Feeling lost? Stand still and take in the beauty of your journey
You'll find you're in the perfect place right now
"If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future."
—Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
It was that amazing mystic, poet and theologian Maya Angelou who once remarked: "You can't really know where you are going until you know where you have been."
With much respect to Ms. Angelou, my own modified version of that quote is this: "Sometimes you don't know where you are until you can know where you have been."
Where we have been is important to map where we want to go next, but it's also important to orient ourselves to where we are in this moment and question whether we want our past to keep dictating our future, or if we need to stop, observe, get present in this moment and make some different choices about our direction.
My spiritual community's search for meeting space over the years in Columbia, S.C., is a prime example of how valuable it was for us to stop, as a community, and look back to where had been. When Jubilee began, we shared space, renting a yoga room once a week at a gym on centrally located road. For six years, we'd come into an empty room on Sunday mornings and set up the chairs, lug in musical and sound equipment and tear it all down at the end.
When the owner of the gym evicted us, we, again, ended up in shared space. By this time, we had begun having conversations about how nice it would be to have our own space where we didn't have to set up and tear down and lug around equipment. As we stepped out on faith to find this place, Spirit brought us some financial backers who helped us fund a new space right down the road from that yoga room – at least for a while.
After I signed the lease, I had many sleepless nights. The terms of the lease put the financial responsibility squarely on my shoulders, should we fail to pay our rent. I expressed my worries to the board who assured me that we'd be just fine, which we were, because the community was dedicated to making it work.
This is true of our personal spiritual journeys. None of us travel alone. We're not on this journey to navel gaze, do spiritual bypass and be alone in our rooms. We do this work of transformation for everyone, and it takes a community to keep us on track – to help us remember that who we are, at our core, is the light of the world – innocent children of God who are meant to shine that Holy love into the world.
This is the message that Jesus was sending to the world in the story about a blind man he encountered and healed in John 9:1-7. The people around him were concerned about the past, asking, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
This is a classic example of how our ego likes to drag the past into the present, making the future look just like what we've come to expect. Jesus, though, reminds those around him, and us today, of who we truly are – sinless children of God. Nobody sinned, Jesus says. We all come into this world burdened with the ego's blindness to who we truly are. Jesus reminds them, and us, of every human's true purpose:
"As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world," he told them.
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This is Jesus' reminder to us that all we ever have is this present moment. This is the time when we can stand where we are and choose to either face toward the past, which is known, or the future, which remains to be written. Do we want to drag our blindness of the past into our future, or are we ready to have our vision healed and move forward knowing that our purpose, in every moment, is to shine the light of Love?
"Night is coming," Jesus said, "when no one can work." This is a warning not to slip back into the darkness of our egoic unconsciousness, living our lives through our old patterns. We must bring that darkness of the ego's night, where nothing can work, into the light of our True North of Love that moves us in the right direction – away from all actions that bring about more separation in the world, toward the paths of unity.
Jesus knew that sometimes, we need a little bit of mud in our eye – those challenges and struggles of life – to regain our Holy vision so we can move forward in confidence, using our Holy light within to clearly illuminate our path.
You are now leaving your comfort zone
To grow spiritually, we are constantly called to leave our comfort zones. Our community left the comfort zone of shared space to our own space, where we were responsible for paying all the rent. We left the comfort zone of a central location to move to our current space which is in an area considered a "bad part" of town and a space that needed to be completely renovated. We continue to stretch ourselves as a community to make our space as welcoming as possible. There may well come a day when the space we're in will become too small and we'll need to get uncomfortable again and find the next place for us to grow.
Our personal spiritual journeys are the same. We may feel Spirit calling us in new directions and the ego will start up, listing all of the drawbacks. "I don't like this, it's ugly, it's in a bad part of town, nobody will come …" On and on it will go, telling you what a bad idea this next move of yours is, but this is the moment where you must move forward in faith and leave the past behind.
If you do, transformation happens. This is the Holy's promise to us: If we move into the future, unencumbered by the ugliness of our past, it will make our world and lives beautiful, by bringing us the resources, vision and everything else that is necessary to create beauty in the world. A Course in Miracles says the only thing Spirit ever preserves from our past is its beauty. This is the foundation we're called to build upon and leave behind the ugliness of the past.
Once we get a taste of this present beauty, we can't move backward. Our community can't go back to shared space, or other locations, now that we've tasted the beauty and freedom of our current space. Individually, we can't go back to our old ego-driven ways, once we have touched that Divine presence of peace, love and joy within ourselves.
Chapter 13 of A Course shows us how the Holy and the ego use time differently. The Holy Spirit knows that "now is the closest approximation of eternity that this world offers," it says, which means when we are healed from our blindness of the past and we only bring in the beauty of our past to this moment, that beauty will be extended into the future.
How often, though, do we insist on carrying all the ugly baggage from the past into the future? This is how the ego uses time. It shows you reasons to be fearful, reasons to be doubtful, reasons to hold grievances and reasons to avoid going forward without all this baggage. It keeps you blind and stuck, blaming some illusory past "sinfulness" as the reasons why you can't move forward.
The ego's blind continuity, A Course says, "would keep you in time, while the Holy Spirit would release you from it."
The question for us, then, is what kind of future do we want to create? Do we want to move ahead in love, peace and joy, by recognizing the absolutely stunning beauty of where we are right now? Or, do we want to allow the ego to drag in all the old baggage of our past and keep us stuck in those old patterns of fear, lack and uncertainty?
In the movie, Castaway, there's a moment when Tom Hanks' character has put together a raft to leave the island where a plane crash left him isolated. As he floats away, he gets his first full glimpse of the beauty of his old, island home, and he begins to weep. He's not sad that he's leaving the island. He certainly never wants to see it again. Instead, he's grateful for the space that it provided to him when he needed it.
I'm grateful for all of the places that have held space for our community. I don't want to go back to any of them. Instead, I want to move forward from this beautiful place that currently holds space for us to grow and transform.
I invite you to stand where you are now and look back at all the places in your life that have held space for you. Many of those places, like that island, are places you don't ever want to visit again – but in their time, they served a purpose. I invite you, this morning, be grateful for all of those places. Be grateful for the community you had in that moment that held you and challenged you to grow. Be grateful for all of the past beauty that has been remembered, so you can continue to create beauty now and in the future.
You have made no mistakes along the journey of your life. Every decision, every move you have made has brought you to the place where you are now. Rejoice in all of it, maybe especially the parts that the ego calls ugly or brutal, because none of that has to be brought forward into the present. Only the beauty of your past remains, and with that knowledge, you can allow Spirit to move you along to the next part of your beautiful life's journey.
Where are you on life’s journey? What baggage of the past do you need to leave behind? Let’s talk in the comments!
Music for the journey
“Stand” by R.E.M.
Motley Mystic is now a free newsletter!
I have removed the paid subscription option from Motley Mystic because I want everyone to have equal access to whatever I post here. I am working on a new project that may become a book at some point and I want to begin sharing it here with you, but I don’t want anyone to be left out.
If you would still like to support my work, please consider donating to Jubilee! Circle, the spiritual community that I founded and lead in Columbia, S.C. I am rededicating myself to the success of this community, and your support will help not only me, but the community at large.
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Want to learn more about A Course in Miracles?
Jubilee! Circle hosts an informal discussion group about A Course in Miracles every Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time. If you’re in the Columbia, SC area, you can join us in-person at 6729 Two Notch Road, Ste. 70 in Columbia. If you’re anywhere else in the world, join us by Zoom using the link below. Whether you’re new to ACIM, or have been studying it for years, this is a low-pressure, friendly environment to learn more and grow together! Join us:
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86088245457?pwd=bWd6QzhscGlUYnFnYUU1dy9uTUVMZz09
Are you looking for spiritual guidance?
I am a trained and certified spiritual director who can help you deepen your connection to the Holy and guide you as you seek spiritual growth and transformation.
If you’ve been feeling out of touch with the Holy or simply want to explore new practices to strengthen your spirituality, I can help you. I use a motley collection of techniques based in traditions such as Buddhism, Christianity, metaphysics and, of course, A Course in Miracles.
Contact me at candace@motleymystic.com for more details.
About the Motley Mystic:
The Motley Mystic is an online community for people who have realized that the truth speaks with many voices. There is no one religion, philosophy, institution or dogma that captures the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. No one needs to swear allegiance to one line of thought or belief to discern Truth, because Love is the only thing that’s real. That’s what we explore at the Motley Mystic - all the tools and strategies we need to remove our barriers to Love and live fully as our true, Divine Self.
Candace Chellew is the founder of Motley Mystic as well Jubilee! Circle, an interfaith spiritual community in Columbia, S.C. She is also the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass and the founder and senior editor emeritus of Whosoever: An Online Magazine for LGBTQ People of Faith. She is also a musician and avid animal lover.