"To journey without being changed is to be a nomad.
To change without journeying is to be a chameleon.
To journey and to be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim."
Mark Nepo, Being a Pilgrim, Book of Awakening, Jan. 30
I always tell people that God always has been my best spiritual director, and for most of you, too, I hope this is true!
I say this because I have followed a long path to get to what I now believe is my TRUTH!
It has been so exhausting sometimes, but always, I've kept on walking...following...believing...simply because...I knew it was the truth!
The irony is that I didn't know I was even searching for anything, when I was first grabbed onto this path of what has now become my life.
It is true that I was feeling disconnected from my community of friends when the whole thing started more than 20 years ago. But ...I don't think I was looking to change my total view on life and living.
Now, here we are.
The passage of truth that I have followed did lead me to first, positive thinking!
Yes, I had a time with that...turning around my thinking, then my life...day by day, as I removed a negative "thinking" orientation of people, places and things.
It wasn't that I had a high degree of negativity in any one area. It simply was that I learned "thoughts are things," and they create our reality.
Once I got that, I began to embrace a fuller life.
My life began to manifest the richness of my thinking, and I truly felt rewarded for my hard work and the struggle.
I should have, and could have, rested there. God knows...so many DO!
Except there was that sense, within me, of knowing that this was not The Full Truth!
So, along the road I went again with my bundles of questions...curiousity...restlessness.
This led to a deepening of my faith in God, but it also led to a disquietude in my Soul about the sole path I was then following.
This unrest became even more pronounced, as the light on the road I was on...dimmed...turning almost into darkness.
So, many, many times, I could not see my foot in front of me...so dark was the road.
I tried everything.
Positive affirmations.
Positive thinking.
Truth...Truth...TRUTH...
I read the books...books...more books.
I heard the tapes and CDs. I meditated on the tapes...I lived the tapes.
I went to church services.
I wanted to believe ...
in the good...and ONLY in the good.
I wanted to believe that God was good and merciful and that I was not walking this darkened path alone, as I struggled to stay faithful to the new and emerging truths manifesting in my life.
I kept on walking....knowing that I was treading on dangerous ground about all I had learned up to that time.
The one thing...the one sure thing...the one sure truth...was that I was NOT walking alone!
As I dared to step beyond the prior boundaries I had exercised with my faith, I dared to continue to believe in God. I crept even closer to him, believing that this force which had taken me out of the womb of my mother's body and had held me in its grasp ever since ...would continue to hold me, as I stumbled and fumbled along life's highways.
By then, the previous path I was walking on...began to make... very little sense! There was no room for anything but positive thinking and denial of the bad showing up in your life! Huh?!
How can you say...how can you say...God is ALL Good...that if I think positive...be positive....act positive, everything was gonna to be okay!?
I was taught not to believe in evil...in no power but God! Yet, evil had me in its grasps, challenging me daily as I struggled to smile...to continue to smile...through life.
"There is only one Presence and Power: God, the Good, the Omnipotent!
"Oh help me, lord, I believe...help my unbelief!"
Yes. Those were times of testing.
During this time, the teachings that began to make the most sense to me came from my training as a spiritual director. This training, though ecumenically focused, was led mostly by Catholic nuns and priests...and lay people of the Catholic faith.
I remembered well the teachings about St. Francis and Therese of Avila and many other saints who had struggled in their growing relationship with God.
This brought me comfort.
Although I was baptized and brought up in the Episcopal Church and considered myself non-denominational, I sought refuge in Catholic services and prayer in the Catholic monasteries surrounded by the Carmelite nuns in the background. I'd come to know a few over the years. I knew they embraced me in their daily prayer.
Being in the monastery ALWAYS brought me peace.
Even as I grew closer to embracing Catholicism, with all its flaws, I continued to embrace the "positive thinkers."
I realized there was still so much truth in all they said.
The thing I also realized is that positive thinking SIMPLY is NOT enough!
You can be as positive as you want to be...
Your Soul has bought the full rights to your LIFE!
It always will get a hearing...it always will claim those rights...no matter in whose arms you seek refuge.
I fought my Soul.
Oh...I how fought my Soul!
I did not want to walk its path of truth...because this continued to be of brumble...bushes...and wilderness experiences.
Yet, I respected it enough to follow where it led me.
Along with my growing commitment to Catholicism, I was led to begin a study of Mysticism.
This opened up a whole world!
It continues to open up a whole new world for me.
Now, I understand...I've stopped fighting with my Soul.
I understand about My Soul...
about the journey all its own...
I understand why I must do what I must do...
I understand that as positive as I want to be...
My Soul always will have the final say.
I'm at peace with that...
I'm fully, totally at peace with that...
Because you know...
those who spoke about "thinking positive...and only positive"... all those wonderful teachers whose books I've read...all those tapes I've listened to...all those classes I've attended...all those sermons I've heard...
they are true...
"There is only ONE true Power in the Universe...and that is God."
That is TRUTH.
But as far as anything else, especially about positive thinking being enough...that is only part, a very, very small part...of THE TRUTH, as I've come to know it.
It doesn't matter the path you follow...Catholicism, Judaism, Protestantism, Mohammedism, Hinduism, Buddhism et al...
Without the right consciousness [here, affirmations can, and do, help]...without the right guide...indeed without God...without following Your Soul...
You will know everything but...The TRUTH!
The way you get to know your Soul is by sitting with it...in Silence...By praying with it, as you would your best friend, because it is...always inviting you in. Keep reaching in...you'll connect!"
"You shall know the truth, and it shall set you FREE!"
Namaste',
Che'
NOTE: I highly recommend two recent media on testing faith and discovering TRUTH: "After Shock," is a book by Kent Annan, director of a non-profit in Haiti, and "The Rite," starring Anthony Hopkins.
