What happens when you lose sight?

It gets dark real quick! 

Yesterday evening I was sitting outside in my backyard. My husband and I were in different places but on a conference call with our business manager. He was delivering bad financial news. My mind started racing. The tug of war began. The war between worry and centeredness, between resting in easeful, trusting belovedness and walking with anxiety over to shame. Shame was calling.

I noticed what was happening in my body. I noticed the stark contrast between feeling safely pampered in Paris just a few days ago on this gift of a trip from my mother. And the financial concerns I returned home to in real life. A primary concern being, how will this affect the kids? Then…

BAM! The sound of the bird’s body came crashing into the window near me like a torpedo. Swooshing down to follow was another bird. This one  just missed  the  window and landed on the first.  The sharp  reverberation snapped me out of my worry spiral.  I was suddenly mesmerized by the  cloud of feathers fluttering around the birds.

Then, stillness.

As my mind took in what had happened I stood up and saw, directly in my line of sight, standing Triumphant on the dove, a hawklike bird of prey. Staring back at me. And just like that, the hawk spread its wings and lifted off with the dove clenched in its talons. 

WOW. Ok what just happened? This is so bizarre and jarring. I left the conference call and walked over to the feathers on the ground and looked around. All was back to normal.

I looked over to the phone and immediately took in the placement of this shocking event. What does this mean? What a shocking display of animal spirit tearing into my experience and interrupting my Darth Vader meeting of darkness that was coming for my soul. Or at least my peace. What synchronicity this was. It felt like a sign. 

So, I looked it up. “What does it mean, spiritually, when you see a hawk take its prey?” Not in my topical  Bible index of course but in the slightly less holy writ of Google. And not to disappoint, one  tradition, with highly ranked first page search engine optimization on Google, believes what I saw,  “… represents abundance, and that you’ll always be able to care for yourself and your family.” 

Okaaaaaaayyyy. Maybe it IS a sign. And  you know what? At this crossroads of cynicism verses belovedness – I’ll take it. Today the Lord speaks in mysterious ways. Today I still have the power to choose Belovedness. Today God reached through the fabric of my normal and used nature to get my attention. “Hey, hey you. I’m still here. You’re still mine. All this is mine. Keep your eyes on me”.

Also, weirder things have happened. So why shouldn’t they happen to me?

But I also know that even without this bird-sign interruption, I would get to remembrance of resting eventually. Yet this sign helped me get there sooner as it felt personal, caring. And maybe there’s a reason for my needing to get there sooner. Maybe my steadiness is needed now. I determine to remember, “I have the power to set the tone. I can show my children we remain Beloved, come what may.”

So many times the pattern in my life has been God sending me signs – reminders of my belovedness. Reminders of whose I am and of what really matters. I choose to take in those synchronicities, signs and wonders. 

I am reminded that, be it little or big problems, short or prolonged, I do not suffer without hope. Hope of the Spirit’s presence with me here and now, within me, even going before me, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of hosts”. What a gift! 

Now most of my life my guidance has been found primarily in Scripture or “special revelation”. But sometimes, general revelation speaks a word of truth. Today I am going to let nature, or “general revelation” speak to me. Reveal to me. Shake me out of my doubts and back into Beloved’s Presence. 

PS – Since our larger conversation is also about race and injustice, I want to include that when I hear white people say, “God always takes care of me” that it has given my body a reaction and I think “That might also be because you have historically had many safety nets available to you that minorities have not. So it’s easy for you to say that you magically always come out on top”. And I am aware of how it may sound naive when white people say “God always takes care of me materially”. So I write about my hope and trust while also acknowledging how white people have designed a whole system of safety nets to keep us materially and financially stable more easily. And that feels unfair and unfair to attribute it only to God. So I want to acknowledge the unfairness and realness. And the discomfort I have writing something that could sound or even BE ignorant and unfair. I’m here to hold this up to the light and explore that discomfort with you. 

Staying centered for me is greatly helped by a trifecta of things that combat the anxiety of caring. The tension that can sometimes creep up on me when I want to see changes sooner than they want to come. When people or situations aren’t changing soon enough I feel the tension. Especially if I believe what needs to change is causing pain, harm or the perpetuation of injustice.

PHYSICAL:SPIRITUAL:SOCIAL

PHYSICAL: I find that putting my body through a morning routine gives me the best chance at sustaining my mental energy, clarity, peace and probably a cocktail of calming hormones to boot. Meditation, exercise, cold plunge, vitamins and coffee. If this drops off during a time of stress, then other things begin to de-optimize as well. The world suddenly becomes a more difficult place to maintain optimism in.

SOCIAL: You know those activist friends who just ‘get’ you? It is indescribably life-giving for me to connect with these precious ones over the issue that is troubling me. They ‘get’ me or at least they hear me out with a deep listen and offer of support. And this makes a noticeable difference to my nervous system right away. We do this for each other and over time it becomes like a safety net of support. We hold each other up.

SPIRITUAL: For me, this intellectual-spiritual part is huge. It begins more heady than feely. But it deeply effects the feely parts. Thinking on these larger issues like “Who am I? Why am I here? And why now? What is the world for? Who, what and where is God/Source/Spirit in all this?” matters. Really contemplating these and allowing myself to come to new conclusions over time helps me reconnect with myself and feel connected to the Divine as well. 

When I remember what I believe about who I am and why I came here this helps me stay centered. When I think of how much I’ve changed, this gives me hope that we live in an ever-changing and ever-evolving world where others can change too. In fact, we can’t not change, eventually. 

I’ll briefly summarize what has been calming to me recently. It begins with considering that perhaps before I was born here in this lifetime I was some form of soul-energy with God in God’s place or dimension of heavenly life forces. And at some point we decided that I would come to this place at this time for a purpose that would unfold as my life. The key is that I came not only for the easy parts, but for the whole range of feelings within this experience. 

In short, I have felt both better within the tension and more confidently propelled to act as I have accepted that in this world I will have, see and experience troubles. That trouble and tension are inevitably part of it. And it doesn’t even need to mean I have done something wrong. It just is. Yet I live here in physical form as a learner knowing that I came to experience both joy and pain, both flow and tension. So also, I bear witness to both justice and injustice. It is all here and I came to interact with all of it. Where I choose to focus my energy this time around is my choice. And I will feel better if I focus it on my Main Purpose. Recalibrating to this makes me feel calmed almost immediately. Then I trust that opportunities will come for me to do the next right inspired action toward positive change. 

I also come humbly acknowledging that it is possible that there may have been another time here where I was the oppressor, not yet ready to work on behalf of the oppressed. Considering this likelihood shakes me out of my smug slumber like a cold plunge and helps me seek to understand those around me with both humility and empathy. It does not mean that I excuse injustice. No, it gives me pause enough to be curious about what is going on in ‘the other’ to try and understand it. In understanding, I feel more empowered to help promote shalom more effectively in the situation.  

In my considering my choicefulness in coming here at this time, I have hope. I hope because I have a sense of power over who I become and the spirit in which I choose to live here. I believe that the world does not have to be perfect for me to be able to achieve peace within it. And I try to remember that I am a more effective leader as one centered and in peace. Though I cannot always maintain a peaceful escape from the tensions, I can lean on my practices and trust that rebalance will happen. So I hope as I move forward and rediscover my purpose and my place at this time. It helps me to feel both small in light of time and big in this place at this time. Both ok with being insignificant and yet significantly empowered within to do what is right now.   

My hope returns when I get enough energy going to determine not to give my power away to overwhelm or any condition. I get centered again and feel hope in the knowing of peace unconditionally now. In imagining what I can do about it all now, beginning in me. Of knowing that I can effect changes both within and around me now that will continue to unfold in good ways, laying tracks of positivity into my future.

I identify with the “disoriented” descriptor because—in many ways—white Christian nationalism still disorients me. Having grown up in a denomination where most people refuse to say the pledge of allegiance, I find myself utterly confused when I meet Christians who revere the flag as if God Himself created it. I still find myself thrown totally off-guard when people start talking about the United States as if it is a new Israel or pull scripture out of context and try to apply it to the United States. I know that all of this is a thing. Despite all of the consciousness of the dangers of mixing Jesus and country in the Quaker church, I still see it happen, so I am mentally aware of it. But it surprises me every single time.

“Deconstructing” also resonates with me because I think that I am very much still in the process of shedding some of this ideology from my life and faith. Something that I struggle with is inappropriate caretaking. Growing up, it was always my job—as the oldest sister—to mother my siblings. When my husband began to struggle with alcoholism in the early years of our marriage, I fell into the role of mothering him. And unfortunately, I sometimes bring this energy into my other relationships. I think I know what is best for everyone, and that is very much—in addition to weird family dynamics and response to trying to save my husband—a product of white Christian nationalism. I have to work very hard to pull myself back when I feel this tendency and others coming up. I almost wonder if I will always be deconstructing this, to a certain extent.

Some next steps for me are to keep learning and to keep disentangling. Also, however, I think that a big next step for me lies in that concept of being that we have been talking so much about. I have to keep reminding myself that I am beloved, and so is everyone else. I have to keep allowing God’s love and grace to be the thing that humbles me, guides me, and girds me.

I wasn’t born into a family that followed a religious pathway, the exception being that all babies were christened in the Church of England at 6 weeks old. I never saw anyone pray and we only went to church if invited to attend a wedding.

I always prayed, I don’t know how I knew about prayer, but it was something I did in secret.

My earliest memory of religion was when an uncle married a Catholic girl. I had no idea what that meant, but from the whispered conversations among the grown ups I gathered it was not an ideal situation. Worse still was the children of that marriage had to be raised Catholic! I was desperate to know what it meant, but it was clearly on the list of topics to be avoided like the plague.

By the time I reached 28, the search for meaning hit breaking point. For 6 months, I had what I would call a dark night of the soul when life felt bleak and pointless.

A friend from work suggested I make an appointment with a local clairvoyant that she had experience with. It was with reluctance that I went, but it became a turning point in my life. This lovely lady sat in her kitchen and relayed messages from my ancestors about things that I had no knowledge of, but that would later be confirmed by my family. This confirmation then gave me reason to believe in the accuracy of other things that were given. Here was proof that the soul lives on and proved to me that there was more to life than the pursuit of material things.

The experience set me on a life long pursuit for spiritual knowledge that led to the discovery of Christward Ministry and the mystical teachings of the Reverend Flower A. Newhouse, who wrote: Those who follow a mystical path are desirous of knowing God, not through belief but through firsthand and direct contact. Striving for a greater union with God brings a person deeper devotions and insights, which illumine their consciousness. When one achieves this, he or she knows peace, a resurgence of transformation and joy.

A time arrives in the life of every true seeker when it is not enough to simply believe in God. The greatest need is to know God.

I had come home! Finally I found the path and the word that filled the void – Mysticism. The Mystical path has given me an embodied, sacred relationship with all creation, be that the beauty of a flower or the beauty of a young soul that God has placed in my path through my work in the juvenile justice system. The realization that every soul and every experience I encounter is filled with God’s spirit deepens and informs my capacity to be of service. It was a long journey, but one that has led to a life that now overflows with meaning!

Image Source: www.questhaven.org