Journal Entry - 8/22/2008

It's beginning . . .

"It is as if the world we perceive through our senses - that whole gorgeous and terrible pageant - were the breath-thin surface of a bubble, and everything else, inside and outside, is pure radiance. Both suffering and joy come then like a brief reflection, and death like a pin."
Stephen Michell

I discovered today that I am - the other pin.

This awareness arrived on my doorstep today with significant impact, though I am certain it has been building for a very long time. I'm not even certain I can express what has transpired - the darkness and the light - yet I continue to see some synchronicity behind it.

Recently, over the last two weeks, we watched again a movie called The Celestine Prophecy, read the book of the same title, and read the companion book The Tenth Insight. Because the subject of these is spiritual awareness, my mind has been focused on my own spiritual path. I have felt lost spiritually, since I realized I had completed my previous purpose, and I wasn't certain that anything relating to my spiritual growth was in my future. Surprisingly it wasn't this movie or these books alone that served to trigger the recent awareness.

I had finished my work week on Friday morning, taking my turn on third shift for the construction project I was on, and I only slept a few hours after arriving home. I knew my wife was planning to bring us some lunch home after noon, so I decided to preview an "R" rated movie we rented entitled The Life Before Her Eyes. We watch very few movies with this rating, and prefer to preview them before allowing our teens to see them.

The background for this story is the violence of a high school shooting and the affect it had in the lives of two best-friends. But a more subtle, yet primary, element was the near-death experience of one of the two friends. The movie was very well done, and left me impacted emotionally.

I turned the TV off but left the DVD in the player, and decided to spend some time on the computer updating my blog page and responding to emails. I got distracted from the computer after printing out my signature which contains the quote by Stephen Mitchell, and needed to take a bathroom break. During that break I was rereading the quote and thinking about the pin and the purpose it served. At the same time I recalled the premise of love that was the basis for all the spiritual elements and insights from the Celestine Prophecy, and how horribly inadequate and lacking I felt of that key quality - though I've sought to understand and express it in my own life for decades.

Rather than return to the computer, the thought of whether there were any special features on the movie DVD came to mind. I often find these of interest. Seeing the forethought, intention, and effort behind these movies often gives me a greater appreciation for them. I reviewed the list of topics and chose one entitled Beyond and Back. It turned out to be narratives from individuals recalling their near-death experiences. One woman, whose voice was soft and sincere, seemed to affect me the most, and my eyes started to tear up. It wasn't until she described the - infinite unconditional love - that it struck me. I burst out crying uncontrollably.

Though I sensed that my tears were initiated by a lack of, and a deep longing for, that unconditional love, it was soon replaced by another sense. It was a powerful sense of awareness - God-like in nature - but it didn't relate to me in the third person. It related to me in the first person. It was as though God was telling me you don't know who you are, but he was impressing it upon me so that I sensed it as I don't know who I am.

In that moment the doubt and lacking I felt in regards to such love was erased. Though I am uncertain how it will find expression in my life - I know its there.

Also in that moment I realized that I was to be another pin - not the pin of death - by which the bubble is popped and we are able to bridge this life into the radiance surrounding us.