Grace

Monday morning. Work soon. But want to write as head swimming with thoughts of Grace. Can’t stop thinking about her. Searched again yesterday for her online but no trace, save old addresses and parents. How did it come to this? That my head has become so full of this woman from my youth. Fourteen goddamn years ago! And I wasn’t really thinking of her till I wrote my book and Leah went on her hunt. Now I think of her all the time. Want to settle down with someone but can’t because of the thought of her. Feel haunted and sick that I didn’t get in her car. Wonder where my life would have been. And all this could be cured with a simple email that said, forget about it boy, it was just one of those things, I moved on and found a happy life with another and have never really thought of you since. There is no future. And all these dreams…

But it doesn’t come, and the dreams go on. If I wasn’t banned from America I’d be on a plane there now. Just to know. But I am banned and sneaking in from Canada doesn’t seem so smart and it’s maybe that being banned – the second and third exclusions that took it from five to ten to twenty years – that was the biggest mistake I made in all this. The first deportation was perfect. And maybe not getting in that car too. But the others…

Foolishness. And maybe all this is more foolishness too.

Still, what’s a man to do? It may be foolish but it’s also my reality. That thoughts of her got in the way of my last relationship. That more and more I feel I see her face in the faces of so many of the women in town, and know they’re the kind of faces I’m attracted to. That when I think of giving myself to Laura I know I hold myself back because of the possibility of Grace, no matter how infinitely small it might be. I believe that these things can happen. That the miraculousness of our first two meetings could be repeated. That maybe everything of the past fourteen years was meant to be. That maybe we’re in the right place now. That maybe when I go to Greece in August…

Americans go to Greece too. Miracles and coincidences happen. If it’s meant to be then…

I keep everything open for that. I can’t help it. I guess if someone else swept me off my feet and rocked my world it wouldn’t be an issue. And all the time the clock is ticking.

But is it not just some psychological error on my part? A symptom of my fear of commitment? The one last inarguable get out clause? And where will it leave me? Forty and single and with Laura then past the age of baby making and maybe still hoping and dreaming and –

I could always write to her, I suppose, at one of those parents’ addresses. I tried calling her mother’s once but all I got was a surly suspicious Frenchman who wasn’t helpful at all. I facebook messaged her sister but heard nothing back from that. Who knows? Maybe she’s a black sheep because she gave her life to spirituality and never settled down and keeps moving from town to town and the family have no contact. Or maybe they passed it on and she has no interest, told them not to say anything to me cos all these thoughts of mine are actually stalkerish and scary and not infinitely divinely romantic after all. Or maybe messages just got lost and she’s no idea I’m out here thinking about her. She’s like the one person in the world who has basically no online presence. Like I sometimes wish I didn’t.

I don’t want to be a stalker. I don’t want to be scary. I don’t want to be psychologically weird and not even know it. But I don’t seem to be able to help the way I think and feel. And the bottom line is I think about this person a lot and wonder what the hell it all means. Want an answer and to be free of it so I can move on. Really, nothing more than that.

Having these thoughts in my head and being able to do nothing about them is an absolute pain. Especially when you know your next step in life is knuckling down to a proper committed relationship.

What to do? I did an I Ching about it a while ago – back when I was thinking of giving it a go with Laura – and, much to my surprise, it talked most positively and declared “the way is now clear.” That was a bit of a shock: I was hoping it would talk about foolishness and the necessity of letting go of the past cos whatever was once there was long gone. Not very helpful. But you’ve gotta trust old Ching. That leaves, I suppose, me needing to get in touch. Although there was all that stuff at Amma’s last year that led me to believe it was all stuff and nonsense. That helped kill the thoughts, for a little while at least. ‘Cept here they are again.

Getting in touch. Tried that. Did the aforementioned and also sent a letter to a dentist’s in Grand Junction she may or may not have been at. God! Even just typing that makes me feel like a complete nutter. And yet still I contemplate firing off postcards to old addresses and hoping that one of them makes it. But for what? Divergent thoughts then about how mental that’ll make me appear; how perhaps it’s best just to leave it to fate and destiny and timing; about not rocking the boat and not trying to make the grass grow faster by tugging it; and thoughts about the nature of the internet and how before it all these things would have been forgotten, allowed to fade into the natural mists of ships that pass in the night and maybe even nostalgic “what ifs?” but never “maybe could still bes.”

But – ah – real life intrudes and I have a nice long conversation about karma and non-violence with one of the Christian housemates – one of the more liberal ones – and typing takes a break. Probably said enough. And what I start to think is: far worse things happen to far better people than me.

And now it’s time for work.

Goodbye Christian

So hard to believe I wrote that last journal entry only two days ago. Things move so fast. The recent past seems so distant. Caught up in a whirlwind of mild intensity, it’s perhaps time now for a break from it all…

What happened next? Thursday I worked till 3.30ish, then went straight from there to a game of tennis with another of the housemates and got my first right royal whumping of the summer. 1-6 2-6 1-6. Not that I was bothered. He was much better than me. No shame in that.

Then I had an appointment to talk to one of the young Christians. I thought he’d left town but he said he was back for a little while and wanted to see me. I’ve briefly mentioned him once before but can’t remember when or what I wrote. Interesting chap: no privileged and loving middle-class upbringing for him. A deeply troubled youth. Many questions in his mind. And a fairly recent convert: the newly ‘saved’. We’d had some good connections and some less good too. He’s of an antagonistic nature at times. But I’d done fairly well at taking it in my stride, not making it personal. Remembering the times I hated my teachers too. And the ways they reflected it back on me and made me own it.

We ate samosas and drank jasmine tea. Then went upstairs to the prayer room to be alone and to talk. He told me he’d been thinking about me and some of the things I’d said. Tried to work them out in his head and tried to dismiss me as crazy or evil, maybe a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Said he just wasn’t able to succeed and googled me and bought a copy of my book and read it in three days. And became more troubled still. But knew there was truth in it and in me.

He prayed about it lots and then got a phone call bringing him back to Leeds for a bit of work and knew he had to see me. He poured it all out and I listened. And then he talked about his relationship with the church, the people there, that holy/curséd book.

What could I say? He wanted to know. He wanted truth more than community and popularity and that treasured sense of belonging and not thinking. It’s not an enviable position to be in. What they have, these young Christians, is comforting. Tons of friends and they’re fun friends too. All believing the same thing. All pointing in the same direction. But is it truth? I’ve considered it and I think not. And I guess he’d come to the same conclusion.

Still, I’m reluctant to play much of a part in that. I tell him there’s a lot of good in what he has, that the way to truth can be lonely and difficult and maddening. I don’t want to make any bones about it. But, at the same time, it has its own reward, and peace and joy certainly make the journey worthwhile. The tricky bit is that, being young, there’s a tendency to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, to leap to extremes of belief. Why not the middle ground? No necessity that just because one discovers The Bible isn’t “the infallible word of God” to dismiss the whole tome. All scripture and teachings and life are like the fruit from a tree. Pick them over and see whether they’re good or bad. Taste them. And make up your own mind. Much as I’m an anti-Christian – for all extremes must create their polar opposites – I find good and useful fruit in their Bible. But I have no problem with picking and choosing those words which suit my digestive system and leaving the rest. I guess if you think you’ll be banished to hell for doing that it might present something of a problem. I feel sad for these young Christians, believing their myths and their indoctrination. Someone’s pulled the wool over their eyes and it’s screwing them up and making it unpleasant for the rest of us too. Some of the literature I’ve read in recent weeks is downright frightening. Especially when you consider ‘The Great Commission’. Such egoism and ignorance.

In any case, I do my best to help this guy. Answer his questions and speak the words I feel necessary to speak. The human part of me wants to do something to make him happy but the larger part of me thinks that’s not really what’s required. Troubles bring longing. Longing brings experience. God rarely comes knocking on the door of those who are happy with their lot and know everything already.

And it all feels somehow meant to be…

…

I was off work yesterday and didn’t do much beyond fix three bike punctures, have a lovely long nap, and get in a bit of shopping for the evening tapas party. Oh, and spend a few hours online reading various interesting things about Christianity. Like how the branch of belief I’ve found myself currently investigating is one labelled ‘neocharismatic’ – which certainly helps me understand why I’ve come to see those around me as somewhat ‘extreme’.

Basically, it’s weird, and troubling, and full of ego and fear, despite how lovely and fun and good to play sports with they might be. I just can’t believe that intelligent young people would go around with these ideas in their heads. I mean, love everyone and love God – that’s fine. But what about all this stuff about hell and theirs is the only way and everybody else – every Buddhist and Hindu and Taoist and Sikh – is destined for God’s punishment, no matter how they might live their lives. There are even pages on the internet written by Christians explaining why someone like Amma is hell-bound and needs to come to Christ. Their understanding is so mixed-up and limited. They haven’t a clue. It’s so frustrating to see in people that you like and love. And makes being their friend an eventual impossibility, because sooner or later they’re going to have to exclude you. Perhaps in my case it’s even worse. It’s not like I’m an atheist or a ‘sinner’ who they can work on and try to ‘save’, I’m a theist and a believer who some openly acknowledge as having more experience and knowledge and ‘power’ and that’s a pretty threatening thing. How to deal with that except push it away and forget about it and belittle? And, if unable to rationally explain and justify, simply attribute it all to the cunningness of the devil?

Still, what am I going to do? It’s good to understand these things and help out when I can – but is there really any need to change any particular person’s way of thinking? Too many of them and so few of me. And plenty of books speaking of much larger pictures of God for them to find when the time is right. Maybe this lifetime, maybe next. But what my role in it?

It’s funny; I was just flicking through a Christian book – The Purpose Driven Life; seems like it has some good fruit in it – and near the end there it talks about the responsibility of saving people from their “evil.” Mainly what that made me think about was trying to open these young Christian minds up to the fallacies of their own religion. To stop converting and haranguing people. To try and see the bigger picture about God. To read beyond their own extremely limited canon. To love and embrace all and understand that we’re all children of the one Father/Mother and all are making the journey home, whether we know it or not. It sickens me a little to hear those stories of how someone goes out and ‘saves someone’ when I know what is in their heart and how little true caring there is for that other’s wellbeing. It’s just another notch in the bedpost. Another little buzz for the ego. And one less soul in the world who disagrees with what they believe.

The Christian faith – this particular branch of Christian faith (Jesus as the only way; him dying for our sins; belief in him and The Bible the most important thing and all non-believers condemned to eternal hellfire or annihilation) – is, in my opinion, built on pretty shaky ground, and I think somewhere deep down the believers know this. It’s a doctrine that ignores all evidence. That requires absurd logic. That necessitates the application of a particularly closed mind and narrow view of God and life. Blinkers. Ignorance. Refusal to open up to the wider picture. All, probably, symptoms of a fearful ego seeking to make sense of a daunting world. And so how best to manage this? That, I guess, is the question that many of these Christians are asking themselves, whether they know it or not. And the answer, as far as I’m concerned, makes perfect sense.

How to make sure one’s faith isn’t questioned? Simple: just get everyone else to believe the same thing you do. That, I think, is the driving force behind ‘The Great Commission’. Nothing to do with spreading God’s love to all people or ‘saving their souls’; it’s merely taking away the possibility of argument. Imagine a world where every single person in it believed Jesus was the only son of God and the only person to have ever healed and raised from the dead and all that other groovy stuff. Then you’d be happy…

Of course, that’s not to say all Christianity is like that; and, in fact, I’d like to believe it’s just a certain strain of it, and that there are many more enlightened branches out there somewhere. It’s always the extremists and the ones who make the most noise of any given clique – whether Muslims or students or football supporters or teenagers – who tend to come to define the whole in the eyes of others, and very rarely in ways that are seen as positive or beneficial. But not all students are drunks in fancy dress, and not all teenagers are obnoxious and out of control, it’s just that those who are are a good deal more visible than the ones who sit at home painting watercolours or reading Emily Brontë or thinking about how to better themselves and the world they live in. Something I’d do well to remember. The world isn’t quite so bad as the media and our own bias of perspective might have us believe.

So why Christianity? Why do I still persevere with it and look at it so? In simple terms, I guess I seek a place to belong. In days gone by, travelling in America, things were more simple. We’re all Hindus and New Agers at heart, and though the words we use to define and express things of the divine might differ, we know we’re all on the same page, more or less. Jesus was enlightened and Krishnawas a Christ. Meditation and yoga is prayer. The path to Buddhahood is the path to oneness is the path to God. Many lifetimes and many masters. God made manifest in the world through synchronicities and coincidences. The Universe provides; look at the lilies in their fields. Nothing is exclusive, save certain participants in this one branch of this one religion – and religion is a manmade and ego-driven thing anyway, as we all understand – unless we don’t.

Yet into this religion – in a country that practises this religion, at least – I was born. And perhaps there’s a reason for that, and now that I’m firmly back in England it’s a reason that I’m looking to figure out. And more than that too: for there were those times on my path – in amongst all the Hindu saints and Taoist masters and Buddhist meditations and Sikh yogis – when Judeo-Christianity reared its head most mightily. When Jesus appeared in the mirror. When I heard “Yahweh” on my 28-day solo. When I felt the crown of thorns. When I saw the Star of David. When I adopted Momma’s 23rd Psalm as my go-to prayer for healings and cleansings. Right back to the very first moment I knew “there is a God” in a Mexican Catholic prayer circle. All that intrigues me. I…

I feel like I’m losing the thread here. The point is, it would be nice to be amongst others who sought and understood God in the way that I do, and who I could speak freely with and know that we’re more or less on the same page. There was a moment a week or two ago where I felt I really wanted to say to Christian, look man, let’s forget all this theology and just be two seekers of God: I feel you’re sincere, and I figure I am, so let’s just do it and stop arguing about pointless things we’ll never prove anyway. But to him and those like him, I guess, it’s not as easy as that; not so easy to be spirit buddies and “brothers in Christ” (whatever one takes that to mean) without all that weird stuff about needing everyone in the world to agree that one or two verses from the Gospel of John constitute the entire truth of God’s message to the human race. Such a poor God they believe in! That in the thousands of years of human civilisation those handful of words, supposedly said, supposedly written down sixty or seventy years later, are all we’ve got to go on.

But again, I digress. All I really wanted to say is that it would be nice to find a place where I could practise my spirituality among likeminded people and get to know them on a week-by-week basis rather than always moving around and starting afresh. I’m not averse to that being within the general framework of Christianity, but I am averse to exclusionary and ego-driven sects and people. It just gets boring after a while. I’ve had a decent long look at this particular style of Christianity and, while I’ve gotten much out of it in terms of sorting out my self-destructive obsession with sex and perhaps becoming a little less solitary and a little more giving, I know it’s not for me. And, more than that, it’s probably not for anyone who truly wants to know God. How can you see God if your eyes are closed to the larger part of life? Isn’t it true that if you cannot see God in all you cannot see God at all? Separation and ego are the opposites of unity and God. And, in any case, the evidence far from supports this strand of Christianity also – for where are the saints? Where are the clairvoyants and prophets? Where are the healers and Messiahs and beacons of light? If they think it’s all about the next life and nothing to do with what one can achieve in this one, alas, they’re sadly mistaken.

Still, in a nutshell that’s all to say it’s not for me. Next up, I’m going to look at Unitarianism. I mean, I’ve read the wikipedia entry and it seems all good to me [he smiles and winks]. Might as well. It’s either that or starting a religion of my own. ;-)

…

It’s time to move on now. Everybody’s leaving because it’s the end of the year. Strange to be around this artificially constructed calendar called ‘summer holidays’ and ‘term-time’. All my friends are students and they’re all talking about what they’re going to do next, where they’re going to go, moving house and country and beginning something completely new. Me, I ought to be a normal person, just continuing with the life I have – my job, etc – but since it’s become so wrapped up with theirs I don’t really have much choice. The house’ll be gone in about a week. The life I’ve been living. And a whole new world again for me too. I imagine that’s probably a good thing. Been a bit full-on lately and probably want some time to take stock and assimilate and rest. Decide what I want to do next. Though if it wasn’t for the job I know what that’d be: to gad.

But what am I talking about? To gad? What about the wife? Lol. What about career? What about…

Yep, I finally did it. Yesterday I remembered that I was supposed to have had several epiphanies during my supposéd mid-life crisis, mostly culminating in the need to do something proper with the rest of my time. And then I got distracted by all the fun and games of the past two months and my time with these guys. And also healed from the symptoms of the broken heart and frazzled mind that tend to send one on frenzied missions to change and fix all parts of one’s life, for better or for worse. In any case, I’ve kept thinking about that idea I had to study to be a psychotherapist (or something) and yesterday I did an I Ching about it and got Chapter 1: Great Power, with no changing lines. All very positive and encouraging. And so I guess I’m going to apply.

That’ll be the next four years of life taken care of then. :-)

…

Finally, Christian and I talk late last night, way after all the tapas and fireside songs are finished and everyone else is in bed. He wants to resume where we left off – wants to know why I’m there (questioning, attacking) but I cut him off and say I feel he’s leaving me. He acknowledges it. Says he knows he’s doing it and isn’t sure whether it’s good or bad or what but it’s happening anyway. Says he fell in love with me too hard, too quick. An honesty and turn of phrase that surprises me. To hear another man talk of love for you. I guess it comes natural to them. But it’s something new to me.

We reach a point of harmony. I tell him that thing earlier about wanting to forget the theology, just to seek the truth together. Tell him I feel he is “my brother in Christ.” A sincere soul with a sincere heart and a desire to see God. And he talks about not having had the same experiences that I’ve had, seeing himself very much as “the younger brother, then”. And yet, even with all that, the theology remains, and once more rears its head, much to my dismay. To him, it’s all about Jesus and his death on the cross and how he understands that. To him, it makes no sense that someone could be a lover of God and yet believe something totally different about the reasons for Jesus’s death, let alone his life and the writings on that, and other beliefs and religions.

But why does he presume to then teach me on matters divine, when he acknowledges me as his older brother and therefore, I imagine, his guide? I want to say I just don’t get it but I guess I do – and I guess anything else would be overly idealistic and non-understanding of the complexities of the psychology of the human mind. Which is something I’m pretty keen to learn about.

Fear. Habit. The necessity of self-affirmation and self-image. How can one give up a belief so intrinsic to the makeup of the personality without first finding something even better and more rewarding to replace it? That takes bravery and balls. That takes…

Experience.

Oh, how I wish I could transplant the experience of the indescribable bliss of the soul into another and have them see it for themselves. How cool would that be?

…

But, doubly finally, just as I’m typing the sentence above in walks Christian to say goodbye just before he heads off for the summer. He puts his head near my hand and I put my hand on his hair. Feels so natural and good to do that. Brotherly love.

“I don’t think you’re evil,” he says sheepishly. “I took a picture of you off your hard drive, to remember you by.”

He talks a little about the good times we’ve shared. He’s a hilarious and wonderful man, with a generous and sensitive heart. All of everything else is forgotten in a moment like that; he brought me a cheese sandwich too.

I go downstairs and we laugh and joke in the kitchen with three of the others guys. Make affectionate fun of the speech he gave last night. Make sure he’s got all his stuff and then have big, heartfelt hugs in the front hallway and wave him away from the door.

“You’re my brother, man,” I say, as we hugged not more than thirty minutes ago.

All I feel is love. Where does everything I’ve said above come into it?

It’s all but so much straw.

Breaking

Seems like things are reaching a breaking point with the Christians. Getting more and more ostracised and this time it’s not only in my head or of my own doing. Christian’s retreating further into contraction of the mind and his religion. He finds my theology frightening and I guess he’s not quite ready to go beyond his, no matter what he might see in and believe about me. A girl had offered her house for July – a good sweet Christian girl – but someone talked her out of it, because of our different spiritual beliefs. I had thought it was one particularly rigid young know-it-all, one of those who has an answer for everything – including the one where someone like Amma – an embodiment of goodness and love and miracles and everything they believe Jesus to be – could actually be a tool of the devil; the devil being so devious and smart as to do all the good things the saintly would do, just not in the right name. There’s no arguing with a logic like that. Poor soul. But turns out it may actually have been Christian himself. He does struggle so. I know he loves me, sees something in me, bows down to what he confesses is a greater knowledge, a larger storehouse of experience. But he also feels somewhat responsible for the young flock, and a need to save them from this heretic.

Yesterday he says he wants to talk. Wonders what I’m doing here. Mentions my “watching Christian deconversion videos in the house” (super fascinating). Gets ready, probably, to say I should leave. I guess I feel some anger rising up and instead of just listening cut him off. After all, isn’t he the man who invited me to stay? Said he didn’t believe God had brought me into his life to harm him? Comments repeatedly on the peace and experience and knowledge he sees in me and wants to learn from, all the while acknowledging his struggle and shortcomings?

I stand up and walk towards him. Put my arms on his shoulders.

“You’re in the tension between contraction and expansion,” I said.

“How else,” he replied instantly, “is one to be born?”

I was amazed by his answer. We left it at that. Even as a part of him revolts and attacks, his level of self-awareness and ability to be humble and truthful shines through.

I feel proud of myself too, for stepping out of my previous habit of merely listening and allowing myself to be rejected and silently moving on, thinking these thoughts but expressing them not.

Being around all these Jesus-lovers and reading of him again seems to have got me living a bit more of his boldness. Especially when it comes to matters of the divine and expressing the voice within.

Reality?

Woke up in the middle of a dream about Grace: she was sitting on a wall holding my hand and we were talking with a third-party about all the ways we’d failed to make contact over the years. I was saying stuff like, but what about the message I sent your sister? and she was saying, oh, I haven’t talked to my sister in like twenty years. Then I’d get cross and want to weep for the sadness of it all. All the times I’d thought I was being ignored or shied away for fear of coming across stalky and she was hoping I’d get in touch.

At the end the third-party asks what we’re going to do now and I’m not really thinking anything ‘cos of all the sadness of years gone and never to be returned but Grace looks at me peaceful and loving and says we don’t know, but something…

I don’t know why I have dreams like this…

But before that, there was church, and more realisations about what I imagine my next step in life, which is a committed and proper and decent relationship. The more I get into it, the more I’d like a Christian-type relationship. One in which both partners have focussed their lives on a higher goal. Recognise their respective roles and strengths within the relationship. Want to work hard to give to one another and be the best they can be, rather than to be in it for what they can get from someone who has to be good enough for them. Something chaste and pure. I don’t miss sex one bit, and I certainly don’t miss the headaches it brings. At times I feel such a fool for allowing it to dominate my life so. Such wasted energy and time. It’s not like there’s even anything to show for it…

I met up with Nicky Saturday evening for dinner. I have a vague memory that the last time I saw her I was really mad and upset with her and being totally emotionally guarded but I’m not so good at remembering those things and so just go into it friendly and normal. Except I’ve not long since woken up from a nap and am a bit spaced out, plus can’t think of much to say. She talks and then I get reminded of what I used to be like, not even that many months ago but it seems like forever. Christianity must have worked its way into me, I guess, living with these five chaste and saving themselves guys; I think of her as immoral and cheap and I know it’s a reflection of me. I feel a bit ashamed. I guess if I was so inclined I might have even used a word like “sinner.” I mean, I don’t really want to go down that path – I don’t believe in sin, I believe in inevitable and instantly forgiven mistakes in the process of growth – but there’s something in it too. “Falling short of the glory of God” is another phrase that springs to mind. All for a bit of sweaty hump-de-dump that’s not even as good as a good game of squash!

I guess mainly it’s just a reflection of being in a better place.

Not really sure how all this business of “finding a wife” is going to take place. Laura seems out of the picture cos I’m just going to have to accept that I don’t find her physically attractive and, much as I know that’s not the main thing, it’s still a part of it. Nicky I feel a stranger to and now that sex is out of the equation I realise I’m not that interested in her. Grace is obviously just a pipe dream. So I guess it means someone new. If I was like all the Christian boys I live with I know it wouldn’t be too much of a problem cos in a year or two I’d select someone from among the flock and we’d work at it emboldened by our common beliefs. But although our level of relationship-realisation may be about the same – as I said last time, I’ve come to see myself as somewhat retarded in that regard – the fact is I’m substantially older on paper. In reality age difference has never felt less of an issue and I’m hardly ever conscious of it. But I guess the truth is it matters. The Christian girls are lovely and fun. But what one of them would want a mad old fellow like me with all his history when there are so many strapping young blokes around, with cash?

Of course, that’s not to say I’m without hope, or don’t expect it to happen, just that I’ve no idea how it will.

Patience, I guess; and I don’t feel in too much of a hurry. But when you’re thirty-seven and keen to get it on – know it’s your next step in life and that much-cherished growth depends on it – time is definitely a factor.

Time which is apparently an illusion.

But I suppose we only realise that when we die or discover our enlightenment.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a lot of things, and reality is one of them. Being back in the more spiritual life is probably the motivator behind that. Godly people who know not God. Me with my own pitiful level of realisation yet having had a taste nonetheless. I dissect and denigrate Christianity, I guess, because I feel I have to as I find my own relationship and status with it. Like trying to see the truth behind the words, the actual levels of faith behind the professions of belief. I want to find and know God and as an ever-student and beginner I look to others to show me the way, to learn from. But I guess I’m not the best at knowing whether they have it or not, and that’s why I have to figure it out and pooh-pooh if necessary. This is all a roundabout way of trying to say that whatever I’ve said about some Christians I know being ignorant or egoistic or misguided or into mad things is really a reflection of me wanting to know if they’re more advanced [in the knowledge of God] than I am and deciding that they’re not. The other and real truth is that I think they’re awesome lovely people making their own way in their own time and, as far as morality and goodness and selflessness and relationship-wisdom goes they’re quite a bit further down the line and that’s why I am here, so I can develop those things within myself, which is probably more useful at this time anyway. If that makes any sense. It’s a weird thing. And a bit of a ways off from where this paragraph began. But hopefully we’ll make our way back to –

Reality. What I was thinking is that, wow, it seems like hardly anyone really knows what reality is. And that’s a tragic shame. Those ‘realisations’ I had when on LSD. That actual life is so far removed from what we’ve told ourselves it is. Consensus reality. Bricks and mortar. Jobs and slaving when we were born to be royalty. All these questions of Jesus and theology and religion – but how possible to have any answers without the actual experience of it. What is reality? What is God? What if I’ve been barking up the wrong tree all these last few years, doing as Shawn’s angel suggested and “trying to build a false reality to survive in a world that my mind finds daunting”? I am but a child and I do find it daunting. Yet there is no guide to me save the polarising opposites of my perhaps-mad thoughts/ever-fading memories and the bricks and mortar of pretty much everyone around me. I mean, I know there is more to life than that, but where my path through it?

The point is, what I was thinking was what a shame it would be if I reached the end of this life without having answered the question. Like, a real shame. But…

I shake my head there. That’s where I come unstuck. That’s where I get those images and ideas of me running off into deserts and nature and plunging myself into the madness of solitude with the idea that worldly-deprivation and voyages beyond the rim of potential insanity would – nay, must­ – bring me to that place. To throw myself in the lap of the gods and make my very actions a statement of “bring me death or bring me glory!” Wilderness solos and forty-day fasts and journeys beyond body and mind. Except then I remember that I’ve tried those things before and always returned empty-handed and sheepish. The trip to Israelin 2011. Mexicohot springs the year before that. Mother Meera in 2001. Even Vipassana at the end of last year. Empty-handed and sheepish and generally thinking about women and work.

“You intuitively know,” Shawn’s angel says, “that the next step in your path is building a life with another. Learning to love and be loved. Going beyond selfishness.

“You cannot pretend to know the way. To surrender is the answer.”

Monasteries and asceticism and intense solitude and mad meditation are not for me in this lifetime. Hard to shake the idea but seems to be true.

To build a life with another. But I still want to know what reality is, want to solve the mystery of God. No use to myself or the world until I do. No greater gift one could give to others than that.

This journal entry’s getting weird…

I talked last night with another one of the housemates. I find again beneath the professed belief a lack of genuine faith, of actual experience. I’m stunned. I don’t know why I’m so naïve. I guess I just assume that everyone who studies God has had some experience of It, doesn’t doubt, knows the score. But then I doubt too, sometimes think the whole thing mad. Especially when I wake up from naps.

To know, to know…to know for sure. To have that experience and to experience it always. To understand the mysteries of the soul. We met once, I’m sure we did, and it’s a meeting I can never forget, against which everything else pails.

How to find it once again? How to shun pointless make-believe reality and know truth? Where this woman and how to recognise her when believing also that there’s no such thing as “the one”?

How to make one’s way in the world when merely a baby, a boy, a lonesome soul adrift on the weird waters of life, buffeted by the winds of others’ words and directions, leading not to where I want to go?

Whither teacher? Whither answers? Whither direction? Whither God?

Oh yes: definitely weird now. I guess one of those that I won’t post just yet. Just go to work instead and forget about it. Keep one’s eyes open. Keep dreaming of Grace and crying in my soul for the lack of a woman and for the mistakes I’ve made.

Lonesome boy seeks lonesome girl. Must be awesome and mad, but mad in a good way.

Must be willing to teach and to learn. To grow together in awesomeness. To save me from the bad madness I have.

To stay with me. To be true. To figure out together what love truly means and to burn with the desire for the things that really matter.

Like reality. Like God. Like the promised ecstasy of the life beyond this everyday world.

Something like that.

Answers on a postcard please.

Miracles, etc

So what have we been up to? Funnily enough, I feel satisfied with that brief summation of my June Project experience and happy to move on. Always more thoughts about Christianity, of course – that it’s kind of a “beginner’s religion” – a “gateway drug” to God – but starting to think no point getting into that. I mean, I could spend my time trying to figure the whole thing out, and therefore put myself in a better position in order to – what? – win arguments and discussions but what’s the point? 2.2 billion Christians in the world; I ain’t gonna discourse with them all. Just makes me sad when they get all egoistic about it and think that their way is the only way or get all hung up on weird ideas about the devil and hell – but I guess that’s their cross to bear. What the hoo.

In other news…I came home the other day and a few people were round back – a couple that are staying with us while they find a place to live – and they were talking about times they’ve been prayed for and how it’s worked wonders for them. I was sitting there listening and thinking, hm, what am I doing with my life? If I have a wee bit of “the power” how come I’m not using it when it so obviously works? Seems a bit daft keeping it to myself. And what better use of one’s time than praying for/with people? So I thought I’d float it out there and share that thought and ask if anyone wanted to be prayed for. Out of the four of them the woman from the couple did. Told me she had a lot of pain in the top of her spine from a slipped disc. I got her to walk up and down a bit and she said the pain was there all the time. Then we prayed, for about a minute or two. Afterwards she said the pain was gone. Also that she felt “a cloud of energy, of love” descending upon her. She looked woozy and high. That was about three days ago and she hasn’t had any pain since, says that she felt the disc has gone back where it should be and everything’s perfect. Sleeping better and walking freer and all the rest of it. How cool!

Stuff like that makes me think. Makes me think I should be doing it more but not really sure how to go about it. Makes me think, also, that instead of calling it “healing”, as I’ve always done in the past, I should do as the Christians do and call it “prayer”. Takes away the emphasis on physical cures and shifts it more towards God doing whatever God feels is necessary. Which is what it’s always been anyways. My role is not to demand any specific result but merely to be the channel for the energy. Lessens the possible pitfalls of ego claiming to be “the healer”.

Anyways, yesterday her partner asks to be prayed for as he’s in a right old state. Very stressed and tons going wrong and just looks like he’s lost in the blackest of clouds. He talks a bit about it – I always think it’s good for people to talk first – and then we do the praying. I got one of the guys from the house involved cos…well, I’m not really sure, it was just an intuition and I’m trying to follow them these days. Maybe so he could help and maybe so he could see faith in action with his own eyes, something like that. So we prayed for the guy and then at the end I felt to ask him if he had any physical ailments and he said his heart. Said, actually, that he’d had a mild heart attack not too long ago. I put my right hand on his chest and sat for a minute or so in silence, repeating the name of God that I heard when I was on my 28-day wilderness solo. It felt to me like things were moving around inside his chest but I wondered if that was merely the normal machinations of the body. Mainly what I felt was light and happy and clear, which I generally take as a sign of something happening. And then when I got the feeling to stop I stopped.

I opened my eyes. He opened his eyes too. He was smiling. Light shone from him. The black cloud had departed and he was laughing and joyful and peaceful. Started talking merrily about things. In, basically, a right good mood.

He said he felt when I put my hand over his heart an energy, a heat entering into him and that he could hear the noise of chains being broken. We went for a walk then and he told me a tale of much childhood woe and trauma. But not in a negative or angry or repressed way, just matter of fact, like, “this is what happened to me but it’s okay now.” He was happy the whole time. A changed man from how he’d been all morning. I can only shake my head and marvel, and wonder what else is possible.

They’re very cool, these miracles. But they give me cause for thought and maybe concern too. Just what’s going on with me? Who am I? What am I supposed to do with this? And where will it end? I mean, is there anything God could not do? Because God seems to have done everything that’s been put in front of me so far and I’m not sure I can think of any reason why anything would be beyond God. And yet I’m such a child, a baby, a boy…

I was praying last week for a dent one of the housemates put in a neighbour’s car. I thought to myself, okay, if I see this pop out in front of my eyes I’ll be ready to believe anything. And as I stared at it from across the road and watched as the car went all woozy and started to disappear I was sure the dent was getting smaller and I got scared. I mean, if it happened where would that leave me? So I stopped. And when I looked at it I thought it was smaller but then I couldn’t be sure, couldn’t remember what it had looked like beforehand. I convinced myself that I imagined it. Probably I did. But it was interesting. The fear of what it would mean if it did happen. The fear of not wanting to go to that place. A journey into the unknown, I guess. But would it really be any more miraculous than the stories above, and the occurrences in years past, or the time I prayed for my ex’s laptop and it started working again after two weeks of being so dead the repair shop said it was only good for the bin? I guess all those things were internal, and explainable away. But if you see it with your own eyes…and seeing is believing…well, yes, I wasn’t quite ready for that. Which, like I say, is interesting.

The other day I sat down with one of the housemates and we were chatting about various things. I guess at some point he was asking me what I believed and I was trying to explain it in a way that wouldn’t harm his faith in Christianity and the Bible and Jesus, but without compromising myself too. Just trying to figure the best way to do it. For a change, I decided not to answer his questions directly but instead chose to float out a couple of the analogies or symbols that frequently pop into my head. And when he didn’t understand, instead of translating for him and explaining the whole thing I told him to think about it, like the old Eastern thing of saying, “meditate on it.” I don’t know why but that actually seemed more useful, like it forced him to put his mind into gear and try and figure it out himself, instead of being fed something that he could intellectually engage with. I’m not sure what happened but, because he couldn’t figure it out, his mind seemed to sort of stop, just as mine used to with John Milton. Things went woozy and he started to disappear, which I usually take as a sign of connection. He obviously felt it too. “Something’s happening in the spiritual realm,” he said. I got a bit scared then cos I didn’t want him to freak out or think that I was from the devil or something, ever mindful of the weird stories these young Christians get indoctrinated in from their youth. We kind of looked at each other for a while and he said my face was shifting and changing and he was seeing other faces behind it or on top of it or something. He wasn’t too freaked out though. I mean, he did at one point say, “you’re not of Jesus” or something like that – but then he said that was coming from a place of fear and relaxed into it again. I guess despite his teaching – he’s a big fan of the Book of Revelation, if you can believe that – he must be something of an open-minded guy. In any case, I wasn’t really sure where to go with it so just sat there and let happen what would happen. Was it useful for him? Did it bring him any benefit? Does seeing people’s faces change and shift and become other faces – animals, women, Chinamen – really have any benefit in the journey to God? I like to think that it did in mine – an openness to other realms? more possibilities? past lives? – but I’m not so sure. Still, it wasn’t me that was doing anything, I was just sitting there. I have no power to make these things happen, they just happen every now and then and I kind of go with it. It doesn’t seem to be a bad thing, and he was cool with it when the moment passed. Although things can change in that regard…

I’ve been thinking about something that seems really fascinating. The way people have certain experiences and come to something of a place of joy and excitement with it but then later “rethink it” and look at it again from a position, perhaps, of closed-mindedness, a re-writing of the story, to fit their previous worldview. It’s happened with me, no doubt – Shawn’s angels once told me that I ran eagerly towards the divine when I felt my own spirit, but then cringed at my existence when my mind got involved – and I think it happened with the other housemate last week, after that healing experience with the bike accident girl. What I mean is that, immediately afterwards he was giddy with glee at what he’d just seen with his own eyes, and seemingly in a place where his mind had expanded to take in a new level of reality. He wanted to talk about it loads, to know everything. Shook his head at – in his words – his “ineffectual generic Christian prayers” and my silent ones that worked. And even laughed at his knowing that I hadn’t prayed to his Jesus – who he imagined as the only possible source of all miracles – but to God. Seemed to me like he was in a really good place, and ready to open up to the idea that there was more to life than he’d until then dreamt of. But then the mind kicks in…

The Friday of June Project I was off work. I went downstairs in the morning and sat in the prayer room. On a large piece of paper people had been writing prayers for people they’d met as they’d been going about their community projects and evangelism. People who were due to go into hospital. People who were suffering various ailments and the trials of life. I sat there looking at it and, as well as saying, like, “bless them,” I started to think how kind of silly it was that I was there with this healing gift and how there were all these people that were asking for healing and how the two of them weren’t being brought together. So I decided to do something about it, and made a little sign – always unsure about that sort of thing, but remembering how I did it once outside a supermarket in New Mexico and how it was awesome – and then went to find Christian and tell him my idea, that I could sit in the park while I was making my devil sticks for the Saturday fun day and just see what happened. He was up for it – though a little unsure cos he didn’t want people getting confused – and so off I went. I sat next to the free coffee and cakes/evangelism tent and put up my sign and started making my sticks. And maybe after an hour one of the June Project people came up and told me about a back problem she had. I put my hands on her and she said what had felt like a balled-up fist had been made lighter and released. I was happy with that. And then a little while later some teary young girl came up and started talking about her scars and wanting me to do something and – before I could talk to her Christian came down and interrupted and had some people take her away and wanted to talk to me.

“She’s just given her life to Christ,” he said, “I don’t think it’s a good time for this. And also…”

He’d got the fear. He said it wasn’t right and he had a responsibility and because I wasn’t a bona fide Christian – in his view – he wanted it to stop. He thought people might get confused. He said he was confused. He said I ought to take the sign down and desist.

He wasn’t unpleasant. He was wrestling with demons inside, no doubt. He respects me and shows love for me, and is always interested in what I have to say. But I guess his religion was winning out. His ego, perhaps. Or maybe he was right.

He was heavy-hearted, and reluctant. And I was filled with a kind of sadness, and a load of words from his own Bible, about those who bar the way, the Pharisees and the Scribes. Words about “religion getting in the way of God”. Remembrances of times when involved with churches in the past, how the children in Wakefield used to follow me around and, without me saying or doing anything, sit in circles and pretend to meditate and Om and always ask me if I was holy, for some bizarre reason. I didn’t know what was going on, had no clue what to say or do. But I know it felt bad when the elders would come up and lead them away and ensure they stuck to their own ideas of God.

Very sad indeed.

Christian took the sign down and slowly tore it up. I did think I could just move somewhere else, away from their tent, but I felt somehow it was more important to sit there and let him go through whatever he was going through. He’s a good, heartfelt guy and he was certainly feeling something here. I didn’t want to do anything to stop that. Wouldn’t take the sign down myself. Wouldn’t help him in “doing what he had to do.” I don’t know why but that’s what I felt I had to do. It didn’t really bother me cos it’s not about me anyway. It was all for the greater good, I felt. And maybe I was right…

Funny thing is, I guess you can’t really stop God, you can only postpone it. So almost immediately after Christian left a guy sat down in front of me – a church guy – and said he wanted me to pray with him. We touched hands and he said he felt a wave of electricity shoot down his spine. He said he’d never felt anything like it in his fifty years and went off telling people to go and pray with me. He said people would think I was strange but that I had to keep doing what I was doing. It was all pretty weird and fun and – well what can you do?

As for Christian…I don’t know whether what happened later with him had anything to do with the things I’ve related above but not too long after that he went round to the house of one of the June Project team who was sick and he and the other girl from the bike accident incident said they wanted to pray for him. The guy was kind of an integral member of the team and they were struggling without him. But they’d read something in the New Testament about healing with oil and thought they’d give it a try. The guy was pretty much bed-ridden with headaches and a sore throat and stomach stuff but they got him up out of bed and into the shower and poured oil onto his head. I spoke to him later and he said that pretty much instantly wherever the oil touched him the symptoms left him and he was able to go right back to work. Christian related the story to everyone later that night and – I tell you, I’ve heard loads of Christians tell stories of healings – usually hearsay, I guess I have to add – but this is the first one that moved me. Christian had such a humility about telling it, and it had obviously had a deep effect on him. I guess he was amazed. I mean, he obviously had faith enough to get the guy in the shower and do something seemingly mad like pour oil over his head but never having done it before there must have been plenty of doubt too. And yet he saw it with his own eyes and saw that it really does work. In his testimony he talked about how I’d been saying I was surprised that people I’d met in his church had unbelief in these things, and that how belief needed to be transformed into faith, and I guess this was an example of that. I mean, the proof is in the pudding, right? And this was perhaps the fruit of that “greater good” that I mentioned earlier.

Here’s what I think: I think that believing something is possible is one thing, but knowing that it’s possible is another. I think back a lot to moments in my life when belief has been transformed into something more. Like how when I first wanted to hitchhike across America I was filled with fear and uncertainty, but then I met a guy – coincidentally? – who had done just that and it gave me faith that it would work out okay. Or how I always had this idea that it was possible to be happy but could never find the way until I met Lindsay, and saw that belief embodied in another, and knew that it could come true. I wonder, then, if something like this didn’t happen for Christian, and that the bike accident thing didn’t suddenly bring home to him that his beliefs about the Bible and healings and God weren’t just nice ideas but actual, real occurrences that he too could experience. He saw it with his own eyes. He saw it embodied in another. And he saw there was something that he wasn’t doing in his “generic Christian prayers” that I was.

The bike accident, I thought, was something for the greater good too. I mean, the poor girl and all that – but she’s fine now. Seemed to me like one of those “divine set-ups” I used to write about muchly back in the day when pretty much everything was divine and “set up.” It did something for all of us – I’m still fascinated by the implications it has for the so-called placebo effect – and, likewise, the story about the torn-up sign did something too. It didn’t much matter to me that I was denied the opportunity to pray with others – that’s all God’s doing anyway – but it did feel that it was something for Christian. That’s why, rather than keeping schtum or telling him it was all fine and that I didn’t mind I told him instead that I was sad and that it was another example of religion getting in the way of God and that he was more interested in prayers to Jesus that didn’t work than prayers to God that did. I mean, that’s a valid point and all – it really does seem like these Christians put Jesus above God – but it was something more than that. It was a challenge to him, I guess. And it perhaps forced him to find out whether there was any substance in his beliefs, and whether he could actually turn those beliefs into faith and use them to create the same kinds of results that the heathen New Ager seemed able to. And so he did.

He told the story later and the testimony was beautiful. So humble and true. Seeking to point somewhat in my direction, even as he wrestles with my refusal to credit everything to Jesus. Despite whatever religiosity he struggles with, he still stays open and engages with the part of him that knows there’s more to all this than we currently imagine. I felt so happy for him to have had that experience, to have seen his faith come alive and produce tangible results in the real world. From unbelief to belief to faith to knowing: that seems to be the path. And then maybe beyond that too. The path we’re all perhaps walking. Certainly the path I find myself on.

And things are getting so interesting of late, and I wonder where we should go with it, and what my role in the whole game should be. Does God decide these things? Or could I simply wake up one day and say, for example, that I’m going to give the next twelve months to prayer and serving others and teaching what I know of God? Is one chosen or does one choose? Do we really create our own reality after all? And the responsibility for the lack of movement in our lives, therefore, entirely down to us? Or is there more to it than that? Timing and patience and needing to learn more of the spirit before we plunge right into it?

To answer those questions, probably, I need to remind myself of the words of Shawn’s last reading, and pay attention to the life that’s going on around me and within me. To…

Funnily enough over the last week several people have told me I’d make a good counsellor cos I’m good at listening. Well there you go: a reference back to the idea I had of studying to be a psychotherapist or something; something which I really ought to get on with, I suppose, what with September start dates and application deadlines fast approaching. An answer to that, I feel, is needed, and for that I look to spirit and expect one to come, much as I feel my answer about when to go to Greece has been provided, or my answer to questions about Laura and relationship. I mean, I have found a place in Yorkshire that does training – came through word of mouth, which is always the best way – sod the internet, which merely overloads the brain – but I’m of course, as ever, unsure. So now I want to know. Should I go for it? And, if so, what should I go for and when?

Apply for everything and take what comes?

Do an I Ching?

Or pay attention to the weird signs and passing words of strangers, and be led to some interesting new place?

I guess we’ll see.

But, in a nutshell, everything’s gotten really interesting and I may be back in the flow once again. And for that, I can only say “thank you.”

Also:

– Nicky’s sent me a few messages in recent weeks. Told me the thing with the guy in Ireland is over – quelle surprise! – and asked if I’ll meet up for dinner on Saturday. Says she’s been thinking about things a lot lately – her grandma just died – and thinking of me also. Not sure where to go with that. I mean, obviously I had that whole really, really wanting her thing but that was kind of before everything got bad. Also, I was in a messed up place and now I’m not. Feels good to be free of thoughts of women and sex, and also to experience the company of these good, moral – and, it must be said, beautiful and lovely and fun – Christian women, and that’s more where I’m at these days. Though I have to acknowledge that whatever ways I’ve moved on from the follies of my past – all that daft ‘free love’ stuff – should also be possible for her, and that whatever temptation I have to think of her as the antithesis to “good and moral and pure and lovely” is to be avoided, for she was so much me she might as well have been my twin.

– Talking of lovely Christian women: I walked home from church on Sunday with the girl from the bike accident and we talked about relationships. Well blow me if she didn’t already know all the things I’ve only just come to realise! I shake my head: all those ways I think I’m somehow enlightened and then how far behind and retarded I am in others. She’s only nineteen! And here I am, having taken all this time to realise what these people know now. You attract what you are. The world is a mirror. And I think, maybe, my level of morality and relationship-wisdom has just about reached that of a certain brand of twenty-year-old Christian.

– I’ve got so much money! Like, once I sell those two expensive guitars I bought, something like four grand. This is getting a bit ridiculous: I don’t really need that much and it makes me wonder why I’m working. But perhaps there’s a reason for it somewhere down the line…

– Like, oh yeah, I lent/gave a hundred and fifty quid to the couple that are staying with us for a deposit on a flat. I say “lent” cos they said they’re going to pay it back next week. And I say “gave” cos I think “neither a borrower nor a lender be” is a good way to live and lending can often lead to heartache. Either way, I’m not too bothered. This is me trying to be less selfish and more ‘Christian’.

And I think that’s about it. Time for work! :-)

The morning after the week before...

So ends a rather full-on and interesting and somewhat confusing week. June Project. Centred around our house. Several dozen young Christians spreading the word via the medium of street cleaning and park evangelism and maintenance projects. And then in the evenings, descending upon the living-cum-prayer room to sing beautiful songs of praise until the wee hours. Plus tons of other things besides. Healings happened. People got converted. It was mostly pretty beautiful.

The good:

– To see sweet young souls loving one another and sharing their joy and giving selflessly to the community

– The beautiful image of all those shining happy faces singing their songs of praise in the fairy-lit front room for all the world to see

– The moments where belief became faith, via healings and providence

– The morality of these people, and their adherence to what they believe is the right way to live

– Just to know this is out there, in the world, in the middle of our fair but seemingly materialistic city.

The bad/weird:

– Glossolalia

– Creepy ‘conversions’ and the insidious undermining of other systems of faith

– Getting duped into unpleasant theological discussions/haranguings with unpleasant people

– Religion getting in the way of God/love

– Feeling excluded from certain things because of differing theological beliefs.

I guess, all in all, it was good. I guess.

I may write more about it soon, if I can find the time. Knowing me, the time will be found. ;-)

Spontaneous nonsense gibberish (and not all of it mine)

Catching up on writing a bit of a struggle at the moment. Many things happening and things generally better than writing. Socialising. Being with people. Last thing I wrote was last Friday: supposed to have been a list of all the various things and tying it up and moving on. But only got two points made. Wanted to talk about relationship situation also, plus other things besides. Maybe it doesn’t matter. But still I want to write. So…

1.

I was talking about my life with the Christians. I was a bit dissatisfied I guess, and had a couple of days of feeling weird and not where I should have been and maybe a little on the outside, as is my wont. But then that passed and I went back to feeling great and loving life with them. Such is emotion and expression and the arising and falling of certain states of mind within. Don’t even know why I was feeling the way I was – and not interested neither. We’ve moved on – though I do feel a little bit bad about thinking the things I thought. Oh well.

2.

But in relationship to that, I watched a fascinating series of videos by a chap who was once a devout Christian – much in the way that my friends here are – and who no longer is. He catalogues his deconversion and journey into a kind of “theistic atheism”. Good chap. Very enlightening. Felt like I learned a bunch watching those.

3.

Also, we’ve had a ton of fun. Meals and discussions and barbeques. Making silly videos. Laughter and jokes and awesome conversations. Getting to know people better. Sharing something of my story with them. They’re open and know that I’ve got a little something something. One girl after church remarks how radiant I look, “shining like Moses.” Christian continues to ask questions and ponder the fact of the obvious divinity he sees in a non-Christian. Plus something even more awesome which I’ll write about now.

4.

I’d just got into bed a couple of nights back when Christian says, “Juliet’s been knocked off her bike, can you come?” We run out the house and find her and another friend a few streets away. She’s sat quietly crying from shock and we sit with her a while. Christian and the other girl have their hands on her but I’m an outsider and don’t know her well enough for that. Also, I’m dressed only in a sarong. It’s around midnight I guess. The details come out and though her bike is fucked and it sounds like she landed pretty hard she’s mostly okay. Apart from her arm, which hurts a lot and she can’t move her wrist or thumb, etc. Christian takes a look and, as is their wont, says they should pray for it. He gives thanks and prays. I’m sitting there thinking about my healing gift and wondering if I should do something. I feel like I should but I’m not sure of my place and don’t want to trespass. So I just do it in my head. When they’re done she’s still in pain and I wonder if I should make a move. But still I’m unsure. And then Christian says, “Rory. Any thoughts?” and I instinctively move to sit in front of the girl and tell her to rest her wrist in my hand. I feel the tension in her elbow and ask her to relax it, let my hand take the weight of her arm. She does that and then I place my other hand on top of her wrist. Close my eyes and silently intone the words of the 23rd Psalm. Breathe and ask for the healing energy to come through me. Feel good inside and spacious. And after a minute or so feel that it is done.

The girl looks up at me then with quiet surprise in her eyes. She looks down at her hand and begins to flex it. Moves her thumb and her fingers pretty much normally, when two minutes before they were hardly moving at all. Turns her wrist.

This girl, I know, is a sincere believer. She sings and plays guitar and puts her heart and her soul into her worship. Same for Christian. Same for the other girl. But they’re all amazed.

“I’ve never been healed before,” she says, “I wasn’t sure it would happen.” She’s shocked – happily so – and I’m shocked at that. I figured it would be self-evident.

And on the way home Christian is giddy with excitement and talks about how he’s there with his “generic Christian prayers” and nothing happens and then I do my thing and he can’t believe what’s just taken place. He wants to know everything.

It’s an eye-opener, I guess, for us all.

5.

I wonder, I suppose, whether this won’t be the start of something. But for ideas like that I have to let go and give it to God. It’s not up to me, the time and the way that events unfold. None of us knew this would happen. The girl was in our living room five minutes before and had other options that wouldn’t have led to her getting knocked off her bike. None of that was planned. And as for whys…

Was it so that “the works of God might be displayed”?

6.

Mostly what I’m thinking, though, is about faith and belief. How it was that these guys with such belief who love to pray and espouse so much were – let’s be honest – ineffectualin these particular prayers whereas I was not? I mean, I’m trying very hard not to be egoistic here – and I don’t feel I am being; more the objective observer and reporter – but you’ve got to say it how it is sometimes.

Also, why should they have been so amazed by such a thing? That was what amazed me. And it made me think that there’s perhaps a big difference between faith and belief: that belief is an idea in the mind that something might be possible, and that you want it to be possible, but faith is a reality in the heart and in the very being of person, and the knowing that something is possible. Can belief become faith or is belief merely an openness to possibility? Is experience the only thing that can provide real faith, real knowing? Is experience the logical place to which belief must lead if it is to become something more than an idea?

I mean, you just can’t fake these things, right? And no matter how fervent the prayer or how sincerely held the belief, it ain’t gonna effect reality unless there’s something of substance behind it.

I didn’t word that very well but no doubt better minds than mind will understand the gist…

7.

The other question, of course, is of what it was like for them to see that happen. That those “generic Christian prayers to Jesus” did nothing yet my silent touch did. Both Christian and the girl wanted to know to whom I prayed and I told them “God.” I think they would have loved it if I’d said Jesus but that wouldn’t have been the truth. I dig Jesus but my faith is in God first and foremost, just as his was. I guess that both he and I are praying to the same force is good enough for them, fearful as they are of unknown and outside influences. And they’re delightfully open. The next day I see Juliet and ask her how her arm is. She says she went to the doctor and they told her she had a dislocated thumb and a fractured wrist. But she also says that after the healing there was no pain and that she slept like a log. I dig that. No reason why God should use me to instantly fix her bones and remove whatever lesson/life direction this event should bring about. But probably no reason, also, not to at least provide respite from the pain. And that brings me to the other issue, that of questions of this healing being “all in the mind” or of somehow being a placebo – for the fact that her body/mind responded to the silent touch of a stranger rather than the fervent prayers of close friends and fellow believers speaks volumes.

Like I say, interesting times all round…

8.

And now I move on to questions of Greece, which is one of the main things I was pondering last time, sitting last Friday morning writing in the upstairs prayer room – we now have a downstairs one too, for this week at least – and trying to find an answer. Thoughts in my head about wanting to go. Cheap plane tickets for the following Monday available. But uncertainty about what to do with my current job, whether it was the right time to leave. One friend on facebook had said, “come in August when I’m going” but I imagined her trip to be a very different one to mine. But also in that prayer room there was an opened “calendar Bible” – not sure what they’re really called – and I kept finding myself staring at it as I typed and eventually noticed that that was opened at August the 8th and I guess August slowly slipped into my mind. Who knows what it really means? But I wouldn’t be surprised; I’ve had things like this happen before (most recently when trying to decide/divine the departure date for my last trip to Mexico). And in any case, things here have settled and improved; and the cheap plane ticket of last Monday that was causing my brain to want an answer done passed; and, of course, I have a job and going away would be a bit of a headache from my boss, while he’s waiting for other people to start. So all is well and we’ll see about that.

Really, I hit the nail on the head at the end of my last blog piece: “one day, one step, one decision at a time…”

9.

The other decision my mind was feeling a bit of a squeeze to make was the one regarding relationship, and Laura. That moment the other week when I was asking her about what she felt “the duties of a wife were” and the connection we experienced when hearing her answers. I could have just gone for it then but, as ever, I held back. And then last weekend she came over to Leeds and spent Saturday and Sunday night in the spare room and I felt like – to put it bluntly – I went off her. Various things that there’s probably no point going into. And so the decision is made. I mean, not that I can ever say one hundred “no” – at least not right now – but it’s obvious there’s no way I could give even a fifty percent “yes” and so I have to leave it at that and let time take its course. In reality, anyways, it may only have been her age and the thoughts of what that means as far as creating a family goes that was pressuring me into wanting to make a decision, and that’s probably not the best reason. And so I relax a bit and resolve to the single life. Although that’s not exactly the end of it…

Laura. Poor Laura who forever wants to know “where she stands.” She feels like I’ve confused her and even though I say, “but I haven’t done anything” and know that I’ve done my best to keep this whole process of “thinking about it” inside myself, I guess she’s right. In a way. She says I have control of her emotions and I say that she must have given me control because I’ve done nothing to take control. I say she should be less focussed on me and more focussed on The Higher Power, on herself, her soul. To not build her castle on the shifting sands of another human being’s emotional whims but on something a little more eternal than that. At church on Sunday she says, in response to the usual sermon about needing God, that the guy was right, that she did feel she had a hole inside her. Not that she’s about to become a Christian but I know what she means, because I once felt that hole. And I guess it made me think that she’s perhaps been trying to use me to fill that space, and that just won’t work. Number one, because my natural bent is towards freedom, and I won’t be captured or contained. And number two, because another human being can never truly fill that hole, not in the long run, and something in us knows that. I hope she can fill that hole – and become whole in herself – and then I guess we’ll see.

I’ve been reading a bunch lately on Christian ideals of relationship and, apart from the usual weird insistence on adherence to the Bible and Jesus, I like it. Certainly, the things I’ve read seem like a better model for relationship than the standard modern take on it, culled from the pages of Hollywoodand filled with unrealistic expectation. There’s the acceptance that relationship is bloody difficult and takes work. That it’s a struggle at times, even if it’s ultimately joyful and good. One of the best analogies I read was from a guy who compared the single life to having a lovely clean stable and the married life to filling that stable with a couple of oxen. The oxen provide you with strength and something useful and many other possibilities and gifts besides – but they also fill your previously clean stable with shit, and that shit takes some sweeping and cleaning. I guess the question is what would you rather have? Something effortless but ultimately useless, or something that takes work, and some of it unpleasant and smelly, but that gives you loads in return?

Anyways, I dig these ideas I’ve been reading. I like the fidelity and the purity of it and it makes me wince when I think of how I was last year, in my free love experiments. Seems like that was a bunch of shit but with not much reward, save a few minutes here or there. Feels much better for now to be celibate and not really thinking about those things. Not even wanked since I moved in here five and a bit weeks ago; pretty much forgotten orgasm and hard-ons exist. Better things going on in my life. And better girls, and a better me, awaiting me at some point in the future.

But Laura. Still something to be done, perhaps. Christian comes to me – beautiful shining Christian nearly fifteen years younger than me – and says I need to talk to her, that even though I may feel I haven’t done anything to make her feel confused I have a responsibility to step in and do the right thing by her. They believe, these guys, that the man should take the lead spiritually, not expect the woman to sort herself out. I guess my upbringing is that that’s a bit sexist and, in general, I like to leave people to find their own way. But I think he’s right, and admire his forthrightness in broaching the subject with me. Another great things these guys do in their honesty and openness – for caring for one another is not just in gentleness and smiles, it’s in stepping in when you feel your brother needs a hand and has perhaps wavered from the path. It’s anathema to the modern world, in which we live and let live and let everyone do what they want and make their own mistakes; in which the worst crime is not the crime itself but the apparent ‘judgment’ of the criminal. But I’ve tried that and, for now, I feel morality is the better way and it’s good to have someone tell me when I can step up and do something better. Two heads are better than one – and three, four, five heads infinitely more so. For too long I’ve tried to do everything on my own and I’ve seen where that’s got me. From stories I’ve read these Christians – a certain type of Christian, at least – embrace relationship counselling and enlisting the help of others like no other people I know, and it seems to work. Taking responsibility for one another. You are your brother’s keeper. Something, I think, I’d like to develop more of, and am doing right now.

But now…

10.

Dreams. Dreams from the last week or so. Three dreams in particular, which all came about when in the vicinity of Laura. Saturday and Sunday night I stayed at her house. It was nice and pleasant and comfortable as ever and I got into my usual thing of thinking whether I should make a go of it with her. We took our baths – I’ve decided to knock that on the head though – and, as usual, shared the bed in the platonic nude. And both nights I awoke from dreams of Sophie, my Canadian ex – and on the first night of meeting Grace also – and it shook me so that I realised I was in no position to commit to Laura. Not that the dreams were of a particularly pleasant nature – they weren’t – or meant anything as far as the other women were concerned – but how could I take that step when such were my nightly thoughts? It’s just very weird. And then on the first night that Laura stayed with us in Leeds I dreamed that I saw her murdered and instead of doing anything about it scuttled away with the perpetrators and didn’t help with giving any evidence, just didn’t want to get involved. That’s mean and naughty and, again, more than any literal meaning surely indicative of my feelings of commitment to her. An answer to my questions? Seems so. And seems significant that it always came when she was sleeping close by…

Of course, there is the suggestion that dreams don’t really mean anything, or that they may be more indicative of my fears and fears that I should be working to overcome than my true feelings or answers to my questions. In any case…

11.

A word about my writing. A little while ago my boss called me up with the option of not going into work today, given the light load of deliveries. I took that option and was happy for it, figured it was a good chance to catch up on this writing. Also, though, as I’m writing there are many people buzzing about me in the midst of various community-based projects. The Christians are doing something called ‘June Project’, which means that several dozen of them are going round doing good deeds in the community and being happy and feeding people and clearing gardens and spreading the word and inspiring others, I guess. It’s pretty awesome to see. They’re all so sweet and lovely. They care. They love their Jesus. The kitchen is filled with dozens of crates of food and tons of work is getting done around the place. I missed Day 1 cos I was working and then chatting with Harry. But when I got home I was immediately invited to one of the communal dinners – there are so many people there are about three communal dinners every night – and went round the corner to a house where maybe twenty-five people were eating and so I ate with them too. That was where I caught up with the girl from the bike accident and found out about her hand and where she asked me my whole story about how the healing gift came to me and how that’s worked out over the years. Then from there they all went to the Royal Park pub for a big open mic night – the same pub I first got drunk in well over twenty years ago, and played gigs in when I was eighteen – and they were all lovely and told inspiring stories and it really is great to see all these decent happy young people being all shiny and good. A couple of girls got up and told a story about how the bouncy castle for Saturday’s planned Fun Day had fallen through but then they randomly met a guy who they helped and who wanted to repay them and kept saying, do you want food, do you want money? and they said, no, they’re good for all those things. “Well there must be something you need,” he said, and they said, “well what we really need is a bouncy castle and a couple of generators but we don’t see how we’re going to find those.” And – lo and behold! – he not only possessed a bouncy castle but two generators and would happily loan them to them for free! So that’s pretty awesome. I mean, much as I dispute certain aspects of the Christian theology – the exclusivity, the banning everyone else to a hell that doesn’t even exist no matte how good they are – these are the moments when you also have to acknowledge that God is still working with them and that they are manifesters most excellent. That’s just one example of many. And makes me think…

But that wasn’t really about my writing: what I wanted to say is that I’m trying to get it done and all out of me so I can feel clear and get out there into the sunshine and help them. Also that while I’m sitting here typing there are loads of people and things going on. Or there were; for I’ve now moved onto my bunkbed from the downstairs study to get this done. Except right at this moment two people burst into the room looking for shorts. What I’m trying to say is that these words and this typed life of mine don’t exist in a bubble; that real life is going on too. And that it’s maybe a little weird that I’m sitting here typing self-indulgently while the people I live with are out there doing good things. Also possibly selfish, which with Shawn’s latest reading on my mind is something I’m seeking to look at. But still: get these words out and then I can move on; would only be thinking about it anyway and want to make space for the fresh. Need perhaps more discipline with it. Find the time in the early mornings and sacrifice some lovely but ultimately non-progressive chatter and banter. Funny how life can one day be so empty and devoid of interaction and activity – my last few months in the flat – and then become something completely different. The new something completely different being what I prefer. Which reminds me of Epicurus and how last year I was all into thinking about his ideas for the perfect life and knowing that I had everything except good company and true friends. And how I cried for that and wondered where it was, forever singing the theme tune to Cheers and thinking it an impossibility. How I tossed an I Ching wanting to know “what was next” and how it also pointed towards friendship and like-minded others. I mean, I may not be a Christian – not yet; probably not ever, or at least not this kind – but in the sense of living for a higher cause and sharing and wanting to do good then our minds are very much alike and I dig it. And somewhere in there we can surely find some common ground.

12.

Theology. Theology is a pain. And by theology I mean doctrine and weird old religious ideas and the arguments those things can lead to. I’ve been pretty good with avoiding those things but occasionally I slip and I always wish that I’d been wiser and somehow avoided it. There’s one young guy I find disconcertingly adamant in his beliefs and it’s a bit weird the way he expresses them. So sure and sly and unsettling. He thinks Christianity’s the only way and the Bible true because the Bible tells us so. He thinks other religions are false and that if those religions do good and seemingly lead people to God and to love then that’s the devil’s trickery and really they’ve been led astray. He knows the answer to everything and lacks the self-awareness of, say, Christian, who at least has the humility to recognise when his mind is wrestling and protecting and defensive. He’s the kind of person I should know better than to get into a discussion with but, alas, the other day I slipped and it made me feel yucky. I was only able to disengage by spieling my spiel about how it’s a shame that theology gets in the way of people when aren’t we all just souls looking to experience that place of love and harmony between us and intellectual arguments are just the enemy of that. He might not see it but that’s the way it is. And his trying to convince me, like my trying to convince him is just daft. But it’s for me to master these situations and not get drawn in and be wiser than that.

Must do better.

13.

I really want to stress, though, that all these Christians I’ve suddenly met – and I mean there are dozens and dozens of them – are overwhelmingly great. It’s my nature to focus on the things I find disconcerting or different or interesting in my writing but what it ultimately comes down to is how good and loving and happy they are. And fun-loving too. That’s what it comes down to. What’s in the heart is more important than what’s in the mind. It’s a shame certain aspects of their beliefs are weird but what’s that to me? The positives are awesome and the things they’re giving to the world are great.

I guess that’s all a precursor to what comes next.

14.

I was supposed to perform at the open mic last night. It was a good happy crowd but, alas, a bit too happy for my liking. And in that I mean they were chatting tons and not giving the performers their silence and undivided attention, which is something I need if I’m going to give my heart and soul on stage. Been there too many times when the audience is more interested in talking than listening and not that there’s anything wrong with talking but it doesn’t work for me when I’m doing my thang. Giving your energy in song/word format is precious to me – I wouldn’t engage in a conversation in which the other person was not only not listening but actually talking to someone else and I wouldn’t do that on stage. Performing is like a conversation and it takes two to tango. So I ducked out and came back home to sit in the living room which has been converted and decorated into a large downstairs prayer room. There were four other people there – one being the bike accident girl – and we had a little chat and then they got me to sing a song for them anyway and then we all went into our respective contemplations. Mine was a cross-legged one and silent and the others were reading their Bibles. Then a couple of them started praying out loud in the usual ‘young Christian evangelical manner’ – most sentences begin, “Thank you Lord Jesus” and they smack their lips and say, “yes Lord” and basically project onto God the way they want God to be and work themselves up into a bit of a fervour. Soon enough, glossolalia kicks in – that is, the expulsion of meaningless strings of syllables taken by believers to be an expression of the holy spirit – “speaking in tongues” – and by researchers as a learned, self-induced behaviour. My opinion is that it’s somewhere in the middle, but I’ll get to that later. In any case, one lovely, friendly switched on guy is babbling away and mixing up his “chakalafoosie mantakal etchiegonsa lo mesta kootie” with his “thank you Lord Jesuses” while another Asian girl is doing much the same except laughing kind of hysterically every now and then and, to be honest, it’s getting a little disconcerting. Fascinating, in a weird kind of anthropological kind of way – man, what need to hit up the jungles of Africa to see strange antiquated behaviour and bizarre psychology? is what I’m thinking – but also disturbing. I guess they’d say it’s cos I’m afraid and don’t understand; what I’d say is that, alas, I understand only too well. Anyways, after a bit another girl with bright red hair all young and attractive and funky but, let me tell you, a sincere believer, starts praying over the arm of the bike accident girl and doing really weird movements and then they start uttering nonsense syllables/speaking in tongues (you decide which) and after a few minutes of that I take my leave. Fascinating but enough is enough. I go to the study to send an email or something. Listen to the hyenas as the fervour builds. Shake my head and wonder.

So sweet and loving and lovely. But so mad, too, in certain ways. It’s not a black and white world…

15.

Later on a ton of people come in the house and the living room is filled to bursting and the place is filled with song. The hymns are beautiful. The voices angelic. Their eyes shining bright and joyous in their worship and their praise. Man, they love their Lord Jesus! And listening to that it is infectious and stirs the heart and makes one want to be a part of it. Except then the babbling gibberish rises up again and arms are flung into the air as the spirit moves them. It’s part beautiful expression of divine adoration, part grotesque voodoo trance dance. But at the same time it’s more than that: it becomes clear that, though this ‘speaking in tongues’ is not the spirit moving them it is perhaps a way to get in touch with the spirit when performed with purity. It disengages the mind. It thrusts one purely into the moment, without thought of past or future. And it overcomes all notions of the ego and separation from one another by letting go of inhibition, of judgment, of shame. It performs much the same function as singing with others does, except with more abandon. As sport does, except without the competitiveness and aggression. As sex does, without the lust. To be in the moment. To be free of ego. To not be thinking.

It is, probably, a way to experience something of God, just like mantras, chanting, bhajans, and uttering nonsense are ways to experience God, to get naturally high. I mean, I’m as much as a lover of singing nonsense songs as anyone. It does get you high, disengage the conscious mind, bring one to the present moment. ‘Cept in a sort of drunken, intoxicated way that lacks the focus, perhaps, of meditation.

In any case, that’s why I say glossolalia is perhaps somewhere between the two polarised beliefs of science and religion.

16.

I’ll say again: the singing is beautiful. We’re in a red brick house in the middle of Leeds 6, fairy lights illuminating all for any passerby to see. Singers lost in joyous abandon. Beautiful harmony and beautiful sentiment. It’s a moment where one is transported out of the idea that Leeds is nothing more than a big concrete city where all anyone does is shop and that magic is something that only happens elsewhere. Thirty or forty twenty-something students are creating this while their neighbours drink beer and play Xbox. I could have been sat in another living room a few streets away oblivious on my own computer and wondering where all the real life was and bemoaning when it’s right here all the time. Other mes were doing exactly that last night. But I was the lucky me who was gazing in and seeing it, and smiling on them like one might smile on their children, gladdened by their songs and encouraged to merely know that it exists and is going on. Maybe all the misgivings I voice are true – just maybe – but for certain the goodness is true also.

17.

And is that about it? Recaps of at least ten percent of recent events? Details of decisions regarding romance and Greece? Do need to sort out the question of career – weirdly had three phonecalls in the last couple of days from totally unlinked careers places asking me how I’m doing with that – but just haven’t had the time to look at it. What more? Resolutions to abstain from theological discussions characterised by tension. Plenty of thoughts of Shawn’s reading and the desire to write about that somewhat – and, more importantly, act on it. And, just having had a quick look, the realisation that I’ve pretty much ticked off that to-do list I made the other day. Apart from now owning about two thousand pounds worth of guitar that I ought to get around to selling. Do that and I’ll have nearly four and a half grand in the bank. The money situation’s getting a bit ridiculous. Outgoings are minimal – bunkbed rent is only thirty quid a week – and it just keeps growing. Does make me wonder why I’m working when there are perhaps better things I could be doing with my time and knowing that I would have headed on that pilgrimage in Greece had I not been. But then there’s my answer right there: for it has kept me in Leeds and staying in Leeds has been good. Remember when I was all messed up and having that “mid-life crisis” and broken-hearted over romance? Seems like a memory from another lifetime right now. I mean, once again, no matter what misgivings I might have over Christianity and the weirdness of some of those beliefs – well, God bless my new young friends and the love and morality they have demonstrated to me, which was just what I was crying out for and in need of. And…

18.

I wonder…I have an urge to talk to the bike accident girl and the red-headed girl – dyed red hair – and ask them about what they were doing in the prayer room last night. Question is, in a nutshell, did it work? Cos as we’ve seen there’s more to these things than fervent belief and, ultimately, the proof is in the pudding.

I’m excited to think of where this all might lead. But then, I’ve been excited before, and I’ve learned to temper that and just breathe…

19.

There are a couple of guys I’ve talked with in recent days who are asking questions and you can tell they’re asking questions and, alas, they’re somewhat on the outside because of it. Not that they’re asking questions out loud or to the others but I can see what’s going on with them. I like it. There’s something real and human about it. Acknowledging the truth of what they’re feeling rather than merely repeating what they’ve been told to feel. The thinking brain switches off when presented with glib repeated statements of religion. But then, nothing of what I’ve just said is new.

20.

Also, a couple of guys are making a video documentary of the whole thing. I wish they’d been here when the speaking in tongues was going on. But probably there’ll be plenty of opportunities to catch that. It does look like the maddest thing when caught on film; I watched a video from America of it on youtube where children were being coerced into it and it struck me as terrifying and sad. Anyways, the video guys were asking me why I believed in God and I told them about my first experiences back in the day in Mexico. Naturally, me being me, I felt compelled to provide an overly-long backstory and waffled on much more than I should have but, there you go, what can do, does kind of seem to be my nature. So much for the concision I promised right at the beginning of these words! Something else I might want to work on too, he lols.

21.

Okay. So I think that’s pretty much it for today. Definitely feel caught up. No more questions. Time to get out and do something. Time to eat and see what reality I get presented with now. It’s nice not knowing what the future brings, what surprise is around the corner. Nice to be living one day, one hour, one decision at a time. Getting more and more into that flow that Shawn’s reading spoke of, trying to let go of the requirements of my goof of a mind. The future will shape itself. Being here today wasn’t planned and that’s worked out pretty great. In fact, pretty much nothing of anything great I’ve ever done was planned so what does that tell you? Probably that John Lennon was right.

But: let’s stop waffling and move on. Enough.

Cheers! :-)