Bread Crumbs

Not completely comfortable with exposing my views on that last entry. But I have decided that I need to be as transparent as possible. When I went before the Board of Ministry, I was coached to just 'tell them what they want to hear.' I failed. There is some part of me that is truly, madly, deeply convinced that many of us are just not doing our 'thing' with God quite right. In my arrogance, I share with you my strange path, because I think that you can look at it and then tell yourself that your personal encounter with God is not strange.

Listen to Him. I am convinced He is talking to you every minute of every day. To each of us, every minute of every day. That's why Elijah had to go into the desert and wait for the still small voice. That's why Jesus, each time he took another big step, another risk, he 'went up into the mountain to pray.' Sometimes you just gotta get away and let it all happen to you, just as He wants it to.

I don't have a mountain nearby...so I have to settle for what I can find. I know of a woman who locks herself in the bathroom to pray. People hungry for God make do.

So my thought is, I'm leaving you bread crumbs. Little pieces of ideas, so that you can find your way.

It is so very good, to be with God. It makes life make sense. Nothing matters and everything matters, and you realize you are never ever alone...and if you choose to believe, you really can work miracles in your life and in others.

I am not talking about 'the power of intention' here or 'a course on miracles.' I'm talking about God. Beginning, end, middle. There is a difference. A huge difference.
Zen is fine, but it is choosing to live in one dimension, while contemplation is choosing to rest in God, who is all dimensions...is dimension-less. Does that help? If you are going to try, don't settle for less than everything...and everything is what He wants to give you.

Bread crumbs. Even I can't sort it out. I have to walk my path. According to the laws of physics, I can either be an observer of my life or a participant in it. But then, that is just physics. We are so much more than that.

When you reach that contemplative state, the laws of physics no longer apply. When Jesus says, "with You in Me and Me in You and Us in them..." all of that makes perfect sense, if sense is the right word...but you get it. I get it. I feel it.

I can stand in a congregation and share in the energy of the room and it can almost slay me, the prayers that pour forth from hearts yearning to connect to the grand Divine. I know some of you feel it, too. It is joy. We are so much more than flesh and bone.

Bread crumbs. Sometimes I don't have a clue why I write or say or do what I do. Perhaps ten, fifteen years ago, or longer, I gave up trying to understand it. I know I will say and do outrageous things sometimes. But they all have a purpose.

I know that the violence in my own home and being trapped there for so long kind of trained me to try to solve problems in very unorthodox ways. I can remember trying to explain to my parents why we needed to get along and it was like talking to a stone wall.

Yesterday, I got a message from a woman I was in theater with in high school. She reminded me of how my I loved my high school speech coach, Mama G. She (Mama G) was a little bit of sanity in an insane world. Or not. She talked me out of getting married at 16. I wanted so desperately to escape where I was. But she showed me my gift in speaking. And I won a lot of trophies and traveled all over Texas and met some really smart people. And they all wore suits! I showed up head to toe in black, and with my long blonde hair, I came home wih hardware (trophies) every week.
I recall (and I can write this now finally) that when I won first place in poetry in the Dallas Skyline Speech Tourney (and I was the only one who won anything that weekend), I told her I wanted a six pack of Coors as my reward (back then, we could not get Coors beer in San Antonio). And I took a photo of her coming out of a liquor store with my beer...and I was all of 16 at the time. Now this woman loved me. I loved her. I don't remember if she let me drink it in her car...I'm thinking she made me wait until I got back to San Antonio. But that woman loved me.
In fact, I might have even taken the bottle of Scotch I kept under my bed and put it in the closet, because Mama G gave me that beer.

Bread crumbs. What in the world allows a child to live life the way I did? Hmmmm. And even then, this child wanted and craved God. But she did what she could to survive.

I remember that and I look very hard at the teenagers I encounter now. I look hard for the signs...for the bread crumbs...that can tip me off and just maybe I can stop a great big ugly before it happens.

And I hate the fact that I can see the bread crumbs. And then I am grateful that I can see the bread crumbs. And I pray like hell that God will give me the right words to say, however outrageous they might be...and just maybe one more child will know that he or she doesn't have to live in hell any longer, that there is a way out.

And then, after I'm all messed up inside from having to awaken things I'd have rather kept asleep...and I go to God in prayer and cry it out of me all over again and realize once more, what He did for me. That He loved me without reason, but just because I'm here...and has blessed me with so many good things...

And then I'm okay again, until I have to go back into the darkness, look for bread crumbs and reach out for another hand...

Love, Cindy