A question to ponder ...

intimidating
Originally uploaded by Dyrk.Wyst
"Do I really believe that G-d had something particular in mind in creating me?"

This was a question posed on an old friend from high school's Facebook page. He and I have had some incredible exchanges in correspondence after being out of touch for 29 years now. He is a devout Catholic, Republican, and Yankees fan ! And we are discovering that we have so much in common, spiritually, and a vast amount to learn from one another.

So... as I nurse myself back to good gastrointestinal health, I have pondering time. What a gift.

At a very young age, I am aware now in my adult self, I was in contact with who I am now. My healer has explored a great deal about this concept of the Future Self. The idea that the "Who is" that I am today, was guiding the "Who was" that I occupied in earlier years. My young self understood before even becoming a teenager that she was destined for great things, accomplishments in life. And to remain in the home she was raised in, to live life according to what was expected of all girls passed on from generation to generation (i.e. you find a good man and marry and have children), would be a death sentence. To have this in my awareness as a child, even if only in the background, was to know that G-d had other plans for me. Today, I know this to be absolutely true. And every action that I took, even when I was in utter turmoil and chaos in the throws of my alcoholism, each step was what led me to where I have landed for the moment. And I am not done walking, either.

So, back to the "meat" of the question: what did G-d have in mind in creating ME? I believe today that G-d has always wanted me to be a messenger of learning. There is no place on earth where I am more at home, physically and in my interior, than in a classroom with students. And it is not always about me being in the role of teacher; I can still be a messenger of learning and be a student, as in my Kabbalistic program. And, if I truly believe this and hold this to be the truth of my creation, then I also understand that in order to be a messenger of learning, I had to have a lived experience of learning. The first 3 decades of my life were spent as a student in the school of hard knocks. Painful lessons. And necessary lessons, every single one. Just right for me. I am aware I can be a dense student; it sometimes takes a lightning bolt to thrash me to the ground before I come to and say "A ha ! Now I get it !" This is a pretty accurate statement for many of my early lessons. Today, this is not frequently the case. I am more aware of subtleties and nuances and small shifts that bring me to a place of being awake to insights and learning.

And I don't want to limit my thinking that this is the only reason for G-d creating me. I believe that I am here to heal and to grow and to love. Be it karmatically, from past life experiences, or simply as a person who had wounds just like everyone else and wants to really mend them in a permanent way, not in a band-aid way. To be a living example of healing among my fellows here on earth. To be a servant of G-d. I actually believe that to some extent we were all created with this in mind. And when we each arrived here on earth, raised in our particular "soil" of our parents, their parents, so on, our paths for our specific missions took lots of twists and turns and bumps. And it is in the traveling and not in the arrival to a destination where the heart of our work is.

As my Kabbalistic teacher, J, has said (and I'm paraphrasing): It is being with the questions. That's what living is. It's not about finding the answers or solutions.

I am very grateful to my old friend who offered the opportunity today to be in life with the questions.