Reflections on a past life

Yesterday I worked at the Southern California Assemblies of God Conference, and it was a weird blast from the past. As I sat around and watched people all of the elements were familiar. People walked up to me and said "Praise the Lord". I watched the huge service on a big screen TV and the preacher spoke for over an hour and at the end had a long "alter call". People raised their hands to the loud worship music and bathed in the spirit.

The thing is that by the time I was at the end of wanting to be involved in Pentecostal Christianity I was kind of in the same place I was yesterday. A place where none of it played on my emotions as much it did in the beginning, but rather where all of these things were common place. I got to the point where the dramatic music and the demands of the preacher couldn't make me cry one more time, because I had already cried so many times. It was like I had to make this emotional separation between myself and what was going on, because otherwise I was constantly hysterically crying for some reason- spirit induced or not.

I don't mean to completely knock the church because I think there are some things in it that are important to people- the teaching to love your neighbor, the fellowship, etc. For me, the constant heightened emotion was the thing I struggled with the most. It's almost as if I felt like the preachers were performers and their goal was to make me cry, and with just the right rift of guitar and piano at the end, when they were asking people to come forward and ask for forgiveness they did it to me again time after time. It's hard for me to explain what I mean, except at some point I just felt so emotionally manipulated I shut down, and that made me doubt a lot of the realness of a lot of things that I had experienced- because everything was so dramatized that I didn't know which emotions I could consider to be legitimate. Another bone in the bag is that I am diagnosed clinical depression and sometimes felt like the church just always kept me on the downside of things because of all the emotional issues it created.

I don't know if this makes a lot of sense. I didn't sit at the conference yesterday and think that the people in attendance were ridiculous. I respect their beliefs a lot. I just can't take the emotional-ness of it because I am so emotional in the first place that I can't take another thing being thrown into the mix. Also I don't like feeling that manipulated all the time. I didn't like feeling guilty because I couldn't cry anymore.

I appreciate so much the freedom of being a Quaker. I feel like I am just at peace with myself and am not constantly having to make sure I am okay enough with all the preachers who are telling me that I am not. I appreciate the ability to be emotional when I need to, but at the same time having the peace of mind to really just sit an enjoy the silence without feeling guilty because I am not responding in the appropriate emotional manner.

Beach Birds

This morning in meeting I finished a book by Severo Sarduy called Beach Birds. The explanation says that it is written in a Baroque style, and while that is not something I completely familiar with, I can say it was a rather abstractly written story about many sick people living on a Island in a hospital and dying from a disease that is probably AIDS. The language was beautiful and the plot many times a bit hard to follow, but the main thought in the story that resonated with me is how all of these characters are fighting so hard against death. Immortelle, one of the dying, fights to hard in a search to regain her youth through the use of fashion, romance, sex, exercise, and alternative medicines, when the sad truth is she will never regain her youth again.

As the characters reach towards death one of them ponders what the afterlife will hold. There is discussion of how the hope in death is that it will be this wonderful, final sleep- that death will be this utter cessation of being. There will be no colors. There is will be approval or judgment. There will just be a lack of being. No more energy to expend. Rest.

I talked to someone very close to myself about this concept some time ago and we expressed the peace that may come with knowing that one's being would cease after death. Others who I am close to have expressed that they would feel so sad to have all of these things in the universe continue to happen without our knowing about them. And if life is really only the years that we have on this earth, then what does that ultimately mean? Does it mean that nothing we can do during those years can really have that big of an impact on what happens when we lay to rest? Or does it mean the opposite?

I thought on this for some time this morning. I don't have any answers. I do find something beautiful in being able to live fully in the years we have on earth and getting to rest fully after those years have past. Then I thought about those I had lost and whether or not I will think of them as a cessation of being of a continual spiritual presence in an afterworld. In one way I feel that those who came before us do continue to exist through the ways that they influenced us. They exist in us. I feel happy to think of those who are no longer on earth as achieving this ultimate rest. To have no more struggles or emotions, but just to return to the earth from which we came.

It's sad and at the same time it's not sad. It's certainly a mindful.

Morning Meditation

This is a new day and the sun is shining in my window. The foundation on which I stand is peace, love, hope, relationships, and calm. May this calm truly proceed me in my actions and my words today. May the stresses of yesterday be left in the past and the freshness of today be a new beginning. May the light and hope present surround those I love as it surrounds me also. Today is a new day and I am thankful for that. I will be actively seeking a center in these foundational things today and they will ground me in my actions.

The Sprituality of Stories (And being slightly starstruck too)

Where does one go to eat after seeing Ira Glass speak at the Barclay Theater at UCI?
-Veggie Grill.

Where does Ira Glass go to get his take out after he speaks at the Barclay Theater at UCI??

You guessed it- a man after my own heart.

The show was amazing. He is such a normal guy, and yet the things that he says are both witty and really touching.

He started the show off in complete darkness, and talked about the fact that when listening to the radio all you hear is someones voice and how the lack of visual stimuli makes it a completely different medium. He said that he suggested doing the whole show in the pitch dark, but then the audience might not think that they were really there in the theater with him.

He went on a slight tangent about the television series the OC and knew a little bit too much about he show to not be embarrassed. He played the sound clip where they mentioned TAL on the OC and he said that he had to go back several times on the TiVo because he thought he must be imagining it.

I wish that the house lights had been up so that I could have written down many of the things that he said. He talked about the story of the Arabian Nights (I am not very familiar with the story, but there is a good synopsis on Wikipedia.) He talks about how the kings newest wife tells the king stories for 1,001 nights in order to keep him from killing her in the morning (as he did to all his other wives.) He spoke about how the king never killed her because her story telling and narrative made him not want to let her go, because he always wanted to see where the stories were going. He spoke about how after 1,001 nights the king has heard so many stories and has empathized with the characters so much that the hardness in his heart melted away and he no longer had the bitterness that has caused him to kill so many wives. The story made a very powerful statement for narrative and how we can learn to heal, and empathize, and to just been on the same wave length as other people by listening to their stories. And that is really what TAL is all about.

It was very touching, and kind of went along with the very spiritual morning I had in meeting- where people were relating to each other through their personal stories and seeing God in each person and their story. The essence of god in others. The essence of god in other's stories. The essence of a god exiting completely and wholly in the way that people relate to each other.

It is truly beautiful and more intricate than I can convey. And for today, for me, it is peace.

Have I Talked about This Before?

Sometimes have a very set in stone makes me sad.
I think that when we are so convinced that we know The Way it can be a rather overwhelming feeling because we feel like we have to get everyone to agree with The Way or we are sad for them.

I spent hours and hours crying and praying for my mom when I was a younger Christian because I wanted her to have Jesus in her life. Now she does, and I am very happy that she has such a positive force in her life, but I cannot help thinking about the oppressive nature of feeling like you have to convert people or mourn for their salvation.

I love people. I am compassionate, caring, and invested. I want my relationships with people to be based on who they are and what we share commonly and how we can learn from each other differences. I don't want to be sad for people because I feel that they are not living their life in the right manner.

When that is all that I could see I feel like my life was so darker and less rich, because I wasn't able to see the layers in people and the multi-faceted-ness of others. I can honestly say for a long time I saw their soul and the after life and that was all, and I am glad I don't see that anymore. I don't have any concrete answers and the after life for myself, and sure don't want to have any for other people.

I am striving for a life of hope, kindness, responsibility, compassion and freedom. I don’t but a very specific label on it anymore. I am opening my mind and my heart, and I like the way it feels. I just wish it was comfortable for everyone around me.

On Love

Love is patient. Love is kind.
It does not envy. It does not boast.It is not proud.
It is not rude. It is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered.It keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
Love always protects, always trusts,always hopes, always perseveres.
Love bears all things, believes all things,hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
L o v e N e v e r F a i l s.
Corinthians 13 : 4 - 8

So I know that this is the typical Valentine's day verse, but these is something about these verses that always resounds with me. Because love is selfless, kind, and powerful- and that really moves me. I don't look at it in the context of romantic love as much as parental love, which is where I am going with this. (I don't think I mean parental love to be specfically parents, but maybe that desire and drive to care for someone else.)

Anyway regarding love I wanted to say that this morning I was telling David that I am so very thankful because I have never been without love. From the moment I can remember I have felt so truly loved and cared for by my mother that I never questioned that there was a strong poweful and pefect force that exists within people's relationships between each other. I have always felt valued and cherished and special. My sense of god and spirituality and the way I treat others is so very strongly rooted in the love I experienced via my mother. I know that I am more fortunate than many to have grown up in such a loving a supporting environment, and I really do try my hardest to share that influence with others in my daily life.

I want to share it with my husband and children one day. Today I am thankful to share with with my boyfriend, and friends, and family (from a far).



P.S. David loved his present. He smiled and laughed mutliple times- but I still need to get his persmission to blog about it. What do you say babe?