Constant Change

I am pondering the emotional impact of the constant change in my life.  

Yet another familiar hang-out is closing (or moving, or renovating beyond recognition) and it hit me as a loss.  Enough changes already!

Has the pace of change in Western culture accelerated to a challenging rate even for younger minds and spirits, or am I just getting old?  I can't tell. Today I just feel tired of the constant changes and accumulated losses.  

I was thinking about this as I drove home from getting groceries. Spontaneously a song from a favourite artist began to play in my head. It was exactly on topic and brought some comfort.  (It seems God, or the angels, or whatever higher power you might want to name often speaks to me through music.  Funny thing about that.)

So here are the lyrics for your perusal.  I wish I could play you the song.  It has a mellow, rumba-like rhythm.

 Reality    Linda Worster, from the album "Moment by Moment"

1.                  Everything changes.  Earth and water, fire and air rearranges.

There is a universe in you and me

It=s created and set free

Each of us is wholly a part of the One

2.                  Everything matters.  Nature rebuilds as she shatters.

There is no way to resist.

She will not yield to your tightened fist.

Relax.  Don=t insist you find the only way. 

  

Nothing is different, but everything changes

All things are one but the mind sees the many   

And creation is perfect the way that I see, and the way that I don=t see. 

No matter what happens, salvation or sin

Nothing is separate, and all is within

It all depends on what you see.  Moment by moment you create reality 

3.                  Everything spins and swirls

The universe twists and twirls.

All of form is motionsCwaves upon oceans.

Only our notions keep us trapped and afraid.

Nothing is different, but everything changes

All things are one but the mind sees the many

And creation is perfect the way that I see and the way that I don=t see. 

No matter what happens, salvation or sin                                                                      

Nothing is separate, and all is within   

It all depends on what you see.  Moment by moment you create reality

           Whatever that is, you create it: reality.....

http://lindaworster.com 

"There is no way to resist. She will not yield to your tightened fist.  Relax."

There it is.  I am in resistance to the changes.  Though I pride myself in my adaptability, I am increasingly resisting the changes life is bringing now.  I must learn relaxation in the face of the inevitable changes.  I suspect it is not uncommon to resist change as we get older.  I now understand what I judged in my elders before.  I judged that resistance.  Now I am in it.  I have had my fill of losses.  Enough already.  So I am increasingly dwelling on the sadness and nostalgia for what has been lost rather than seeing and rejoicing in the potential for new life and growth.  

So I get it now.  I understand being tired of new things.  I am wanting more permanence.  I am just not as emotionally spry as I used to be.  (Goodness, you would think I was eighty, not fifty!)

Anyway, I guess I need to find some sort of emotional yoga---I need a way to recover my emotional flexibility, balance, and sprightliness.  I want to regain my willingness to step up to life.  And since I have the sneaking suspicion that the changes aren't going to stop coming, I must find a way to relax and stop resisting.  I must find a way to continue to adapt.  

Emotional yoga....  Any ideas? 

With love,

Alison

We Are Love

"When we forget that we are love, we forget to love.  And it is choice, not identity, that determines our experience.  Should we wish to feel God's mercy, we must choose to be merciful. Should we wish to feel God's peace, we must extend God's peace. And should we wish to feel forgiven, then we must forgive."  Marianne Williamson

Be the love that you are.
Alison

Drink Deeply

"We all must hold the cups of our lives.  As we grow older and become more fully aware of the many sorrows of life - personal failures, family conflicts, disappointments in work and social life, and the many pains surrounding us on the national and international scene - everything within and around us conspires to make us ignore, avoid, suppress, or simply deny these sorrows.  "Look at the sunny side of life and make the best of it," we say to ourselves and hear others say to us.   But when we want to drink the cups of our lives, we need first to hold them, to fully acknowledge what we are living, trusting that by not avoiding but befriending our sorrows we will discover the true joy we are looking for right in the midst of our sorrows."  Henri Nouwen

I have been avoiding feeling the sadness of the accumulated losses of my past several years.  It usually takes the support of friends for me to find the courage to face the despair and loss and sit with these feelings.  But there is a truth in what Nouwen says.  There is a way to sit with them.  it does involve befriending my sorrows.  This is not to become a perpetual victim, nor a sad-sack that keeps the pain front and centre.  

There is a way between ignoring and obsessing.  

There is a way to hold the sorrow beside the joy, without either cancelling out the other.  Instead, each brings a depth and texture to what becomes a magnificent pairing.

May I come to drink the cup of my whole life, the bitter and the sweet, the tangy, the rich, and the smoky, the light and the dark.  May I trust that ALL of my life in its blending is perhaps becoming a fine wine, with depth and texture, perhaps bitterness or edginess, but balanced with sweetness, earthiness or dare I say, a chocolaty note? 

If indeed we can and must embrace all of our story, then there is a way that even this drink, this cup of life with all its tones, is delicious and worthy too.  Perhaps it is my palate that needs maturing into a greater appreciation.  I have indeed found some of life's greatest joys in the midst of the darkest moments, as Nouwen suggests.  So I am finding my courage to sit with the darker notes again.  And I lift my cup to you, that we may drink deeply life beside each other in friendship, appreciating the richness, and allowing all the flavours to speak.  

Peace and blessings,

Alison

Stopping Self-Rejection

In the twelve step program there is a promise (actually there are twelve promises) that goes like this: "We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it."

This was a surprise to me.  I couldn't help but wonder, how could anyone---let alone someone who was trapped in a destructive addiction for many years---not regret the past?  Every single one of us has made stupid mistakes.  That's just reality.  I have plenty of embarrassing memories that I would happily never revisit. But the 12 steppers are saying that I can eventually get to such a place of self acceptance that I don't even wish to shut the door on those embarrassing memories?

Wow.  That's hard to imagine.

My usual reaction to any embarrassing memory is to slam the mental and emotional door closed on it immediately. I just want to forget it. I want to move on. I don't want to be reminded.  I want to chop off that whole moment of my life sometimes, or label it "bad" and put it in a box and declare myself separate from it.

But the 12 steps invites me to view my whole life journey with far more compassion. The truth is that at every step in the past I was doing my best, even if I now consider several choices misguided or unfortunate at best, or downright hurtful (most often out of very ignorant intent to do good) at worst.

The 12 steps, among other schools of thought, invite me to accept all of me.  It is more of a "restorative justice" approach to my own relationship with myself, rather than an adversarial, blame-and-imprison approach.  After all, who I have been is part of who I am today.  And everything I believe about the Golden Rule invites me to extend to my past self the same grace and forgiveness which that past self would have desired and deserved.

This practice of forgiving all my past mistakes, no matter how embarrassing, and embracing every part of my life as lovable and one of my teachers, has shifted something else in me.  It has opened up a whole new compassion in me for my neighbour.

See, I now like to believe that God has been guiding me every step of the way.  -That God's loving wisdom is so all-encompassing that S/He is preparing each of us to be our very best selves USING especially our most clumsy, embarrassing, and destructive moments.  Every moment becomes part of our spiritual training, not just the ones we are proud of.

It is human nature that, when we feel particularly ashamed or broken, we often feel that we can only start again by wiping our slate clean---by declaring a sort of no-fault bankruptcy.  We can feel it is the only way to shed all of the heavy shame that we can carry associated with those past mistakes.

"I'll never drink again." "I'll never hit my wife again." "I'll never shame my children again." "I'll never binge and purge again." And so on.

Sometimes these resolutions result in an actual permanent change, but not nearly as often as we might like.

And the truth is, we can never really chop off any part of ourselves. Every memory and moment and experience stays.  We can emotionally box it up and label it "bad" and try to keep it from entering our consciousness ever again.  But my experience of doing so has just left me with depression and anxiety and a bottomless pit of shame.  (AND they still haunt me anyway.)

So I have to ask, WHY cut off a part of ourselves if we really don't need to?  It is only shame and pride that urge us to do so. Humility allows us to accept all that we are: even if it is an alcoholic, or a rage-aholic, or an abusive parent, or a bulimic---and that we are still lovable. In fact, that admission, plus the consequent learning and healing that can follow, can transform an "alcoholic" (or any other "ic") into a powerful force for wisdom and healing in the world.

So I declare, let's stop cutting ourselves down.

It is a lie that any one of us is more worthy of love than any other. Some of us may have more socially acceptable defects, while others have defects that are still heavily stigmatized. Yet God loves each of us just the way we are, and has a plan that includes moving us steadily towards our best selves.

"There are no throw-away people. There are no throw-away people.  There are no throw-away people."  Rev. Mark Carlson.

In my experience, my best self compassionately loves others just the way they are. It is the Golden Rule.  I would wish to be gently loved and patiently taught and not rejected despite my moments of complete jerkitude (it is too a word!), so how can I not extend that generousity to others?  And how can I not extend that generousity to the less attractive parts of myself?

After all, what goes around, comes around, eh?
Thank you for listening.

Alison

The Poetry of Life

I was discussing poetry with a dear friend many years ago.  It was a conversation that I have never forgotten.

When you hear it, maybe you will understand why.

I was asking her why she bothered to try to write structured poetry (she particularly likes the sonnet), when freestyle was so much easier.  (Though I don't write poetry often, when I do, it comes out freestyle.)   It seemed to me that she was choosing  unnecessary restrictions for her self expression, like choosing to run the Boston marathon with hobbles on or cooking dinner with one hand tied behind her back.

But she had a different perspective.  She said she enjoyed the challenge of the restrictions. She talked about wrestling for days, even weeks to find just the right turn of phrase.  She might know what she wanted to say, but the number of syllables or the way the rhythm of  the syllables fell in the phrase would not quite fit.  It demanded great patience and an extreme sort of discipline.  But when she persevered and waited for just the right combination of words to come to her, the feeling of triumph and joy was well worth the wait.  The very challenge of the discipline brought her a deep satisfaction.

Listening to her, I thought of bonsai.  I thought of extremely fine wines.  I thought of diamonds, and I began to realize how often things in life that look like restrictions, road-blocks, and annoying barriers lead in actuality to unique, creative, and beautiful outcomes.

I have returned for reflection to that conversation many times in the past ten years.  It has helped me when I am feeling impatient.  It has helped me when I am feeling deeply frustrated by "unnecessary" delays and "pointless" restrictions.  It has helped me.

I'm still not very patient, and I still much prefer freestyle when it comes to writing poetry.  But I am ALSO deeply grateful for Linda's ability to articulate why such challenging artistic expression delights her, and for her incredible patience and perseverance with her art.

Here is a taste of her poetry:

Twin Heresies  

by Linda Simonetti Odhner  10/4/03

He cried, God, why have You forsaken me? 

They must be One only as all are one,

Unless He called Himself mistakenly,

Seeing Himself like any father’s son.   

Faced with the Gospel’s puzzle, who would not

Turn from a monstrous triple-headed God,

The Word made human flesh too dearly bought

By union splintered into shards so odd?

The Christian Mystery is misconstrued

Not just from blind perverseness, but because

His coming turned existence inside out,

Stretched all the laws of order, madly skewed

Appearance, till all flesh of sin cried out:

This Child cannot be born!  And yet He was.

And one more thing I am completely passionate about:

Nothing else need be said.

Two Prayers

The following are two reinterpretations of the Lord's Prayer.  Sometimes I find that reading different wordings and explorations of the Lord's Prayer opens eyes to new ways to understand all that God offers us.  Since I am feeling vulnerable and in need of God's love today, I share these here.

Our Mother

Our Mother who is within us

we celebrate your many names.

Your wisdom come.

Your will be done,

unfolding from the depths within us.

Each day you give us all that we need.

You remind us of our limits

and we let go.

You support us in our power

and we act with courage.

For you are the dwelling place within us

the empowerment around us

and the celebration among us

now and for ever.

Amen

  

Text by Miriam Therese Winter

Medical Mission Sister, Professor

of Liturgy, Worship and Spirituality.

Author of WomanWord and other

books and resources for Ritual.

My Lord’s Prayer

My loving creator: father/mother and best friend,

You are the centre of my universe and my most sacred space. 

May I never forget your power and holiness.

May I recognize your wisdom at work all around me, and may I allow your love to flow through me with greater freedom every day.

And may your intentions for good for every one of your created beings come to pass right here, right now, according to your plan.

Help me to remember and to trust that you give me all that I truly need in every moment.

And grant me the humility to see how I am flawed and ignorant, that I might treat with grace and compassion all those in whom I recognize flaws and ignorance---that we might all be forgiven.

Help me to face my challenges with courage, and deepen my trust in the wisdom of your guidance. 

For your every intention is good; your every thought beyond wisdom; your power to save infinite and absolute; and your boundless love cannot help but sweep all into its fold, now and forever. Amen

May you find peace guiding your every step this day.

Pastor Alison

Dealing With Despair

I preached this sermon in 2008, thinking it was not one of my better ones.
Afterwards, several people told me it was just what they needed to hear.

Since many folks I know and love are going through some pretty rough stuff right now, I will repost it.

“Why Is My Pain Unceasing?” - Dealing With Despair
Jeremiah 15:15–21, Matthew 16:21–28
By Alison Longstaff
St. James Lutheran Church, New Dundee, Ontario
Sunday, August 31, 2008


One nice thing about pain is that it feels so good when it stops.

The reason my pain is unceasing is that I recently started Ashtanga yoga, and I can barely move. But that is not why we are here today.

In our Scripture readings, we heard a lot about suffering. We heard a pain-filled cry to God to end the suffering in Jeremiah. In the gospel reading, Jesus is warning the disciples about the terrible suffering he will endure. Peter objects, and Jesus shouts at Peter, “Get behind me, you Satan!” in a shocking, very un-Jesus like moment. He says, “You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Peter was the voice of the tempter when he declared that such suffering and death should never happen to Jesus. Jesus knew it was imperative to focus on the spiritual work about to be accomplished and not on the suffering. He had to focus on His Divine mission and not be distracted. Perhaps Peter was the voice of the demon attacking Jesus, trying to convince Jesus to opt out of the suffering. This would explain the intensity of the rebuke.

Jesus had to keep his eyes set on the Divine to accomplish his mission.

Life on this earth includes suffering. Even here in North America, with our health-care and insurance policies, relative wealth and myriad safety measures, we can’t seem to escape suffering. We often think we shouldn’t have to suffer. We keep creating more ways to protect ourselves, as if constant comfort and total security were the answer to all our problems.
So why are we still so restless and unhappy?

Some of the countries that rank highest for overall national happiness are places like Nigeria and Bhutan. What’s that about? Nigeria suffers from extreme poverty, and many people live in mud huts. How can they possibly be happier than us? Well, it seems they have a deep reliance on God. They are a very Christian country, and they live their faith in every way they can. They are desperately poor, yet they sing and pray and share the little they have with each other, and they are happy.

Toronto journalist Jonathan Power interviewed Olusegun Obasanjo, a Nigerian who became a Christian and a preacher after being unjustly imprisoned. In his three years of captivity, Obusanjo became a sort of chaplain to his fellow prisoners. He says, “The time I had real joy in my life was when I was in prison. I felt then that there was just God and me, and my fellow prisoners whom I must try and help." Extreme hardship robs us of everything- but God. Perhaps this is why some of the most loving and deeply spiritual people are also people who have suffered great hardship.

In the midst of the deepest suffering God becomes all we have left, and this breaks ground for a deep and rich faith to grow. I’m not saying we should all chuck our current lives and go live in a third-world country so as to really suffer so we can experience God. Suffering finds us, no matter where we live. I am saying that it is good to remember that suffering can be our greatest teacher. God wouldn’t allow anything to happen if it didn’t serve some purpose for good. So even the painful times in life---perhaps especially the painful times---are carefully overseen by God to deepen us and eventually bring us joy.

My one objection to books and philosophies like The Secret and A Complaint-Free World is the way they can promote the idea that we are solely responsible for what happens to us in our lives. The idea is that if we cultivate a good attitude, we invite good things into our lives, and that we invite misfortune by having a bad attitude. The logical conclusion to this is that if we just work hard enough to have a great attitude, nothing bad will happen to us. But if it were true, those Indonesians must have had one bad attitude to invite that tsunami onto them. Every victim of every tragedy could be blamed for their misfortune. I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way.

No, such a philosophy falls too easily into a judgmentalism toward the suffering. “It must be their fault. If only they were positive like me, they’d be okay.” This is a lie. It demonstrates a strong reliance on one’s own efforts for “salvation,” and no reliance on God.

My mom has been in chronic physical pain for over twenty-three years. She has fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, which means “everything hurts.” And she has depression. (Well, duh. Poor thing. Who wouldn’t?) She’s on all sorts of medicines, which have their own strange side-effects and cause other problems. I don’t know how she manages. I can’t hack chronic pain for even a day. I get grumpy and whiney and can be very impatient when waiting for my next dose of pain reliever. But twenty-three years?! Did I mention that she also gets regular migraines? She has tried every treatment in the world, from steroids to vitamins to acupuncture to moose meat, and nothing helps.

I love her. I don’t want her to suffer. Sometimes I get really impatient with her. (Surely she’s doing something wrong!) I judge her for not trying hard enough or not trying the right things long enough. My judging comes from how hard it is to see her in pain. But my judging her never helps. My impatience never helps. Again and again, the best and only thing I can do for her is to love her to bits, and spend time with her, and believe with my whole heart that God has a plan. Period.

Have you ever heard someone say, in the midst of some awful situation, “I suppose God has a lesson for me,” as if he or she could stop the suffering, if they could just figure out what the lesson was and learn it? But I don’t think God works this way. I don’t think God ever sends suffering. I think God allows it sometimes, only when He can bring some long term good out of it for everyone involved.

Has my mom been suffering for twenty-three years because there is some lesson she is refusing to learn? I can’t believe that. She’s doing the best she can. She just got dealt a rotten hand. She didn’t invite this onto herself any more than my classmate’s two-year-old son invited death from liver cancer onto himself. Terrible stuff just happens.

Yes, a positive attitude can greatly improve certain aspects of our lives, and can spin off some nice side effects. Optimism and hope are our wings, and when we have them, they lift us up and over a multitude of life’s hurdles. But sometimes, through no fault of our own, our wings get plucked or broken. Sometimes a hoard of locusts swoops down on that rich and thick harvest of positive thinking and in a heart-beat, strips it to dead stalks. Sometimes we are left walking or crawling down life’s dusty road, not flying, experiencing every bump and ditch and thorn and mud puddle. “The rain falls on the just and on the unjust,” says God in the Gospels. Or, to quote contemporary wisdom, “Shit happens.”

So we must set our minds on divine things, and not on human things.

There is so much in this life over which we have no control. There are all sorts of forces at work around us, and we are far less powerful than we think. Our thoughts are not God’s thoughts. We want a happy, comfy life now. God wants us to have a happy, comfy life for eternity.

We are part of a great tapestry. Stuff that looks bad to our eyes now, is allowed to happen because God sees a bigger picture. But don’t forget, God isn’t some cold, distant artist. When we suffer, God suffers along with us. He knows what it is like to be a mortal. He was one, in Jesus. Jesus suffered to bring a much better outcome for everyone down the road. But, just the way the disciples couldn’t see why Jesus allowed Himself to suffer, we often can’t see why we or our loved ones are allowed to suffer. We can’t see God’s plan, but it is there.

Shit happens, and not all the positive thinking in the world save us from it. No one is that powerful, no matter what we’d like to think. All twelve steppers can tell you that powerlessness is the first and most important thing to learn. We have to embrace and face life on life’s terms, not ours. Facing our powerlessness throws us finally and completely into God’s arms.

“Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?” Set your mind on divine things, and not on human things. Spiritual growth, personal growth involve finding our relationship with suffering, not avoiding it. Why else would God invite us to take up the cross to follow Him? Jesus fought through temptation after temptation on his journey to the cross. He showed us the way. He showed us that it will come out all right, no matter how hopeless it looks.

God loves us desperately. He doesn’t want us to suffer. But sometimes the most loving thing He can do for us is to let us have our experiences, good and bad. Eliminating the struggle for us eliminates the joy and triumph we will feel when we finally arrive at the finish line. Suffering draws out good qualities in us like endurance, stamina, and patience. It frequently teaches us compassion and opens us up to the Holy Spirit. It is like spiritual roto-tilling, breaking up old and set things about us, turning us upside down and making room for new and wonderful things to flow in.

Suffering helps us more fully appreciate the truly good things in life. It also teaches us how precious are the times of peace and good fortune. We don’t take them so much for granted. Suffering deepens us, whether we like it or not. And it reminds us who’s really in charge of the universe, and that it’s not us. It teaches us to trust in God; and to set our sights on divine goals and not on human ones.

For those of you who are in the midst of suffering, take heart. Every single thing in life is in God’s hands. Not one hair of your head falls without notice. No matter how long the night may seem, the morning always brings new hope.

"Why is my pain unceasing,
my wound incurable,
refusing to be healed?

…They shall not prevail over you,
for I am with you
to save you and deliver you,
says the LORD.
I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked,
and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless." (Jer. 18,21)

Amen

Nigeria: Happiest Nation on Earth?
by Jonathan Power, Published on Monday, December 29, 2003 by the Toronto Star


Barbara Merrell Smith passed away September 13, 2008

A Simple, Non-Judgmental Presence

‎"When we are free from the need to judge or condemn, we can become safe places for people to meet in vulnerability and take down the walls that separate them. Being deeply rooted in the love of God, we cannot help but invite people to love one another. When people realise that we have no hidden agendas or unspoken intentions, that we are not trying to gain any profit for ourselves, and that our only desire is for peace and reconciliation, they may find the inner freedom and courage to leave their guns at the door and enter into conversation with their enemies.

Many times this happens even without our planning. Our ministry of reconciliation most often takes place when we ourselves are least aware of it. Our simple, nonjudgmental presence does it." ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen
This day, may you be at peace wherever you go and whatever your circumstances.
Be the loving spirit you are!

Alison

"Does God Live in our Right Hemisphere? Part 2

Jill Bolte Taylor, the brain scientist, experienced a stroke to her left-brain in December, 1996, which enabled her to see what reality is without judgment and conditioning, leading her to an awe-inspiring enlightenment.

        (I strongly recommend buying and reading the whole book, but this chapter bowls me right over. All bold text is my emphasis)            Stroke of Insight/Jill Bolte Taylor

"My Stroke of Insight"  - Chapter 15: continued....

"This is not to say, of course, that I believe I exhibit multiple personality disorder. That is much more complicated than what I have observed. Traditionally, it has been difficult, if not impossible, for us to distinguish between our right and left mind characters simply because we experience ourselves as a single person with a single consciousness. However, with very little guidance, most people find it easy to identify these same two characters within if not themselves, then at least their parents or significant other. It is my goal to help you find a hemispheric home for each of your characters so that we can honor their identities and perhaps have more say in how we want to be in the world. By recognizing who is who inside our cranium, we can take a more balanced-brain ap­proach to how we lead our lives.

"It appears that many of us struggle regularly with polar opposite characters holding court inside our heads. In fact, just about everyone I speak with is keenly aware that they have conflicting parts of their personality. Many of us speak about how our head (left hemisphere) is telling us to do one thing while our heart (right hemisphere) is telling us to do the exact opposite. Some of us distinguish between what we think (left hemisphere) and what we feel (right hemisphere). Others communicate about our mind consciousness (left hemi­sphere) versus our body's instinctive consciousness (right hemisphere). Some of us talk about our small ego mind (left hemisphere) compared with our capital ego mind (right hemisphere), or our small self (left hemisphere) versus our inner or authentic self (right hemisphere). Some of us delin­eate between our work mind (left hemisphere) and our vaca­tion mind (right hemisphere), while others refer to their researcher mind (left hemisphere) versus their diplomatic mind (right hemisphere). And of course there is our mascu­line mind (left hemisphere) versus our feminine mind (right hemisphere), and our yang consciousness (left hemisphere) countered by our yin consciousness (right hemisphere). And if you are a Carl Jung fan, then there's our sensing mind (left hemisphere) versus our intuitive mind (right hemisphere), and our judging mind (left hemisphere) versus our perceiving mind (right hemisphere). Whatever language you use to de­scribe your two parts, based upon my experience, I believe they stem anatomically from the two very distinct hemi­spheres inside your head.

"My goal during this process of recovery has been not only to find a healthy balance between the functional abilities of my two hemispheres, but also to have more say about which character dominates my perspective at any given moment. I find this to be important because the most fundamental traits of my right hemisphere personality are deep inner peace and loving compassion. I believe the more time we spend running our inner peace/compassion circuitry, then the more peace/compassion we will project into the world, and ultimately the more peace/compassion we will have on the planet. As a re­sult, the clearer we are about which side of our brain is pro­cessing what types of information, the more choice we have in how we think, feel, and behave not just as individuals, but as collaborating members of the human family.

"From a neuroanatomical perspective, I gained access to the experience of deep inner peace in the consciousness of my right mind when the language and orientation association areas in the left hemisphere of my brain became nonfunctional. The brain research performed by Drs. Andrew Newberg and the late Eugene DAquili (footnote 15) earlier this decade have helped me understand exactly what was going on in my brain. Using SPECT technology (single photon emission com­puted tomography), these scientists identified the neuroanatomy underlying our ability to have a religious or spiritual (mystical) experience. They wanted to understand which re­gions of the brain were involved in our capacity to undergo a shift in consciousness—away from being an individual to feeling that we are at one with the universe (God, Nirvana, euphoria). 

"Tibetan meditators and Franciscan nuns were invited to meditate or pray inside the SPECT machine. They were in­structed to tug on a cotton twine when they reached either their meditative climax or felt united with God. These experi­ments identified shifts in neurological activity in very specific regions in the brain. First, there was a decrease in the activity of the left hemisphere language centers resulting in a silenc­ing of their brain chatter. Second, there was a decrease in ac­tivity in the orientation association area, located in the posterior parietal gyrus of the left hemisphere. This region of our left brain helps us identify our personal physical bound­aries. When this area is inhibited or displays decreased input from our sensory systems, we lose sight of where we begin and where we end relative to the space around us.

          Thanks to this recent research, it makes good neurological sense that when my left language centers were silenced and my left orientation association area was interrupted from its normal sensory input, my consciousness shifted away from feeling like a solid, to a perception of myself as a fluid—at one with the universe.

15.   Why God Won't Go Away (NY: Ballantine, 2001).

"So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are -- I am -- the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular genius cells that make up my form. I can choose to be at one with all that is, or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you, an ego, where I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, an intellectual neuroanatomist. These are the ‘we’ inside of me. 

Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be. That is an idea worth spreading." ~ Jill Bolte Taylor 

Shared with love and deep reflection, 

Rev Alison Longstaff