A Touch of Grace
It’s been almost four years since I stumbled into Grace for the first time.
After it happened, I didn’t need anyone to explain the experience to me. It’s like the first time you fall in love, you just know.
Although it was almost impossible for me to rationally accept, I realized that I’d had a direct experience with something far bigger than myself. You can call it the universal consciousness, the source, God, whatever works for you.
As undeniable as it was unexpected, I actually found the experience somewhat mortifying. At the time I viewed religion, or spiritual practices in general, as a bunch of superstitious mumbo-jumbo. I felt organized religion was for people who, through some defect in personality, upbringing or intelligence, were unable to deal with reality as I believed it truly was; Godless.
They needed a higher being to give meaning to their lives, I didn’t.
But, it’s hard to disregard direct experience.
It happened as I was walking through the woods. The early morning light was shining down through the trees, illuminating the mist. I remember the sun dappled patterns on the tree trunks and the ground being so beautiful…
Then something deep inside me stirred. It was as if the beauty caused me to remember something, and this remembrance had instantly obliterated a barrier in my mind allowing light to flood in. I was overcome with the most incredible feeling of warmth, acceptance and Love. I was being wrapped in a warm, soft blanket after a long walk on a cold day. It was an “everything-is-going-to-be-ok-ness.”
Along with this feeling, a single word blossomed like a flower in my mind, “Grace.”
I thought I was losing my mind.
Over the days and weeks that followed, I found that I just wanted to get back there. To feel connected to everything in the universe again.
It didn’t matter that my desire to reconnect implied that everything I thought I knew about God had been so fundamentally wrong, for so many years.
I spent countless hours searching, studying and thinking, trying understand the experience rationally so I could get back there “on demand”. I was convinced there was a technique, a particular meditation I could use, a trick that would allow me to unlock the door.
I didn’t even know where to start looking, but I held to a belief; “if God wants me to find Him, He will leave hints everywhere.”
So I looked, in books and websites on self help, new-age, and mysticism. I started to build my Tribe from almost every spiritual discipline that I could think of, psychics, lightworkers, yogis.
My first teacher suggested that I read Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Living Buddha, Living Christ”. And it allowed me to see the similarities between what I perceived as the non threatening Buddha and the Christ who had seemingly (at least to me) been hijacked by the types of evangelicals who preached hatred of others in God’s name.
I discovered Ram Dass.
Numerology, Astrology, Zen Buddhist 101 classes, spending time in nature, hiking every mountain I could find. All of these things were peeling back the layers of my rational mind. Breaking down my rational defenses, opening me to the spiritual realm.
I was following my own path of un-learning.
I started seeing other paths like Christianity, Buddhism and Islam as equals, all vehicles for bringing us closer to God.
And then “A Course in Miracles” changed everything.
It opened my heart in a way that I would have thought impossible until I read it. It gave Jesus back to me in a way that I could relate to. It stripped away the dogma, the pointless exclusions of people based on arbitrary considerations such as sexuality and gender fluidity. It gave me his message of pure Love. It’s not scary. It’s not going to require you to change anything or try to convince anyone to believe as you believe. It opened me to allowing Jesus, or as I now like to say, the Christ consciousness, to HELP me.
But something was still missing.
I woke one morning and started my routine of meditation and mindful movement. I recall I was experiencing a dark night of the soul. I was frustrated with my lack of progress. I was beginning to lose hope.
I remember sitting on my cushion and sincerely asking for help, to be put in touch with God, to feel Grace continuously, to allow myself to be guided to perform actions that were in alignment with my purpose.
As if in answer, I suddenly recalled the words of Vernon Court Johnson from the song “Choice” by East Forest; “(it’s) a learning process. And we can all take as much time as we need, all choices are valid.” and along with these words came a touch of Grace, a reminder that I am loved.
As I drove to work, I remember the thought of “wanting help, wanting guidance” circulating in the back of my mind as I considered new paths to explore. As my attention drifted past my concept of Christianity, it latched onto the concept of salvation and the following sequence of thoughts began to unfold.
“Being helped implies that although you could have done it all by yourself, someone helped you to get it done. Like a friend helping you rake the leaves, they HELPED you.
Being saved implies that you could not have done it by yourself, that someone needed to save you. Like being locked in a dark room without food or water and someone lets you out, they SAVED you.”
I suddenly realized, when I found Grace during that hike four years ago, it wasn’t something that I found on my own and it isn’t something that I’ve been able to find on my own since.
It was like being let out of a locked room. It was like being saved.
I realized I’d already been saved. I just hadn’t accepted it yet.
I realized that asking for help involves ego and pride and implies that I could have done it on my own.
I realized that asking to be saved requires humility and acknowledges that we cannot do it by ourselves.
And the true miracle, I realized that I didn’t do anything to deserve to be saved, I just was.
I realized that when you are ready, Jesus or your version of the Christ consciousness will take you as far as you are willing to go, as far as you are ready and able to go.
I realized that being saved is a choice. I went into those woods looking for something, I had made a choice. I wanted to get well, my soul was sick, I was asking for a miracle with all of my heart.
I realized the purpose of Grace, is to wake you up, to help YOU get home, from wherever YOU are, using whatever means are available to YOU.
Now, every day starts with an acknowledgement of the miracle of being saved and a sincere wish to heal, to be a faithful representative of the light. To spread Unity. To HELP seekers wherever they are, whenever I can. To surrender and BE.
Namaste!
This is an excerpt from a book that is currently being written and will be available sometime in 2019. For the latest updates, follow me here or subscribe at www.atrailmix.com.
