The Answer to Attack

Daddy and me.
Halloween 1979


Everything seems to be coming together. I know I'm on track now and it all started with the simple act of following through with the message I received in my meditation: Write a blog to share your spiritual experiences. I don't know if there has been more than one person who has read my blog but that doesn't seem to matter. I started writing about my experiences and I became inspired again. I realized my life had become stagnant and I wanted to have more beautiful experiences. I felt an urgency to bring my life back to God, so I started to do the lessons in A Course in Miracles. First the lessons led me to Lisa who could provide me guidance and the motivation to keep going. The lessons have, in turn, had a profound impact on my consciousness. Now I couldn't feel more ready to give up all of my control over to God. Besides I never really was in control of my life anyway. I know what happens when I try to take control and it has left me feeling a sense of lack. What do I have to lose by putting my faith in God? Nothing. What do I have to gain? I believe everything.

This is what my whole life has been leading up to. I have this very entertaining book called, "The Hidden Truth of Your Name". I don't know how much truth there is to it, if any, but there were some things that did seem to fit. Particularly the Runic interpretation. I really don't know anything about runes though. It says, "She is flexible and broad-minded and keeps voluminous journals of her experiences". I do have many journals. "The Ansuz energy of communication," whatever that is, "in her name gives her writing talent." I don't know how much talent, but I sure love to write. "She is also interested in the advocacy for children." That couldn't be more accurate. I might have to create another blog dedicated to my mission to teach children. "She is spiritually advanced," rather than using those words, I would probably say I have a stronger desire to know truth than some people, "and generous with her time and energy. She has a mission!"

I have felt that I have been on a mission since I was a child. I've always wanted to be helpful and make people happy. I think it was when I was four, I told my mom I wanted to join the circus and be a clown because I wanted to make people laugh. Then there was the time when I was about eight and one of my new friends didn't know about Jesus and had never owned a Bible. So, I went home to get my Bible, took it over to her house and we prayed for Jesus to come into her heart. I was going to a private Christian school at the time and had probably been saved five or six times. I just wanted to make sure it stuck I guess.

I was a very social child and wanted to be friends with everyone, it didn't matter what their age was or how rich or poor or how smart. I remember telling my mom that I don't think of my friends as just kids, that I think they're like adults but with little bodies. Maybe this explains why I had such a great friendship with a mentally disabled man in my neighborhood. All the kids called him Big Mike. He was one of my best friends for quite a while. I don't think I realized he was mentally disabled or that he was even an adult. I asked him one time why his voice was so deep and he told me, "I have a frog in my throat." I thought, "ok, his voice is just hoarse." I think my step dad was trying to explain to me one time that he was an adult and not a child. He told me Big Mike was retarded. I didn't get it though. I said, "Big Mike is not retarded. He's my friend!" How dare he call Big Mike retarded!

I remember wanting to know and understand everything. Some of my favorite books were an encyclopedia for children, this huge dictionary that held volumes of different kinds of dictionaries and my book about volcanoes. I asked so many questions I think I drove my parents crazy. I have a home video of a trip to the zoo when I was eight years old. In one part of the video we were in the polar bear building looking into the tank at the polar bears. I asked my Dad, in my little southern drawl which I've since lost, "Daddy, how deep is that?" I asked him this same question about five times before he finally answered, "pretty deep".

I still want to know and understand everything, but now I've learned to look inward for the truth. Some of my more puzzling spiritual experiences I'm finally understanding what they mean. There was one experience in particular that I never really understood. It was two days after the planes hit the Twin Towers. I felt I needed to do something but I didn't know what I could possibly do being in Missouri at the time without the money to travel to NY to help. So I meditated hoping to get an answer. The answer was, "Go Ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I am with you always. Amen." I thought, "how is that supposed to help now? I am teaching and have been for quite awhile. How is that relevant to now?" I was teaching at that time with a spiritual organization. I was teaching people how to use their minds and how to meditate to know God. So, I just understood the answer to mean just keep doing what your doing.

That was sort of what it meant but now I can see the awesome weight of the meaning. I was angry at the attack on the World Trade Center as was everyone. I was fearful, as was everyone. No one could understand why this happened. All of these good people died, for what!?! There had to be some reason for it or why would God let it happen. Well, God didn't make it happen. People made it happen. They had forgotten to love their brother and that we all were created in love by God. Our egos convince us we are separate and we have our own agenda and our agenda is right. Attack happens when there is conflict about what is right, when someone perceives someone else is trying to destroy what is right.

I like how A Course in Miracles puts it, "Anger always involves projection of separation, which must ultimately be accepted as one's own responsibility, rather than being blamed on others. Anger cannot occur unless you believe that you have been attacked, that your attack is justified in return, and that you are in no way responsible for it. Given these three wholly irrational premises, the equally irrational conclusion that a brother is worthy of attack rather than of love must follow. What can be expected from insane premises except an insane conclusion? The way to undo an insane conclusion is to consider the sanity of the premises on which it rests. You cannot be attacked, attack has no justification, and you are reponsible for what you believe." It then says this in a paragraph further down, "Remember always that what you believe you will teach." Here is the message: "Teach only love, for that is what you are."

"Go ye therefore and teach all nations." To teach all nations, the message that is taught must be universal. What is more universal than love? "Baptizing them in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." To be baptized is to wash your sins away. Your sins are all your mis-perceptions, when you have forgotten to love. Love washes your sins away. To know love is to awaken to who you really are as God created you. When we have all re-awakened to who we are there can be no conflict. When there is light, darkness can no longer exist.

I don't want this world or myself to be conflicted. I don't want to see my brothers attacking each other. I don't want to attack or feel attacked any longer. There really is no justification in it. This is way I place my life in God's hands. Only he knows what I need.

The lessons I have done so far in A Course in Miracles are "baptizing" me. I just need to keep telling that little devil on my shoulder, my ego, I'm not going to listen to it anymore. This morning I opened my Bible to Matthew chapter 4. I couldn't have asked for anything more relevant to what I've been going through. It's the part where the devil tempts Jesus. The devil says this can all be yours if you just bow down and worship me. Jesus says, "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." I love that response, "Get thee hence, Satan!" Next time my ego tempts me by saying something it says often, "what are you getting yourself into!?!" I will say to it, "Get thee hence, Satan!" and then I will flick it off my shoulder. And then I'll say, "I am only going to do what God wills, because my will is God's Will." I know what I am getting into is way better than anything my ego has ever gotten me into. I'm excited to see what happens next.