November 16, 2022
51 Comments
“Writing music is my second career. My first career is to be happy.”—Jewel
I have never had what’s considered a normal career, the kind with insurance benefits and retirement packages. Instead, I spent the years people typically use to “climb the career ladder” pursuing interesting adventures and, like Jewel, investigating practices that encourage peace, wonder and spontaneity.
I’ve come to believe that this state of pure aliveness is my natural state (yours, too) and that other states of say, stress, impatience and fear are the result of an erroneous belief system. I’ve been known to blame society and old cultural paradigms for trapping me inside the box, but I realize my own mind is also guilty of misappropriating truth from time to time.
That’s why I believe sharing miracles (the only conversation worth having, in my opinion) is so important. So here are two:
At today’s possibility posse, Jay mentioned his intention to forgive the Catholic church. We all have those institutions and legacies that seem to have hurt us. Jay, a cradle Catholic who LOVED the church, was devastated when a priest, upon learning they were gay, refused to give communion. At the time, Jay wrote the church off, but in their desire to live the most authentic, open life possible, knew forgiveness would eventually be necessary. When Jay was ready, they said it out loud. “I now forgive the Catholic church.”
Soon after, Jay opened their old childhood jewelry box and found a very unusual Catholic medallion.
“I’ve seen lots of Catholic medallions, but never one like this. Where did it come from? I know I didn’t put it in there.”
What Jay did know is that once you make a sincere intention, you better hang on to your hat. Especially when said intention includes the F word. Because the universe–the field, God, whatever you want to call it–takes that shit seriously. Signs will start showing up like the owls who inundated Harry Potter’s muggle relatives with invitations to Hogwarts.
In the last month, Jay has been invited to four Catholic funerals. The willingness to open to new things (that’s all forgiveness really is) resulted in a priest apologizing, a canter singing “Panis Angelicus,” the song Jay’s mom sang every year and more importantly, Jay being willing to look the very priest who slighted them in the eye, and say, “I forgive you.” In other words, Jay is now free. They even reported doing a rosary the other day.
Despite its reputation, forgiveness is the path that opens us to all good things. It has nothing to do with letting someone off the hook. It’s simply a realization that nothing or nobody can hurt us. That’s true freedom.
Another climbing out of the box miracle occurred at All Souls. A beautiful young woman shared that she’d been asking the question so many of us have—what is mine to do right now? How can I make a difference? How can I help mend the world back together? One night during this period of soul-searching, she had a vivid dream, a dream that seemed realer than normal reality. She was sitting on the couch in her living room when a little blond girl with blood coming out of her nose and her ears approached. Needless to say, the woman picked her up, held her tight and comforted her. The little girl said she’d lost her parents, so the woman hugged her even tighter. They shared a beautiful, holy connection.
When she woke up the next day, she read in the paper about a bombing overnight in Ukraine where many children and their parents were killed and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she had lovingly ushered that little girl into the next realm.
It was a stunning moment. All of us who heard her story knew it to be true. Truer and more real than “normal” reality.
As we climb out of our heads, as we escape the four walls in which we endlessly circle, we discover that our true purpose may be happening in a cosmic realm. And that anybody or anything we forgive heals not only us, but the entire world.
I love you, people.
#222 Forever!
Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest, The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World).