We interrupt this blog

because today's letter would be redundant. Day 13 is who do you want to forgive you. I have put a great deal of thought into this one. There are a few people out there harboring grudges, but most of those people, in my opinion, don't have anything to be angry about. Or they may already be over it and just don't want to be friends. If that is the case, I share the sentiment. They were not good to me and I don't need them in my life. I don't wish them ill; mostly I don't think about them at all. In fact, pretty much not at all until I was looking into every corner of my brain to find someone for this letter.


The only person that I really feel like this could possibly apply to is my friend Jennifer from college. In fact, I wrote her a fairly lengthy letter last fall (4 pages) and made her a mix CD. The letter still sits on my bureau and the mix CD is in my travel bag. I love it. I know that there is something wrong with that picture. I have mentally skated around this one for about a year now, and I have come to understand that this is where this relationship was going to end no matter what. I feel really badly about bailing on her when I did, but I realize that I was going to bail. I have called and left messages on her phone four or five times, and she's not returning my calls, so.... I would venture to say that she is done. And she is still involved with the abusive boyfriend. That would mean that since 1993 she has chained herself to abusive men. How long can a person watch that and hear about it before they have to walk away? When you love someone, their hurt is your hurt, and it would have been daggers into my soul. Being with my ex for three years darn near sent me to the grave. Three years. I don't know how she is still standing. And she doesn't want help. So, there is no letter here that would fix anything. What would I say? I am sorry I left when I did, however it was going to happen eventually, but call me when you break up with your abuser? That would just piss her off. So, it is what it is. We will just stick with it where it is. I miss her. The old her. A person that probably doesn't exist anymore because her spirit has been crushed into something unrecognizable. Moving on...

Carol the Gardener said she missed my regular posts. The letters were nice and all, but she preferred the way my blog used to roll... or something like that. The way my blog used to roll was anything goes, for those of you who are new. Anything can happen and sometimes did! Mostly it was me just spewing out whatever was on my mind that day. That week. That month. Before I got into the letter thing, I was doing some actual BlogTherapy on myself. For Real. When I called this blog, Blog Therapy I was talking more about just being able to speak freely. Well, as it turned out, it became actual Therapy. And all of you became the Therapists. Very.Big.Important.Job. The letters went hand in hand with it, which is why I took them on. Don't know if I have shared that I have cried through the writing of most of them. Not all, but most. So, I think it's working.


On occasion, I have shared my dreams here. Well, I had this dream a couple of nights ago and I have been DYING to tell you guys about it. But there was Song Saturday and the letter yesterday and no one reads blogs on the weekends. So, finally my opportunity has arrived. *sigh* Taking a deep breath. Letting it out. Unlike some people, I have fairly vivid dreams. The last thing that happens, as you might imagine, I remember best. The further back I go, the less details I can remember. This one was so intriguing that I jumped carefully got out of bed, and dragged myself into my parents' office. Of course, they had been awake for hours. I had to tell them about this dream. I should have gone back to my room and written it down in my dream journal ~ pronto ~ but I was tired and went back to bad. Mental head smack! Okay, here it is...

Back up. Do you remember my dream about my h.s. friend who was on fire? If not, you can read that one here. He was in this dream, too. Not so surprising this time. I had sent him an email about My Idea, so he was on my mind. When I told him about the fire dream, he told me he had a dream about a group of friends (me included) going to college together. For the record, none of us went to college together. Moving forward again.


Scene 1 My high school drama teacher, MKB, and I are poring over my schedule for my freshman year of college. I am having difficulty with it. In this scenario, I am majoring in theatre instead of music (something I now wish I had done), and am trying to find a way to balance out my core classes and my theatre classes. One of the problems is the Intro to Theatre class. MKB is teaching theatre at my college. As I get frustrated with it, she tells me to skip it. She will sign off on it. I don't need that class. Just take the next required class b/c that is really where I should be starting anyway. Now my schedule works out. *More importantly, MKB was the first person who overtly believed in me in high school. I owe her a great deal because she changed my life. Because she believed in me, I believed in me, too.


Scene 2 Still in college, but at a council meeting of some kind. I am not on the council, but I am watching. One of my friends from hs is on the council. He is a person who frustrates me now on facebook. I have seen him be very argumentative with other people from hs in their status boxes when they don't share his opinion. He can get pretty ugly about it. He considers himself to be a Christian, but he is very political and in your face about the whole thing. However, he has sent me email saying things like he doesn't understand why people don't want to be his friend. He thinks he is respectful of other people's views, but others are not respectful of his. I believe that he believes what he is saying. He is very blind to his own actions. I suggested that he stop talking about religion and politics since they are hot topics. He might be greeted with more friendliness. In this meeting, every time another council person says something to which he objects, he mutters loudly something to the effect that it is crap. BS, that person can't think straight. And on and on and on. *It was another reminder that people's views on religion and politics are pretty well set in stone. Trying to change them is a waste of time. Arguing about them doesn't do anything but isolate you. The worst thing you can do to get someone to consider your opinion on anything is to be disrespectful of theirs.

Scene 3 MKB, The Burning Man, and I are sitting in the hall at college. This wasn't my college or high school campus. It reminds me now of the high school where Rory Gilmore went on Gilmore Girls. It was grandiose. Big staircase and marble floors. MKB was doing most of the talking. She was saying how sad it was that every time she turned around that the buildings were getting closer and closer. She directed our attention to the closest window and indicated that there was no view. All you could see was another building.


We were then outside and she pointed to Something in the sky and said how much she liked looking at it. She then pointed to a park bench and said that she used to spend hours on that park bench enjoying that view. We all walked to the park bench. A building had been put up between the Something and the park bench. She couldn't see it anymore from the bench. She asked us what a person should do in that situation. I don't know remember if it was The Burning Man or me, but someone suggested finding another park bench that still had a view of the Something. That was the right answer. *This was about overcoming problems. I think she was saying that into every life problems are going to fall. Or happen. And it is ongoing. The people who succeed are the people who are problem solvers. You have to get creative. You can sit on the park bench and bemoan your lack of the view that you used to have OR you can find another park bench. It is as simple and as difficult as that. The next park bench won't be as familiar to you or as lovely. It won't have the memories that the old one had. Yeah, that sucks. So, you have to choose. What is more important? Was it the bench you loved or the view? You don't always have to choose one or the other. In some cases, you can have both. The bench or the view. You just don't get them simultaneously anymore.


Scene 4 The first part of this is just me at some kind of function where there is a bunch of food laid out. Make that desserts. I am not a sweets eater. I pretty much always take a pass on dessert. Or I will eat a little something. In this case, it all looked wonderful. So good that I had two plates full of nothing but desserts. I topped the last one off with donuts. When I dream about donuts, I know what is happening. *For me, dreaming about sweets means that I am STRESSED OUT. I only crave sweet stuff when my adrenal gland is getting really blasted my brain for cortisol (the stress hormone). Of course, my adrenal gland really doesn't work anymore, so it is borrowing from my other hormones, making my hormonal imbalance worse, making my migraines worse, making my pain worse, making my stress worse, making the circle of pain worse. When I dream about sweets and donuts, I am STRESSED TO THE MAX. That is a sign to me that I must do WHATEVER IT TAKES to bring me back down to earth.


Scene 4 Cont. After I walked me and my two plates of desserts over to a chair. Why don't they have tables at events like these? How am I going to eat all of this crap when there is no table? I sit my plates on the floor. They never did get touched by my lips, btw. As soon as I sat down, I got really cold. So cold, that from out of nowhere I produced a blanket and wrapped myself in it. Sort of like one those things you put a mental patient in. My mind is gone and I can't think of the word. Anyway, turns out that what we were there for was a magic show. Yay. The Burning Man was the magician. He was producing balls of light out of nowhere and people were catching them and holding them in their hands. They were beautiful. He sent one my way, but I couldn't catch it, because I was all tied up in my blanket. So, it hit my shoulder and rolled off. At that point, I started struggling to free myself from the blanket. Finally, I was rid of the blanket. He sent another ball my way and I was able to catch it. Of course, when I caught it, I understood that it wasn't real. It was an illusion. It had no substance to it. *Of course, there is the message that magic is an illusion. Always was, always will be. What was important here is that you can't catch any of the good things life sends your way if you are all bound up. You have to have your hand stretched out wide open in order to get the good stuff. I think it was more about playing it safe versus taking chances. You can play it safe and stay huddled in your blanket. Or you can live wide, with your hands held out, ready to grab hold of everything beautiful heading your way.


Naturally, I am open to your interpretation of my dream. Or just your thoughts on whatever. I love your comments.


images found at www.weheartit.com

MY THEORY ON GOD

A friend posted the question that never gets old: does God exist? This is a tough question, folks, and if you are not an open thinker, I strongly advise you to skip this blog. Come back for something light-hearted and fun. Religion and politics are tough subjects for some people; they have their minds made up and don't want to hear anything else. You know what? I'm okay with that. The deal is I accept what other people believe. I let them have it and don't judge them for it. I figure that they put some thought into what they believe and anything I say won't change it. With that in mind...


I grew up in the United Methodist Church. The first book I bought for myself was on ESP. It never occurred to me that the two were mutually exclusive. I believed in what the Bible said. I also believed in ESP. In the eleventh grade, a good friend of mine loaned me a book by Richard Bach called ILLUSIONS. I think that was the second book that blew my mind. THE OUTSIDERS was the first. Ironically, she was reading it in Sunday School class. That would never have flown at my church. It isn't a long read in terms of time, so I read it repeatedly. Good thing I wasn't still doing the Sunrise Service.

I tried to find something on Wikipedia to adequately explain, in brief, what this book was about. This was the best I got: "Donald Shimoda is one of the two main characters in Illusions. He is a messiah who leaves his job of being a messiah (and also of being a mechanic at a garage) after deciding that people value the showbiz-like performance of miracles and want to be entertained by those miracles more than to understand the message behind them. He meets Richard, a fellow barn-storming pilot and begins to pass on his knowledge to him, even teaching Richard to perform "miracles" of his own." Well, that is sadly lacking. Donald Shimoda has in his glovebox a "Messiah's Handbook" which Richard discovers. Each time he opens it, the message is different. He discovers that the message he gets is the one he most needs. For instance, "Perspective - Use It or Lose It. If you turned to this page, you're forgetting that what is going on around you is not reality. Think about that."

That right there was enough to blow my mind. WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND YOU IS NOT REALITY. THINK ABOUT THAT. My friend was learning this in Sunday School!!!!

Here's another: "The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in awhile, and watch your answers change."



And so began the great shift of my life. But, then again, not really. I was already fully capable of holding WHAT OTHER PEOPLE people believed to be mutually exclusive ideas in my head. What I was really doing was expanding, opening, making way for more knowledge. That can be a little scary. So, my senior year of high school I read The Bible. I read the entire Bible, voluntarily, cover to cover, and joined a Bible study group.

I also read every Richard Bach book I could get my hands on. He has written quite a few. He addresses all manner of interesting concepts. ILLUSIONS just picked up where JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL left off and went on to address many philosophical issues. If I had to guess I would say that Mr. Bach believes in God. He believes in a lot of the same stuff I believe in, but we haven't gotten there yet.

In fact, I thought this blog was going to be about this dream I had and then this experience my cousin had, and now I know that I am going to have to write yet ANOTHER blog to get to ALL OF THAT another day.

Instead, I am stuck sharing what I learned from my Bible reading, and what life experience I have thus far. Keep this in mind, I didn't have all of these opinions in the 12th grade, and I have gone back and read some Bible since. I don't like most of The Old Testament. I don't. I don't think most of it makes sense. I think a lot of it is parable or allegory or representational or whatever. I think they are lessons of what you should and shouldn't do. One of the things that I dislike most about The Old Testament is right here: "God's Chosen People." I am apologizing to any Jews who are taking offense right now. That is not an anti-Semitic statement. I don't think God is anti-anybody. I don't think any race, gender, religion, or person with the "right" color of hair has proprietary rights to God. I don't think a person with red hair gets their prayers answered more, faster, or better than someone with blond or brown hair. Wars are fought over this. People have died over this issue dating pre-Christ. This is not a new problem.


Some of the Psalms are really beautiful and some really speak to the sadness that people still feel today. I can get behind that. I like The New Testament better than The Old Testament. I still look at it and think about how long it was between when the events happened and how long before they were put on paper. I know they got some of it wrong. No, I didn't just get struck by lightning. Did you know that all of the disciples wrote a book on Jesus's life? Do you know why that they aren't in The Bible? They were TOO DIFFERENT from the other accounts. John's account is pretty far from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They were stretching it with him. Do you know why they went with Paul's stuff, instead of all the other people who followed Jesus and spanned out to tell the message? Paul went to Rome. Rome was in power. The Pope was in Rome. The Pope decided what got put in The Bible and what didn't. It was pure politics. I know that doesn't please some of you. I wasn't happy when I found it out, either.

Now, let's set all of that aside. The question was, does God exist? Let's say He does. Just go with me. And God sends down "special" people from time to time to try and get humanity on a better track. The Bible calls them prophets, because they seem to "know" things. I would call them psychics today. However, there was all that strife I was talking about before in the OT (bad stuff, wars, slavery, etc), and it wasn't much better when Jesus was born. The Church could have, and should have been, making the lives of its parishioners easier, but it wasn't. It was taxing them to death. People were paying money they didn't have so that they didn't go to hell. It was bad. The Church was using God for profit. I wouldn't have wanted to be the person to upset that apple cart. The Church was Powerful.

So, here's what I think. God sent Jesus here to change how people saw God. The OT painted God as the God of Vengeance, the God of War, Burning Bush, Tower of Babel, Light You on Fire God. That is how the church got away with what they were doing. Jesus was special. Jesus was not only psychic. Jesus could remember what The Other Side looked like. He knew where He came from and where He was going to. He remembered what we forget when we are born. What was special about him was that He didn't forget his life plan. His plan was pretty simple actually. Change the way people see God. He was also not cluttered up with "reality" because he understood "reality" in a way that we don't. The only reason we can't walk on water is because we don't think we can. It's about perception and his was different because his reality was different. He needed that. People saw that as miracles. He needed the miracles to get everyone's attention. He had the power to heal because he believed he could.

He was tapped into something that we all have access to; we just don't know how to get there. We forget. He needed to remember in order to fulfill his purpose. People made his purpose bigger than what it was. They talk about "being saved." I think he probably said that. He wanted to save them from each other. He wanted them to stop fighting. He wanted them to stop claiming God, and using Him to hurt each other. People didn't understand. The one thing that they did get was the part about God being the Father and Jesus saying he was the Son. Do I think he meant he was the Only son? No. He wanted to let them know how God loved them. He loved them like a parent does a child, and not with vengeance. His message was simple. People made it complicated.

So, yeah, I think God does exist. I think he sent Jesus here with full knowledge of The Other Side, and God, and that was how he was able to do all of the amazing things that he did in his lifetime. I don't think that he died to save us from sin. Again, no lightning. I think he died because the church just couldn't have that kind of message going around that "you didn't need to tithe if you didn't have it, and God was a loving Father, instead of a God of Fire." I think that all of those people who die, and talk about seeing the white light or the white tunnel, are on their way to The Other Side. I think that people who talk to people who have already died, just before they die, are actually seeing and talking to their loved ones ~ they are in that in-between place ~ crossing the veil, so to speak ~ and on their way to The Other Side. I believe in a lot more than that, actually, but I have another blog to write. One of the best shows to address the God issue was Joan of Arcadia. I did a little feature of it on my other blog. There are a few clips that are well worth watching. If you are at all interested, you can click here and it will take you to that post. And I will save my dream/cousin story for another day.

Other suggested reading: THE OTHER SIDE AND BACK by Sylvia Browne