think that everything thing we hold onto in our lives serves us, otherwise we wouldn’t hold onto it. Everything from fishing poles to farting friends, there is a purpose for everything in our lives.

I knew why I held on to my fat. Hell, I had anecdotal evidence that it was doing exactly what I wanted it to do. And when it appeared that it wasn’t, it wasn’t keeping a wall between other people and me, I’d gain more because, surely it just wasn’t enough!

And there I was, bless my little heart, completely “over” this “bad thing” eating like a dog any time I’d get hit on. But I was perfectly okay, you know. Perfectly. Healthy, happy, gonna lose weight one day. Nothing to see here, move along.

There is one particular incident that flashes so brightly in my memory that it’s painful to even think about.

I was sitting outside a country-bumpkin store with my friend Melissa’s little boys, in her car while she ran in the store. A guy pulled up next to our car, and he started talking to me.

And I panicked. I couldn’t go anywhere. I had kids with me and their mom was in the store.

They were being rowdy, so I yelled at them. That was bad enough that I yelled, but even as I was doing it, I knew why I was doing it.

He kept talking around the boisterous kids and the yelling chick. Wanted my number, wanted to go out. Blah blah blah.

Which sort of struck me as strange, considering, for all he knew these kids were mine and it was my husband in the store.

But whatever. I told him I wasn’t from around there. “Oh, I’m not, either, but we could have coffee or something.”

I told him I was staying with my girlfriend, and I was on a flight back home tomorrow. “Where you from?” he asked me.

My mind went blank, and I sputtered the first thing I could think of, “Canada.”

I wanted to think of some place cool, Nepal maybe. Nice or something. But I realized that I had no accent.

So I said Canada, and then, God help me, purposely began putting “aboot” in sentences. “What part?” he asked.

“Vancouver, you know, West-side.” Like it was all hip and shit to say aboot and be West-side V-town.

Then Melissa came out, and we drove away with the poor Georgia boy probably wondering what the hell just happened.

I don’t remember what we had for dinner that night, but there was a lot of ice cream. A LOT. Because making up silly stories wasn’t enough, apparently. Someone, despite my best intentions, had asked me out, and I panicked.

And that was my life. In different scenarios, in different ways and different reactions, that was my life.

And looking back, I get how much I valued disconnection. I’m not quite certain the bridge between possible sexual partners and friends, but I noticed that I had very few close friends, and mostly ones that I had known for years because I wasn’t willing to really make any new ones.

I was afraid, sure. Being truly friendly was terrifying in that unknown, intangible way. Because then people might start having expectations. And they may start relying on me. And then, God help me, I just might have to step up and be responsible.

And I’m going off on another tangent again, but I do that.

When I realized I didn’t have to be fat anymore, everything changed. Actually, I think it changed before that, but that was the moment that I got it. And I thought it had to do with sex and relationships and things like that, which would have been miraculous enough, but it is proving to be so far encompassing that I think I’ll be discovering things in new ways for a long, long time to come. But I think at the core of it is that I no longer value disconnection. Connection is vital to me in regards to anything I interact with, be it books, people, animals, God, whatever.

And learning to live as someone vitally connected to her life in all facets seems to be my big, new fabulous adventure. And I’m giddy, giddy like a kid on Christmas Eve giddy, although it is almost every single day of my life. And it is big. And new. And fabulous.

At its very core, reconnection is the nature of my miracle. I didn’t have anything taken away, although I thought I had. I didn’t have anything purged, covered up, or removed. I simply had everything connected.

And I am so very, very, very grateful.

Miracles Part I

LyricalFool — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:42:32 +0000

Thy name is healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion. Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor both in this world and the world to come. Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-wise.

– Baha’u'llah, The Hidden Words

In January, I was the recipient of a healing so incredibly deep that I will never, ever be the same.

I don’t know the exact moment. Despite my thinking that healing was a singular moment where the proverbial magic wand is waved over someone’s head and all the hurt and pain was taken away (which, in a way, is exactly how I feel), there was no specific moment for it. At least not one that I can pinpoint.

Considering it was junk I had been holding onto, clinging to, really, for almost half my life, the fact that I don’t remember the moment when I felt released or realized that it was gone amazes me.

It was simply there until it wasn’t. It wasn’t until I went to eat something (non-specific because I really don’t remember) or do something that was part of old habits, and I just sort of said to myself, “I don’t have to do this anymore.”

I had been going to Overeater Anonymous meetings since November. I knew why I had been overweight. I just couldn’t figure out why I still was. Because I thought I was “through it,” or “over it,” or , whatever people are supposed to “get” when something bad happens.

From where I sit now, that idea is rather funny because this thing that I had “gotten over” and “gotten through” was impacting every single facet of my life. Every. Single. Facet.

In the interest of being non-coy, I’ll go ahead and mention it because, chances are, I won’t mention it again on the blog because it is no longer how I identify myself. I was raped when I was 17.

I am now almost 34.

The funny thing is that I had forgiven him — truly forgiven him — years ago. Years and years ago, really.

I won’t take responsibility for the 30 minutes or so of the actual encounter (and that’s the wide-side of time. I really have no idea, but then again, it was almost 2 decades ago), but I will take responsibility for the 17 years that followed it.

That’s what’s truly ironic. His abuse lasted, what, half an hour? My self-abuse lasted almost 17 years. I can’t help but see mine as far more damaging and life inhibiting, and, therefore criminal.

But I didn’t feel that way about my own criminality, until January. Before then, I was adamantly denying that I had a problem even though it literally permeated every facet of my being.

In January, I was still struggling with the first step:

We admitted we were powerless over food–that our lives had become unmanageable.

Now, I had a big, big problem with this step because, well, I’m an uppity bitch who is totally, completely, and utterly about free will. Free will is what God gave us, and it’s part of that whole personal power thing.

And then there’s that whole Bible verse that tells me that nothing is impossible:

Philippians 4:13 – I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

So I came to the conclusion that while I had been powerless, I no longer had to be. I simply had to seek God’s power to be my fulcrum. As an All-Loving God (which I believe God to be), His power had been available all along. But I had to claim it in order to allow it to manifest.

And a strange thing happened. I had tried for over a year to quit smoking. Trying, falling back into it, obsessing about it all the time. I had begun taking Chantix in December getting ready for an “eventual” quit date because I knew that 2008 was the year that I absolutely, positively quit, quit, quit.

And, just a few days after my accepting the first step, still blindly taking the medicine with no certain quit date in sight, I simply quit smoking. I lost all desire and compulsion for it, so I simply quit.

There was a momentary fall back a couple of days later when I was really, really, really angry (and, incidentally, going through the peak of withdrawal). So, while I quit on the 7th of January, the 9th is the last day I had a cigarette. March 9th will mark my 2 months of being completely smoke free, and, with the exception of when I am very angry, I have had zero compulsion to smoke.

I just realized, I started smoking when I was 17, too.

And that was just the first step.

Smoking wasn’t what I went to the meetings for, but its sudden vanishing was exactly the proof I needed that Someone knew far better than me what I needed, for this First Step healing put things into position for me to work (and struggle with and finally accept) the Third Step.

And if I thought the quitting smoking thing was miraculous, I hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.