I left because I was a voyeur to other people’s activities.

Belinda *  was constantly signing up for one consciouness-raising group after another.  Mary Ann collected friends like trophies everywhere she went.   Dorcas posted pictures of how good she was at the ‘woo woo’ stuff.  Juanita had over a hundred ‘friends’.

Donald and Samantha were already lovers. I was his former S/O. He joined first after I’d invited him.  He ‘found’ her on the ‘E-mail Friend Finder’.  How strange!  How could you ‘find’ someone who wasn’t lost in the first place? They live together! Donald, Sam and I became ‘friends’ and then she started writing love notes to Donald, with me right there to see! Thanks,  ‘friend’.  Isn’t this something you need to be doing in private via e-mail or (God forbid, save me from technology) text?

Another friend, whom I blocked at the start,  invited his other friends to come ‘do’ something to a lollipop reference to a certain part of his anatomy. Why do I need to be privy to this? Why does anyone?

I’d log on and watch, that’s all I’d do.  So-and-so signed up for this group, somebody joined something else. People would send each other messages and I’d sit there and watch.

Is THIS what society is coming to?

Why do we spend so much time signing up for activities in cyberspace?

Where is the real connection?  What has happened to phoning or writing?  I guess that, too, will fall by the wayside as we advance into this digital age.

Oh, excuse me…. we do have text messaging, something that I’ve yet to embrace.  Why do we need to be ‘connected’ to everyone we know all the time?  In this day of instant gratification we’ve all become addicted to knowing everything RIGHT NOW.  Impatience has increased with the level of technology.  It’s no longer acceptable to wait; we have to know.  We can’t even wait 9 months to have God’s greatest surprise reveal him or herself at birth.

I admit I’ve become a slave to my inbox…., but Face book is something I can live without.

*names changed to protect the guilty

As I was leaving a shopping center I stopped at the apron to look for traffic.  Directly in front of me was a cemetery;  a blue funeral parlor canopy ruffled in the wind.

A lone elderly man stood underneath the tent.  At his feet was a fallen floral grave decoration, blooms face down on the dirt.  He stood there by himself.  There were no others walking away as if the service had just ended, no cars but his silver Buick a few rows away.

Who was he?  Was this his wife, his sister, a child, a brother or a cherished friend? Had one of his parents, who must’ve been very ancient,  just passed to the other realm?

Intrigued, but at the same time I didn’t want to stare.  I didn’t want him to see me looking;  an intrusion it would have been upon his grief, so I looked away.

This day, so normal for all passing around him, would be remembered by him in sadness for the rest of his life.

This memory for me, too, is etched in my mind…. billowing blue canopy and the single man underneath, alone with death, yet surrounded by life.

Halloween pumpkin-toothed unshaven,

Swaddled in mismatched clothing, 

But his shoes were new. 

The language he uttered from a mouth missing teeth was foreign.

In my truck I tried to ignore him as he stood at the hood.

Demanding, repeating, over and over.

Maybe he will go away

He didn’t

Just short of pounding on the hood, he did not move.

“No” my voice echoed,

My head shook the word “no.”

I emerged from the womb of the car

The vagrant, the ghost of Mr. Booker from 10 years ago had come again only briefly.

Jesus said to give to one who asks you and from one who would borrow turn not away.

Lend, expecting nothing in return,

But I did not.

I turned away, again from God

Our ‘modern life’ is undergoing a change.  It has to.

The planet on which we live is changing its ways.  The voice can be clearly heard in howling winds of tornadoes, driving rainstorms and floods, the hiss of rampant wildfires, and the deep rumble of earthquakes. 

Resources which we have long taken for granted will one day run out.  Then what? We’ve already seen the affects of weather changes on the food supply. Drought has hit some areas while other places have drowned.

Government and industry leaders – each looking out for it’s own best interests – have lined their pockets, ignorant or unwilling to face responsibility OR reality.  Who cares?  It’s not their problem! Sequestered off in their own private heavens, their souls have been sold for the almighty business deal.  The greed of the dollar has won out again, trumping the needs of the people and the planet.  These people, our corporate leaders and politicians, who should be serving (we’d like to think) us are serving themselves.  The result?  A system that is breaking down…, and quickly.

Greed – look where it has led us.  Worldwide we find ourselves staring into the jaws of hell;  pollution, corruption, greed, economic collapse, shortages, wanton disregard for others.  “Me…, Me…, ME” has ruled for too long.

We will find ourselves going backwards.  It will become more evident that we have to start to do what our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents did:  relate to one another, interact with our communities.

As resources dwindle and prices rise, we will have to plant that garden with our neighbors; reclaim a vacant lot to feed each other.  We’ll have to get our hands dirty doing more with less electricity and wasteful practices. We’ll have to become more resourceful instead of wasteful, cutting back on frivolous things;  getting to what matters:  our family, friends, neighbors and community and the planet.

This is for our own sake….

What are you doing to promote the change that has to be, in your life, your neighborhood and for the world?

“When the Power of Love overcomes the Love of Power, the world will know peace.”  Jimi Hendrix

The world as we know it is changing.  Our climate is in turmoil from global warming. Millions of people have been displaced by natural disasters, war, ethnic cleansing and  the fear of genocide.  Everywhere we turn the entire planet is being affected not only by high prices for every commodity, thus stretching the budgets of families worldwide but of the threat of shrinking resources.  We have for too long, taken our Earth for granted. 

We have also taken any ‘class status’, whatever it be in any culture, as a given. If we have been lucky, by an act of birth, to be in the world of the more fortunate, we can no more turn a blind eye to our poorest brother and sisters.  If we have been blessed to live in a country without violence, there is no longer any excuse to pretend that social injustice and the horrors of war does not exist. 

The time of ‘me…, me…, me’  must  come to an end. It should become, “WE” and “US”, not ‘them‘.

We need to band together to heal not only planetary wounds, but cultural, physical, mental, spiritual and economic.  The new world order needs to be not “Us versus them” but inclusive of all.

This is mandatory if we are all to survive.

To paraphrase Mr. Blythe’s quote, I’d like to add:

 “Time for the world to break up into small self-sufficient colonies of the new, the healthful, the helpful and hopeful.” 

We can say ‘Thank you’ to many things that we have in the following way:

In a small box, place slips of paper on which you have written what you are grateful for.  Your entries could be for events, things, people;  anything that makes you shine from inside.  You may choose to add one a day.

On the days when you don’t feel as grateful, you might want to randomly go into that box and pull out a slip.

It would be a reminder that, no matter what you are experiencing, there IS something to be grateful for!

There has to be a junction where the two paths meet; the path of non-acceptance, unbelief; and the course of without-a-doubt, irrefutable evidence that you have to accept.  This is where the resolution point is.  It is where you have to change your map, rewrite the plan of action.  Until YOU reach this moment, no amount of prodding on the part of well-meaning friends or mind games played by your psyche will convince you to get out of the rut.

It ain’t over till it’s over.

I am very good at the mind games, of convincing myself I should keep going.  I plod along, totally oblivious to all the signs.  I won’t give up until I can feel it is truly the end.  Like a bull on the charge, I keep running head first into the wall even when I’ve exhausted all resources and revamped my strategy a bazillion times.  I’m too damn stubborn! I might knock myself out a few times, but  I get back on my feet , dust myself off, back up and run at the barrier again!

Recently, after a long period of unemployment, I finally ‘got’ why a former employer probably won’t hire me.  Despite the fact that I was a model employee in every way:  No complaints, no policy or safety violations, excellent attendance record for over 4 years – I could not get rehired to this national home improvement chain.   I was flummoxed!  What was the reason?  I hadn’t been fired; I’d just taken another job.

I had applied three times to a new store closer to my home. I had the recommendation of 6 people I’d worked with at the other store who now worked there.  I called every week or two, asking to speak with different members of management. I dropped by a few times and talked with the store manager.  All I got was “I’ll check with the HR manager.”   I was denied interviews,   but wasn’t told why. The people I knew who worked with me at the old store kept asking management,  ”Why won’t you hire her?  We need her!”  They were kept in the dark, too.

One of my friends reminded me of the workman’s comp claim I’d filed a few months after being hired. I’d injured my back lifting something.  It wasn’t that I’d lifted wrong, but something ‘structural’ in my back that I was totally unaware of gave out.  I was in horrendous pain for a long time afterward.  The company had to pay for many tests and months of chiropractic care and physical therapy.  My friend had come up with the answer:  I was too much of a risk.  They could not come out and say that because to do so would have left them a sitting duck for litigation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.  This HAD to be the only reason why and the reason they’d stuck to their policy of saying they didn’t have to give me a reason!

I had no choice…. I had to let it go once and for all.  There weren’t any other tricks I could pull out of my bag.  No other routes were open to me.  It was finished.  I had to start over again.

Actually, though, this was a relief.  I finally had my resolution.  I knew this had to be the reason and knowing that there was no way to prove it, letting it go was the right thing to do.

Now, I can go on with my life and not be obsessed with this any longer.  It is over and I finally have gotten to that point of resolution.  

Security.  What do we think of when that word comes to mind?  Right now for me that means having enough money to maintain my house and pay my bills. 

Although at present I am not currently employed in a paying job, I am secure. I AM SAFE. I am not going to lose my house next week.  I have enough to buy food and pay my bills. Even though I know the clock is winding down on the money I have, I KNOW that I AM provided for.  God will never leave me stranded.   Everything  IS OK.

Security.  I realize that this   w-h-o-l-e  Lowe’s issue, the relentless drive to get back there is a security issue.  It is what I know, it is where there was some modicum of  familiarity. Even in its unpredictability with scheduling, it was something I knew.  I thought that if I got rehired, everything would be OK.  I believed that I could do nothing else…, that I wasn’t worthy of anything else.

In truth I AM WORTHY of a lot more. 

There is a line in the book:  “When I become afraid and try frantically to know the future, it’s usually a cover-up to mask the fact that I’ve begun dreading life and I think there’s nowhere left to go.  I try to change things in the exterior world so I won’t have to feel my own heart.  I try to hold onto the past so that I won’t have to go into the void. Each time I allow myself to go into that void, the future holds something I couldn’t imagine.  By the time I get there, I’m different. The world is different.  It’s not the world I’m in today and I am not the person I am now when I get there.  I’ve changed, and the changes in me change my perspective on the entire event.”

The cat is crying at the door to the living room.  I don’t usually let him in but I go and crack open the door.  He hesitates; inches forward, pulls back.  Despite his insistence that this is where he wants to go – he’s afraid to cross the threshold. 

Hmmmm…, this seems to be where I have been with the whole career situation.  I knew that I wanted something different but afraid to go for it.  I was trying to get back to where I was, to where I felt secure, but that’s not where I am supposed to be.  I have been too stubborn to see that.  Despite all the reminders from everyone, the constant admonishments, “Bev, you NEED to take a look at this.”   I resisted.  Nope, I was right, I was certain that I would get that job back but now I know differently. 

Mentally I am imagining the door to Lowe’s CLOSED.  Beside it is another door.  (We know that when God closes one door, another one opens for there are no vacuums in nature.)  This other door is cracked open.  Even though I can’t see inside, I KNOW that it is a better path than the one I was on.

I am choosing to take the path behind the cracked-open door.  It feels wonderful!

B

Sometimes all we can see and feel is our fear. It overrides our Divine instincts when we live in the emotional, physical world of our heads. Sometimes you are the enemy, not the other way around. This fear, of whatever it is; we don’t have enough, aren’t good enough.When we live from fear-based notion instead of a faith-based life, we stop trusting Spirit, we stop trusting life, we stop trusting ourselves… we have put our ‘faith’ in fear.

We live from fear to fear. When one thing is resolved, we grab onto another fear. How will this turn out? What will happen to me? Where will I end up? These are all questions that I have obsessed with recently. I am living in fear.

Our ego needs to be in control; it is an old survival tool. Some of us are more attached to this control. I know I am. Not knowing what comes next, especially right now in my jobless situation, is particularly frightening.

Sometimes the next lesson is to learn to live from a base of faith; trust instead of fear. Easier said than done, though, right? There was a quote that helped me:

“Regardless of your state of consciousness, that which has been troubling you has already been taken care of. The situation has been healed. It has been since moment you felt the emotion of the difficulty. Now lift your consciousness and prove to yourself that the problem no longer exists in the outer world.” - Angel Energy - John Randolph Price

I have a mind that goes around in circles. It’s like a dog worrying a bone till every possible morsel has been stripped away. What I got from the chapter on spiritual guidance was: don’t try to figure it out. 

Withdraw from the battle, the section says. Simply stop what you’re doing and ask for guidance. The way you’ve been heading hasn’t worked, you’ve hit a dead end with this route. “Quit pushing the river.” is a favorite expression of one of my friends.

In the chapter, “Surrendering Control,” when we say…. “I’ve got to have this event or thing happen. Maybe I can have it and something else, too, but what if it’s not in the plan for my life. What the heck am I going to do with it once I get it?” What IF I don’t know? It’s OK not to know.

What I can do is surrender control enough to ask for help in getting through the experience.

The next thing I read about was stopping the power plays. Like the character in Dr. Doolittle, the “Pushme – Pullyou” that’s what I’ve been doing all along; pushing and getting pulled. Back and forth, to and fro, up and down. Stop – just stop resisting… time to let go and surrender. Surrender the illusion of control.

There is a dance that is played with other people. Sometimes they come into our energy field and want to fight, hassle or they want to play, but not in ways that are fun. We are challenged. This is a time when we should consider changing our tactics. Fighting wastes a tremendous amount of energy, and that’s what I have been doing lately.

In the meantime I will open up to other possibilities and stay centered. I will remind myself that everything IS REALLY OK, that I am not going to fall into financial ruin this week or the next, that I have faith – not fear – that I will be led to my correct place.

I am going to go out and sit in the sun and do a visualization which, just from reading it, calmed me:

Picture a large vortex, a funnel, a tornado in front of you. Spin it clockwise; get it going as fast as you can. As it swirls, get all the negative energy of the situation spun into this funnel instead of coming at you. Then when it’s spinning at top speed, stop it. Reverse the spin to counter-clockwise. Reverse all the negativity, the control, the warring factions coming at you. Now, with a feeling of love, send it back to the other person.

Send it back in love, not revenge or resentment. This is reversing a painful situation drawing in the positive.

I hope that what I’ve written here helps you, too, with what is occurring now in your life – whatever that may be.

Hugs..,
B