Caterpillar
My childhood was interesting in that I lived in two very different places and had two very different experiences in each location, after my parent’s divorce at the age of 5, I moved to Hailey Idaho with my mother brother and sister. Meanwhile my father stayed in New York city. From an early age, I can remember having this odd feeling of not fitting in. It was as if I was in slow motion swimming in jello while everyone else was cruising along at warp speed knowing exactly where they were heading. Socializing was difficult for me as I felt like everyone had the lines to a play and I didn't have the same script. I spent a great deal of time alone wondering what was life really meant to be about. I would struggle with this sense of exclusion for many years to come.
When I went off to college one of the required courses was called The Problem Of God. This class awoke in me great fear as well as curiosity. The purpose of the course was to have the students question their own beliefs of God and have them evolve to that which could be challenged by oneself or others. I can remember this deep feeling of doubt and fear of no God. Awakened in me was this curiosity of God and what effect did it have on my life if any. The next semester I was required to take a philosophy course. One day in class as we were discussing Hegel and existentialism was when I had my first panic attack. I was imagining the experience of eternity and it caused my heart to accelerate and me to stand up and blurt out “WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!” I would have these for the next 20 years only when I thought about death and eternity. I continued to struggle socially in college and so decided to graduate in three years. My last year of college I took a seminar called Theology towards Social Action. I remember saying to the professor in charge of the seminar that I had to get into that class or else I would feel my entire college experience would be worthless!
The gift of the class was that at the end of the class I was required to write my praxis for social action. I could feel deep inside me insight emerging as to why I felt compelled to do the volunteer work I had been doing while at college. I had seen that God was love. At the time, I saw love as action not static in motion moving in two directions receiving and administering. I was meant to love. Love who? All of us are God’s children so that meant loving everyone.I began to see my path. I would find meaning in loving others. This recognition was a huge insight for me and provided me with an internal clarity that gave me strength to challenge the conditioned perspectives of those around me and move in a direction that suited me.
At this time, my sense of love was not fully understood and if I was not directly serving others, I felt I was not being loving. I was constantly needing to be in activity that served others wether it was at work with family or friends. I struggled to ever say no to a request and saw that it was my duty to make others happy, meet their needs as an attempt to reduce the suffering that I observed around me. This perspective was exhausting and at times overbearing. I saw myself as weak if I could not do all that was asked of me. I struggled with matching this internal calling with outward action.
As I look back now, I see this was the beginning of my awakening from the dream state. Little did I know that the journey out of the cocoon can be a long one.