Today was my opportunity to sit with Jean-Marie and replay my experience at the School of the Spirit. I took two copies of my list of waypoints on my Journey so that each of us had one. So we started with my giving J-M the full description of what took place and my suggestion that we simply do the replay and see what happened: will I "fall apart" again or will I keep it together? (Either one would be perfectly fine, and either one would tell me something about the previous experience.)
On the previous occasion, I got to Item 3 or so on the list before I started getting caught and by Item 5 or so, I was flat-out crying. (Or was I weeping? This is a question that may open another door to understand what is/was going on. But that's for later -- if ever.)
In any case, this time I didn't even start the list before I started getting emotional. And the rest of the exercise went more or less like the previous occasion.
With the previous experience to call on, I sensed the feeling of disappointment, disillusionment as I went step by step through the list. And J-M added comments from time to time, but basically gave me lots of space to consider and recover as I went down through the list. Oh, and here's the list for future reference:
1. Tell Me About God
2.
Singing in the
choir – Church as an obligation and not worship
3.
“What about
the Muslims and the Navajos?”
4.
The Man in the
Brown Suit and Nail Clipping
5.
“Faith of our
Fathers” Really? I mean, Really?
6.
Confirmation
as a completely meaningless exercise
7.
College was
nothing
8.
The Tao The Ching tape in the car
9.
Conscientious
Objection and the AFSC
10.
N. Church
Street on a Sunday morning
11.
Healing in Meadville
12.
Just who is
Shiva, anyway?
13.
The exclusivity
of Christianity. (Now I have a word for
my feelings.)
J-M seemed particularly taken with the event of The Man in the Brown Suit. I think what attracted her to it was that I had more consciously placed my faith in him, and so his behavior was more damaging(?) than other element of the list. Other events on the list were more assumed, background types of things and not so much events of my own creation.
New understandings from our conversation include the similarity of Item 5 on the list and Item 12. In both cases, people around me seemed to be mouthing words that didn't have any serious meaning to them. (No, few people if anyone in the Church would "be true to Thee 'til Death. And few people if anyone at Full Spectrum knew anything about Shiva. In both cases, folks seemed to me to be doing what was expected of them. So this is not hypocrisy so much as shallowness.) I was expecting a deeper understanding and/of commitment to what people were saying/singing, and that just wasn't going to happen. (J-M suggested that one of the things that sets Quakers apart from other folks is that they pay more attention to the words they are saying/singing. And, in jest, one of the reasons that Quakers don't sing so much is that each person in the group needs to parse carefully the words in the hymns they're expected to sing. I told her the joke about The Discussion Group about Heaven.)
J-M had nothing to say or add or explain concerning the Exclusivity of Christianity. I have to believe she has opinions on the subject, but understood that now was not the time to share them.
It had not occurred to me until today how many of the elements of the list dealt with disillusionment and/or disappointment. I'm not going to try and box up the reasons why that's true. It's simply an observation.
And it had not occurred to me how much finding the Tao Teh Ching represented a reprieve from this list of disappointments and disillusionments.
I'm now smart enough to know that I have a tendency to look at today's experience and try to put a name on it and a rational description. Put it in a box and give it a label. And J-M and I agreed that it was wonderful that there's so much of The School of the Spirit time and experience ahead of me. And that it is time to allow all of what's happened to me in this part of the journey to open itself up to me. I stand in the doorway that was, until recently, pretty completely closed. This will change. I can't and shouldn't try to rush it.
I can have faith that the door will continue to open and I will see more and more. And walking through the doorway becomes more and more of an option as this occurs. There is time. There is a Way. There may or may not be Answers to Questions and Explanations to Events, but they must be allowed to come at their own pace. Trying to rush them would be an unfortunate choice.
J-M and I chatted about how Things just Seem to Happen in an ordered and supportive way. If you want to call them miracles or gifts from a caring God, that's fine. If you want to see them as the natural results of Following the Tao, that's okay too. It's not a choice you have to make. I mean, a choice I have to make.
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