December 16, Long Beach
A ‘friend’ on FB that I do not know but whose posts I respect and delight in, posted something this morning that has inspired this. His post said ‘anyone can have faith on a good day, the bad ones are the test’…and this created a moment of PAUSE.
My experience is the exact opposite…not only personally but with those that call me in crisis.
When in the depths of despair the heart and soul are more apt to turn to ‘desperate means’…often arenas that are not familiar, for support…and out of this often a relationship with ‘otherwise’ (God or Higher Power or The Universe or whatever one wants to name it) is born. When the immediate malaise subsides, there can be a laziness and untending to the connection, but the seeds spring back to life the next time they are needed. Ideally one waters these seeds with every breath and they ‘IT’ becomes a living part of you.
I tend to be private in the specifics of my connection to my higher power but am often asked and lately very frequently…’HOW do you manage all that you do????” HOW are you okay with all of the devastation that you have experienced?????” Etc, etc…
My answer is not wordable…but I shall share some stories that perhaps you can glean your own answers.
When I was 6 I was supremely abused by my kindergarten teacher for a year. Prior to the initial episode I had asked my father who God was (he was the minister of a Congregational church and therefore churchy things were in my life). He said “Imagine the most beautiful father you possible can…someone who you can tell anything and everything to…he will hold you and love you and take care of you no matter what.”
When the abuse began, because I was threatened to not tell anyone, I talked to God and asked for help, and THEN my father was assigned to India. I had been listened to. My experience in India was filled with upset, as my siblings and I were sent to a boarding school and I was bereft (to put it mildly)…but I believed that God was with me…and in the tree outside my window…and in nature…and in all the creatures around me and I healed…as a girl.
When I was 19 I had taken a leave of absence from my college. I went to work in a state institution in New Hampshire and I rented a cottage in the White Mountains. I worked the night shift and when I returned one morning a man was waiting for me in my cottage. I looked in his eyes and knew that he was mentally off. I survived what he did to me but was told that I would never have children. The entire time that he was ‘doing’ what he was doing I slipped myself into God’s hands….and I not only had two daughters several years later, but I delivered them naturally.
When I was 44, December 3, 1995, I was taking pictures of baby swans in Central Park in NYC..10:00 in the morning…a group of drugged out men attacked me. My intestines were so damaged that there were huge questions around how I was to go forward…again..I knew with my heart and soul that I was being looked after…my diet is EXTRAORDINARILY ODD…against all the rules that our culture think is ‘good for you’ and I am well.
In between and around these…I was homeless for 8 years in LA….and the home that I landed in and healed in for almost 9 years after that fiasco burned in January.
FAITH…SOUL KNOWING… GROWS STRONGER IN EVERY MOMENT OF DISMAY….and our job is to thank it and feel it and connect with it when skies are sunny and bright.
When people call me is crisis I do not share who I am or what I have experienced…. they find me through a mysterious grapevine…I do not advertise or charge…there is a soul recognition silently and people find their way through horrific sorrows. I believe it is though my connection to ‘something’ as I ‘do’ nothing.
And…having said all of this here…am I going to post this? Not sure……but a power animal (thank you, Scarlett) told me to start talking.