Is it appropriate to label the journey of life as a merely spiritual one? I'm not sure. I am recently reawakened to the understanding that I am here as a spiritual being having a human being experience. Gosh, I hope that my spiritual self will begin to make it easier on my frail human form!
The "start" of my spiritual journey began far before my memory of it so I must rely on the stories told and retold by my family for the bulk.
I was told that as a young child I knew things I had no business knowing and that I knew things, mysterious things, before I anyone could have known them. My mother retells often the story of us heading toward my grandmothers house and me becoming psychic. This was the time before cell phones and even pagers so there was no contact with the world out of our apartment except for the phone, which at five years old I wasn't "in to." My mother says, 'we were exiting the car and as I took your hand to walk up the long walkway to Grandma's house you let go of my hand and said, "Mommy, those are beautiful red flowers Grandma has! Don't you like them mommy?" My mother recalls thinking nothing of my mindless chatter and would have dismissed it as such if she hadn't walked into the house and saw a vase full of fresh beautiful red roses. Supposedly, I said, "See mommy, aren't the red flowers beautiful?" My mother remembers immediately telling my Grandma and they both quizzed me on how I knew the flowers were there. They weren't from anyone that I could have known or overheard... So, they wondered, 'how the heck did that chile know about those flowers?'
I've been told of many times that something like that happened. And when questioned my earnest shrugged shoulder reply was always given with a child's simplicity, 'I don't know,' followed by the early sass of a precocious girl, 'mommy, why don't you know?'
As I grew into an older and much sassier teen I would still have knowings, yet the instinctual sensing seemed to fade as the teenage angst ridden hormones increased. At sixteen I was sure "The knowing" didn't work at all when I was date raped, in my own house. If I had had a knowing, why the heck did I let that happen. So thought my then sixteen year old self, "So what...I knew I wasn't supposed to have company when there was no adult home but, that's not the reason it happened. I knew, "It wasn't my fault!" See, I was a very cock sure young adult.
That cock sureness has been with me from the beginning. It was what prompted me at eight years old to go forward when the Pastor of the church asked for those who wanted to be saved to come forward. I was not prodded by my Grandmother, the Deaconess, actually we had never even discussed anything about me getting saved. However, I had a "knowing" that I was to be saved and thus dunked in the water. So I walked down the long red carpeted aisle at the new Bethany Baptist Church right along with all the adults who were also called to be saved that day and decided to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I loved going to Bible study, and the classes I had to take in preparation of the big day - Baptism. It was then again that "knowing" kicked. I asked a lot of questions of the teachers, questions that were answered with statements like, 'Cause we are good Christians,' and 'Because anything else is the Devil and the Devil don't live here.' I became so confused. Who was this Devil and how come he was such a big deal? God is all that is all that, I knew that much. At eight years old I had a lot of concerns about this Devil person. Not fears, cause I was getting saved - washed in the blood of the lamb of The Lord. I knew I was safe, I just didn't know why the adults didn't understand that with God, there's no need to worry about some Devil.
After being dunked, saved and sanctified my Grandma gave me a book called 'And the Greatest of these is LOVE'. I don't remember so much about the book past the introduction, but that seems to say it all. To paraphrase poorly, '...the greatest thing is Love, Love is God, God is Love. We beings are of God so thus we are the greatest, all we need to do is own our birth right.' Constantly I was made peaceful and with a profound sense of knowing from merely looking at the spine of that book on my shelf.
My mother moved us from our native New Jersey to Wisconsin and I was no longer able to see my father. We began attending a Unitarian Church. It was very different than the Baptists I was familiar with, but the Unitarians were super friendly and my mother liked them a lot. She had started reading Carlos Casteneda and other out there adult books. I was reading The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The Little Prince is a lyrical and poetic story about a pilot stranded in the desert who meets a young prince that fallen to Earth from a pint-sized asteroid. The story is very metaphysical and highlights the differences between children and adults. I fashioned myself like the Little Prince constantly traveling to greater and greater experiences.
Fast forward to great experiences. I attended college at a conservatory of Fine Arts where I received a myriad of good and bad experiences. It was there that I learned the craft of acting. It was a pivotal time in my spiritual, emotional, and psychological development, I just didn't know it at the time. At school I learned that I was able to transform as an actor, I was able to achieve neutral and get out of the way enough to allow the truth of a character to come through. The very first full length play I did was a life-changing moment I can never forget. I played an 80 year old soothing saying prophetess that leads a young disfigured child to finding God within. I had a moment in the play where I was center stage speaking in tongues and bringing the Holy Ghost to the child. It was an out of body experience of such one-ness and God. I have come close to kinda having that feeling on stage again but never with same wholeness and completion as at that time playing Old Gertie in Christchild. I could say it was the lights, being on stage, the old age make-up that truly made me appear 80 years old. But, I had the "knowing" it was something more. It's funny, up until this moment right now, writing this I had never connected that moment to my desire to minister. I had believed the moment was meant as my calling to the profession of Acting. I know now it is much more than that.
I have had a relatively successful career as a professional actor. However, I never fully engaged with the lifestyle and work of it. I thoroughly enjoy being onstage and the credits and money from working on TV has been terrific. I'm also a teaching artist and use theatre as a device to address social/emotional issues with high -risk students of all ages. The latter is often the most fulfilling. And as I get older the desire to act is changing into a desire to use my voice to be of service. But how? I don't quite know. I've always thought my voice had a purpose.
It has been 33 years since my first "knowing" was told to me. This year has been one of the most challenging of my life. The divorce from my wife. Separation from my son on a full time basis and I am estranged from my immediate family. At this moment I have very little money or stuff since leaving my wife and our marital home. Yet somehow I know that I am on track. I know that I am answering the call. I have attended a Religious Science for the past three years.
I seek to understand faith and tradition on a more broad scale in order to be a well rounded minister. So I have applied to an Interfaith Ministry School. Actually, before I married my spouse I had attended an open house and loved the program. Had I not been going on date number three with my then soon-to-be spouse the same evening, I'm sure I would have stayed and enrolled. Well, that was almost exactly six years ago, a lot has happened since then and much more has stayed the same. My knowing has returned with an intensity I don't recall having. I now have a surety and confidence in my conviction to not just be a minister but to continue my work in the world as a minister, in service. While I look forward to utilizing and my existing skills and abilities to create love and heal pain, starting with me, I know I need help from all sources. I am learning to get out of the way and let God be the "character" I channel. I am finally surrendering to the "knowing"... Course, I still like to curse!
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