Friday, November 11, 2005
My Spiritual Biography
My mother's pregnancy with me was unexpected to say the least. Living with an abusive alcoholic, working full time and raising a 9 year old son with a Mensa IQ, getting pregnant was not on my mother's list of things to do. Knowing this, I could have believed that I was an accident. But when my mother sat in that abortion clinic 29 years ago and listened to a voice that prompted her to change her mind, the Universe was reminding me - a tiny fetus - that I was on purpose. Unborn, my first spiritual lesson was upon me - there are no accidents. And so began my life.
My mother was one of eleven children. I was raised in a family of 10 aunts and uncles who were, for the most part, fiercely intelligent, highly vocal and proclaimed atheists. From my first memories I was being introduced to principles such as "All the answers you need are inside you - you don't need to ask other people what is right or wrong" or "You don't live your life to get into heaven or avoid hell. They don't exist. You live your life right Now". Little did they know they were creating a future metaphysician.
They were also challenging my youthful wonderings about God. My Uncle Peter took me aside one Christmas and asked "Can God do anything?" I answered yes, of course. He then asked, "So can He make a rock that is unmovable?" I answered yes, of course. He then asked, "So can He move that rock?" Stammering now, I answered yes, of course. "Then," my Uncle concluded, "It follows that it is not true that God can do anything." Off he went to eat more butter tarts leaving a bewildered and confused eight year old in his path.
I spent the next 17 years in spiritual confusion. I wasn't sure what to believe. I watched my born again Christian friends. I resonated with the music and the community, but balked at their teachings. At Youth Group when they told those teens who wanted to be saved to stand, I would inevitably be the only person who would remain seated. Somehow I knew there was nothing to be saved from. Youth Group pastors would marvel at my passion when I sang their music and proclaim that Jesus was calling me home, but I resisted. Somehow it didn't fit.
I watched my atheist family. I resonated with their smarts and success, but witnessed often their unhappiness and disconnection. My mother tells me that as a little girl I called family holidays "holler-days" because my family together meant that everyone spent their time trying to speak the loudest and convince the rest that their way was the right way. That certainly did not feel right to me, either. I was surrounded my evangelists from two extremes and started to believe that I was destined to live in a spiritual no man's land.
Theatre became my religion. I know now that the high that sustains many performers is the sense of connection to something bigger when singing,dancing or acting. I became addicted to Theatre as it was the only place I could access that high. But when theatre started becoming more about agents and contracts and competition and masks so slick even I forgot who I was, I hit a wall. Lost and confused at 27, I picked up a book called Conversations with God.
That book changed my life. That book led to Friendship with God where I heard about Terry Cole Whittaker and New Thought. I researched on the internet, buzzing the way one does when they know they are close to finding a long, lost treasure. Eventually, I stumbled across the Centre for Conscious Living in Toronto, my home at the time. My ego voice screaming at the top of its lungs, I attended a Sunday service. I will never forget that Sunday. In the dark, deep seats of the Bloor Street Cinema with this radiantly happy woman finally saying out loud all the things I had felt were right for so long, I wept. As cliche as it might be, I had come home. I knew it. It all made sense.
It might have even been in that first Sunday that I decided that this is what I wanted to do with my life. To reach the world with this message and give hope to all the people silently, instinctively courting a Friendship with God, with Life, with It All, but thinking they are alone in their thinking and, perhaps, even slightly crazy.
I now live my life consciously. My problems haven't all gone away, but now I get that I have the power to choose differently and co-create my existence exactly as I want it to be. I am kinder, softer, quieter when I need to be and more accepting of the Big Krista when it is her turn to shine. I am Finding Me.
And so it is.
My mother was one of eleven children. I was raised in a family of 10 aunts and uncles who were, for the most part, fiercely intelligent, highly vocal and proclaimed atheists. From my first memories I was being introduced to principles such as "All the answers you need are inside you - you don't need to ask other people what is right or wrong" or "You don't live your life to get into heaven or avoid hell. They don't exist. You live your life right Now". Little did they know they were creating a future metaphysician.
They were also challenging my youthful wonderings about God. My Uncle Peter took me aside one Christmas and asked "Can God do anything?" I answered yes, of course. He then asked, "So can He make a rock that is unmovable?" I answered yes, of course. He then asked, "So can He move that rock?" Stammering now, I answered yes, of course. "Then," my Uncle concluded, "It follows that it is not true that God can do anything." Off he went to eat more butter tarts leaving a bewildered and confused eight year old in his path.
I spent the next 17 years in spiritual confusion. I wasn't sure what to believe. I watched my born again Christian friends. I resonated with the music and the community, but balked at their teachings. At Youth Group when they told those teens who wanted to be saved to stand, I would inevitably be the only person who would remain seated. Somehow I knew there was nothing to be saved from. Youth Group pastors would marvel at my passion when I sang their music and proclaim that Jesus was calling me home, but I resisted. Somehow it didn't fit.
I watched my atheist family. I resonated with their smarts and success, but witnessed often their unhappiness and disconnection. My mother tells me that as a little girl I called family holidays "holler-days" because my family together meant that everyone spent their time trying to speak the loudest and convince the rest that their way was the right way. That certainly did not feel right to me, either. I was surrounded my evangelists from two extremes and started to believe that I was destined to live in a spiritual no man's land.
Theatre became my religion. I know now that the high that sustains many performers is the sense of connection to something bigger when singing,dancing or acting. I became addicted to Theatre as it was the only place I could access that high. But when theatre started becoming more about agents and contracts and competition and masks so slick even I forgot who I was, I hit a wall. Lost and confused at 27, I picked up a book called Conversations with God.
That book changed my life. That book led to Friendship with God where I heard about Terry Cole Whittaker and New Thought. I researched on the internet, buzzing the way one does when they know they are close to finding a long, lost treasure. Eventually, I stumbled across the Centre for Conscious Living in Toronto, my home at the time. My ego voice screaming at the top of its lungs, I attended a Sunday service. I will never forget that Sunday. In the dark, deep seats of the Bloor Street Cinema with this radiantly happy woman finally saying out loud all the things I had felt were right for so long, I wept. As cliche as it might be, I had come home. I knew it. It all made sense.
It might have even been in that first Sunday that I decided that this is what I wanted to do with my life. To reach the world with this message and give hope to all the people silently, instinctively courting a Friendship with God, with Life, with It All, but thinking they are alone in their thinking and, perhaps, even slightly crazy.
I now live my life consciously. My problems haven't all gone away, but now I get that I have the power to choose differently and co-create my existence exactly as I want it to be. I am kinder, softer, quieter when I need to be and more accepting of the Big Krista when it is her turn to shine. I am Finding Me.
And so it is.
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