Hi all: I've been reading these forums pretty regularly for several weeks, although I first found Shalom Place this spring. I was just reading out of curiosity, not due to any sort of crisis. About 2 1/2 weeks ago,though, some things said here really struck me, and I began a process of letting myself remember experiences that I thought were long behind me. Namely, though Jesus talks about the last being first and the first being last, since I was a kid I've often felt conspicuously among both the first and last, and rarely in the company of the middle of the pack: as far as "first" goes, though I say it myself , I am a talented artist; being a sculptor is my occupation and I've won quite a few awards in international exhibitions within the realistic field that I work in. And while in school I was usually at the head of my class except in math and some of the sciences. But the "last" aspects I felt as a kid have had more of an impact on me than I would admit till recently: for one thing, I had a slight speech problem as a kid; I could usually cover it up in conversation, but it was almost intolerably embarrassing if I couldn't.(Sorry about going into some detail here, but I feel I have to say this stuff out loud just because I so much don't want to do so.) Also, and perhaps more importantly, I felt I looked very different than my classmates. I went to school in a university town, but in an area with a very homogeneous population of Pennsylvania German natives.("If you ain't Dutch you ain't much" is still pretty popular around here.) My dark curly hair that in the late 70's/early 80's refused to feather nicely and my different looks probably would not have been a big deal to me at all, except that my dad didn't tell us he was Jewish till I was an adult. So I just felt I stuck out among my classmates because something was wrong with me personally.

Anyway, I thought I was pretty cool with myself as an adult, and I thought I had mostly let go of reflexively shielding my "last" parts with my "first" talents. But I hadn't, and that's partly what I'm going through now: resting in the idea that God could still find me, and delight in me, even if I were only ever "last"--even if I totally lacked those qualities that got me alot of positive attention from people, I'm believing He'd see me still. Because, of course, there are people who have just "last" qualities in the eyes of the world, and I have no trouble believing He fully delights in them.

Here, then is my question: the past few weeks, while I'm processing this, I have literally not been working. I'm just letting myself feel things for a change. I live on a farm, so I'm taking care of the beasts, mowing grass, weeding, housecleaning etc., but I'm doing no work that doesn't need to be done.

(My dog needs to go out.I'll finish this when I get back in.)

To start again with a happy dog nearby:
Fortunately I'd met all my pressing obligations right before this hit me, and my savings are fine, so I can take some time off.

I usually have no inner dialogue unless I choose to: if I do, it can be in a good way--to figure out how to communicate--or in a false self way. The two ways feel very different physically, so it's not too hard to direct it or stop it. This lack of inner dialogue has little to do with spiritual development in my case, I think. I did feel really bothered by my inner dialogue for years, but at some point it stopped. So, while I haven't read Come to Your Senses, I do mostly live pretty peacefully with close awareness of my physical environment. This peace/pleasure in fact, is what I think kept me from realizing how relationally messed up I still was with God for this long.

So what I'm doing now is seeking real shalom--resting in the acceptance of grace as if I could be found by God even without any outstanding qualities,and wholeness,which may include pain as part of the spectrum.

When I say I'm not working right now, then, I mean sort of that I am working on gaining insight and feeling pain or God's pleasure, not just being addicted to the peace of having a pleasurable silence instead of an inner dialogue. I've been adept for years at doing what Eckhart Tolle advocates though I came by it differently than he, ahd though it's a good thing in itself, it's not to be compared with relational shalom.

Getting back to my primary question again, well, though I feel this "work" of doing nothing is a good thing for now, I'm wondering if I can trust my sense of how long this period needs to last. Or should I just set a time on it, like another week or two, and pick up again when the time is up. I asked my spiritual directors, Aquila and Abide, and they just said "Remember to feed and groom us and the rest is up to you." ( They're horses...not as wise as they look.)

Any thoughts on anything I've said would be appreciated. I should add, to be honest, I'm always pretty mellow in temperament--definately not a type A sort. I do get my work done reliably, but I usually feel drawn rather than driven into artwork. I actually like doing artwork for its own sake, so I'm surprised the draw is not there right now. I guess I'm concentrating on processing these lessons, and -though I don't think it's kundalini- I feel a sort of mild river spilling over at the base of my throat and I feel for some reason I should just be quiet and drink from it for now. Where else could I say that but here?

Um, I might as well say this now...I feel a little silly for choosing Ariel Jaffe as my user name; Ariel is actually merely the name I used a long time ago in my high school Spanish class. My own first name is unusual, and I'm not comfortable posting in a public forum under it. Jaffe was my grandmother's maiden name. It means "pleasant" or "beautiful" in Hebrew, and I chose to use to admit a wistful feeling that when I signed up here, I was hoping to get back to thinking that God could actually like me again. And to some extent, that has happened. Thank you.

Hi, Ariel, and welcome to Shalom Place. I'm not a counselor, but several of the others here have skills and training in that direction.

Thank you for the greeting, Derek.

I guess I should say that I do attend a church. We were just assigned a new pastor and he's thoughtful but young; this is his first church and I hate to bring this stuff up with him while he's barely settled in. I did talk in depth with an earlier older pastor who was a trained counselor. He became a sort of mentor as well as a friend. Just in speaking as friends he was a good influence on me, but he didn't feel I needed professional counseling--but now maybe I do, though, and I'm open to hearing that. I decided to talk about this here because of the depth of insight I've seen,but as I said, I am open to hearing I should seek a counselor in my area.

I think what I let myself see recently is just what a strong underground link runs between my sense of being acceptable and my awareness of being talented. I thought I had largely broken that link some years ago, but no, it's still there. People think I'm humble and sweet, and I think I appear that way because to me, my ability as an artist doesn't make me special, it makes me just acceptable. It's as if my "first" and "last" qualities balance each other out and make me acceptable to the middle of the pack...where I wish I was. I like warmth; living on either end is kind of chilly.

Looking back, my view of my appearance was distorted. Yes, I wasn't like my German classmates in looks, but I wasn't the alien from outer space that I sometimes felt like when, as a kid, I looked at group photos of my class. I never got teased for anything--people have mostly been friendly and kind to me. Boys asked me out. I would go out to be friendly, but wasn't actually interested in anyone till I was older. And then by later years when curly locks were in, a number of women said they envied my hair. So by the reckoning of the world I was never stunning, but just nice to look at...and "just nice" and acceptable is cool by me. Except that sometimes I flip back to feeling like an alien. That's too painful, so I reflexively shield myself by remembering the good attention I get from being talented.

And I am genuinely a highly skilled artist. That part is real, and most of it's good. I remember a line in "Chariots of Fire" where Eric Liddel tells his sister, "But God also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure." Being an artist, even if I never got praise for it, is pretty cool. I look at creation deeply and feel God's pleasure in it. It is good.

I think maybe I'm not drawn into doing artwork right now because I have such a tangled mixture of feelings about it. I keep reading Milton's "Sonnet on His Blindness". It ends with:
...God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best, his state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.

I've been emphasizing "mild" in "bear his mild yoke" as I read to myself.

Well, it's the middle of the night here and by daylight I'll probably wonder what I was thinking in posting this.

Ariel,
I have been thinking about your sort of lull in "working".I had a period of about two months when I did go to work (I had to,but it was no big deal, I didn't have to push myself), but much of the rest of my life went on hold.I didn't go on long walks with friends on the weekends,I didn't go out much at all and I didn't do much but just sit.I wasn't depressed, I got all the essentials done,like doing laundry,arranging flowers on the dining room table (that is an essential for me)etc, but much of my being was engaged in some sort of nonverbal and deep pondering in stillness and silence with God.I was not able to read much.I was bothered by my lack of doing, it is not at all the way I was raised, the way of our culture, but it seemed almost like I was under holy orders to stop and desist from pushing myself to do anything.
I look back at that period as a time of great grace, and I think that this time in your life
may be the same.
I love therapy, but there was no need for anyone in my life then but God, and therapy would have been "work".There was plenty of time for that later on ...this was a time for just God to dwell as He would.
Just my musings, they may not be relevant to you.https://shalomplace.org/groupee_common/ver1.3.4.9627/platform_images/blank.gif

I suppose the urge to do nothing for a while could be appropriate (given an individual's situation) or inappropriate. How you tell the difference, I do not know.

bdb: Yes! That's just how this period seems to me. I'm most definitely not depressed. It feels more like a gift..."a box of rain" to draw on later. But as you put it, it's not how I was raised, so I wanted an outside view of this.

I've been a Christian since I was 15; I'm 42 now, and during this time another thing I'm doing is looking back at what a long road it's been. I heard this kind of backward searching described as looking at old photographs of friends and seeing God has materialized in the photo long after it was taken: He's shown Himself in the midst of a crowd where He was not recognized before.

Thanks for articulating for me what this period feels like, bdb.

Hi Derek: I see you posted while I was writing.

I think I will have to place my attention on my work in another week. But as bdb put it,I think I feel a "holy order" to stay,yet...as if a broken bone, now reset and healing, may be used for walking but not yet stressed in work.

w.c: Thank you. I'm thinking and researching.

First, I have reluctantly admit my familiarity with Buddhist and Hindu teaching is limited to the fact that I twice watched the "Himalaya" DVD series with Michael Palin (the Monty Python member). (I don't mean I had Michael Palin over for company, of course...if I were to choose a British comedian to watch some DVDs with, it would have to be Rowan Atkinson's grossly inconsiderate and selfish Mr. Bean.) So, I'm learning about eastern religions slowly, and I'm not familiar with meditative practices as yet.
What I'm feeling is neither sensory nor emotional. I can't call it kundalini, either. It does seem to be reliable indicator of this, though: I once heard a pastor say, "Give out of your fullness, not your emptiness. Often we give out of our emptiness." I think you've said something similar?...we need to receive to truly give?--otherwise the best we can practice is reciprocal altruism, which easily becomes manipulative.

What I feel is a usually mild wellspring just between my heart and throat. If that stays running clear, no matter how strong or mild, painful or pleasant, I seem to be able to be honest--as much as that's possible now --with God. If that wellspring gets clogged up or, worse, reverses into a downward draw, then I need to ask God to clear it.

I do suspect this is not "felt sense", and I'm still trying to learn about that. Whatever it is, though, it seems worth listening to at this point. I was a riding teacher for quite a while, and I found it best to teach new "feels", internal and external, one at a time. So as I said, Focusing is being explored but I'm also experimenting with seeing if this spring is something God may be using to teach me. It's certainly not addicting--it's not necessarily pleasant. It's more like, when a horse loses its "throughness" and gets blocked, braced, or tense in its body, it's best to neither force it nor continue, but rather slow down, consider the animal, and figure out where the brace is. (Sorry about the equine imagery--horses have been tutors to me, perhaps as your Roman goddess was to you.)It feels like it's a duty to keep the wellspring clear/ keep the horse's TMJ+neck+spine unbraced unless I want bigger problems rather than saying that the wellspring is a guide in itself. God is the guide alone. And yes, I mean God, Christian congregations and communities, and the Bible are means of guidance, not just who I want God to be.

Any thoughts from anyone about what I'm calling a "wellspring" are welcome, of course. It seems able to carry different emotions while still being "through", so it's not just a specific emotion. Likewise, I think it could reverse direction without registering as pain, but then it's all the more harmful to all.

w.c.:

That makes sense! Though, it's somewhat disturbing that when my conscience shows up clearly I'm so unfamiliar with it that I spend several weeks thinking,"Hmm...wonder what this is?" That probably explains why I find Mr. Bean funny while a more sensitive friend of mine thinks he's just a thoughtless oaf. Mr Bean makes me feel like a nice person.

This sense is not the ultimate guide, I think. It may just be an indicator to how true I'm being to what I genuinely know: it seems wiser than my verbal conscience, which I can snow.

Adyashanti says a couple of times that this passive watching (vipassana) tends to produce a disengaged attitude toward life. He says you have to get actively engaged ("focusing" or the "self-inquiry" he recommends). Ok. That's enough Adyashanti. I'm beginning to sound like a groupie!