"God's Little Secret"
August 27, 2001, 10:04 p.m.

This is an If...Project Collaboration entry for August, 2001

If you were offered the answer to one of life's mysteries, which would you choose to have solved? What would you do with the information?

I just want to know what's it all about! What's the buzz? What in the world are we here for?

Why do we, on this universal oasis of beauty and life called Earth, have such a grand struggle for survival? Are we freaks of nature? Are we products of evolution? Are we creations from a master plan? Are we a secret ontological experiment? Were we made to worship and bow down to a higher power just so that the higher power has something that can bow down to it thereby validating it's higher-power-ness?

I can hear the response now: "That's for me to know and you to find out!"

And so we wait to find out. Wait to see what it's all about. We have plenty of guesses and folks who tell us they know the answer to these mysteries. Their answers are so diverse and were created primarily as a myth to align with their specific theological beliefs. So much so that it's hard to know who is probably the most accurate, if any.

We are higher beings with primitive passions. The best of us grow and soar above the masses and transcend original thought at startling proportions. Yet, the worst of us, like animals, threaten and kill and relish our inhumanity for a just cause that was made up in the mind of some man somewhere... and worse than animals, think nothing about destroying our Earth just because it's ours. And then there are those of us who are in-between. We live out our lives day-to-day, we wonder about our purpose and the master plan and as we ask, we still go on surviving, trying to be good people and lead good lives until each of us in our turn, kicks the bucket and dies.

And yet, and yet, I cannot deny that there is more to life than just surviving and superficially living. I have felt the force of the collective unconscious as Jung calls it. I have experienced hair-raising coincidences and god-incidences and trust as well, my intuition and instincts. There is something more.

That's the problem, I know that something's there, I just can't see it. Like playing a trick on a blind person by not letting him know you're there. The blind person calls out "Who's there?" and yet no one answers. The blind person calls out "What's going on?" and no one responds.

They say all we have to do is shut up and listen. I've done that. The response I got was once again, "That's for me to know and you to find out!"

Very funny. Very funny indeed.

I’ve searched and traversed the course. I grew up in a house where inquiry was not only allowed, it was encouraged.

When I was seven or eight years old, some people came to my school. They tested all the children for extra-sensory perception abilities. They tested me and all I had to do was guess what kind of cards they were holding. There was a little screen between us so I couldn’t see the cards. I tried to focus as the lady told me to do. She asked me to think about the card and tell her which card she was holding. I told her it was a yellow circle. But no, it was a blue triangle. The next card I told her was a green square. But no, it was a yellow circle. Her next card I thought surely was an orange star. No, it was a green square.

She figured out that I was telling her what her next card was going to be, not which card she was holding in her hand. She didn’t like that, so we started over.

I guessed some of the cards but not all. At the end of the session, they told me I tested above the average for E.S.P. That was nice, I thought. But I didn’t really understand why it was important.

At nine years old I was already doing guided meditations and visualizations. Of course, the words were different. I was guided to go the “beautiful happy place” in my mind where “I felt good all the time”. By the time I was 12, I learned all about reincarnation and a variety of theologies from Hindu to Buddhism and Christianity. My friends thought I was weird but interesting.

During this time I was also going to Concept-Therapy workshops (A Journey Through Consciousness) with my family. That’s where I learned about mind-over-matter and the effect of emotions on our well-being.

At 13, I practiced – or rather tried - Astral Projection. I was in a sleepover in a tent in my friend’s back yard. I directed everyone to meditate and focus on being in another place, alive and real. It didn’t work.

“I’m in Paris now and all the artist’s are sitting painting pictures and selling them out on the sidewalks.” I told everyone. At first we all pretended and made up many wonderful and interesting places to be. But soon enough everyone fell asleep. It was the meditation - it always made me sleepy.

Later I began to search for my own faith. I found a small book of psalms and read that and it gave me some inspiration but it seemed to be a whole lot of whining and angst. If David really wrote those, he sure did complain a lot. I discarded all the angsty psalms and read only the joyous ones. I thought it strange that he would write, “I am a worm and no man”. In my youth, I didn’t really get it.

All during this time, I learned a little about horoscope readings, the ephemeris and the interpretation of dreams. My sister proclaimed herself a witch. That was a surprise to me but made her all the more oddly romantic in my eyes. So I can say we grew up with an openness toward asking these kind of questions.

After awhile I was introduced to the Tarot. I began to learn how to read Tarot cards. I became quite good at it. My readings more often than not were right on target. I took it seriously and kept my cards wrapped in a kerchief of red silk tucked away in a special box. I never read for myself and I always prayed for guidance before each reading. I stopped reading cards because I became too afraid. I knew that I wasn’t alone; I could feel something else with me when I read the cards. Not that it was a good or bad thing, but just that it was there, scared me. So I stopped.

I sought out a more traditional expression of my spirituality. I began going to church where I learned how to pray and learned about the sacraments and the about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

I took on Cursillo; a Christian based experiential practice of living in the faith. I became a Daughter of the King and dedicated myself to prayer and service. I led the Jr. High EYC youth group and encouraged young people in developing their own budding spirituality and I began working with Kairos, the prison ministry. I struck up Christian friendships with the prisoners in Huntsville and wrote letters of faith and encouragement to them. For myself, my prayers were meditations. My best friends were priests.

When I began mixing my practices of eastern and western theology, my friend Pat led me to the Cenacle Retreat House where I learned about Centering prayer, Effective Living and spiritual direction. It was there that Pat introduced me to the books of Father Edward Hays. He incorporated mystical practices with the Christian faith and I loved him for it. He validated the practice I was incorporating for myself.

It all began to fit together. I was studying Tai Chi as well and found that to be a very spiritual practice – a moving meditation as they called it.

In the midst of all of this, something happened. My nephew and my grandmother died. I soon gave up my meditations; I gave up Cursillo, Daughters of the King, Kairos and the Youth Group. I gave up Tai Chi, which I loved. I was doing too much. Some folks told me I was going under a satanic attack. Yeah right, I thought. How nice. That, I did not believe.

I moved on and participated in the Landmark Forum and found that I was the one who was mastering my own fate and that I really didn’t need to rely on external resources to dictate my future.

So after all this inquiry, I shut myself down. Yet, I still wanted answers. I still wanted to know why we all go through what we go through. Why were humans created in the first place? Every answer I received was a storybook answer and not real to me. The closest thing I’ve come to an answer I can accept is that God wanted love, so he created us, but he didn’t want to force us to love him. So he let us decide for ourselves if we wanted to love him and abide with him or not. Still, the answer seems a bit weird, a bit trite.

In any case, I would love to find an answer that’s real, real to me, even though I know I will not find the answer in this world.

But! If by some cosmic, mystical, transcendental manipulation, I ever did find out - while still alive and conscious on this earth - just exactly what was going on, why we are here and what it's all about, I'd probably write a book about it. Like James Redfield did with the Celestine Prophecy. Like Shirley MacLaine did with Out On a Limb and her other books. Some folks would believe me and some wouldn't. I'd be ridiculed by some and admired by others. But with the book sales, I'd at least have a ton of cash.

Either that, or I'd keep the secret...because really.... it's not the answer; it's the inquiry that matters. As they say, it's not the destination; it's the journey that matters.

If I knew the definitive reason why we are all here doing all this living, I'd hope that my action would be of one who makes a difference to the people of the world - whether I reveal the answer or whether I simply encourage hope in others as they struggle in their own lives to survive and wonder why.