Sunday, April 23, 2017

Choosing to Be Here

Those who are mentally, physically or intellectually challenged are often viewed as inferior to the norm.  I think that can't be farther from the truth, and that they are much farther on their Light path than most.

'We're here to learn lessons' is the premise of our human existences, in a nutshell.  Many a human are used to viewing through an ego-based lens of having or lacking material possessions, our place on the financial rung of the wealth ladder, thinking we're better or worse than another by comparison.  So anyone who chooses to be here with what we label a disability (autism, physical handicap, mental retardation to name a few) must be far ahead of us in the bigger picture of soul growth.

I said "chooses to be here" because I believe we do choose, or help to choose, the lesson or lessons we incarnate into humankind to learn, and those choices are made on some soul level before we are conceived in a womb.

It's worthwhile to share my view on karma at this point with the best example I've ever come across.  It's an account I heard from James Van Praagh and this is how I remember it:  Three high school sports stars were killed after their car crashed and burned.  Grieving parents were in one of JVP's galleries.  They were devastated, of course, along with their entire families, the school, even the town.  It's one of those stories that pulls at anyone's heart strings who hears about it and leaves everyone wondering why.  One or all of those boys came through at the gallery reading and explained that their ending was payback for a karmic debt they owed.  My recollection is that all three of those boys had served together as soldiers in a previous life.  One day or night they were scouting, protecting an area, and they came across two people in a car.  They taunted the two, bullied them, stalked them around the outside of the car.  They harassed them more by shooting at the car, and then a bullet hit the gas tank and the car caught fire.  The soldiers did nothing but watch and incurred a huge karmic debt.

On a soul level, while they were still what we consider "dead," the three soldiers chose to pay back that karmic debt together through reincarnation into the same time space.  Did they choose to excel at sports and to be driving at a certain time of a certain day so that a crash and explosion would end their lives?  I doubt that every detail of that was prepared in advance, but I believe that once the intention to resolve that karmic debt was set, God and the Universe allowed their perfect storm to come to fruition at precisely the time when it had to happen.

Where does that leave those left in mourning?  It must have been necessary for them to experience loss, regret, appreciation, and get their thoughts, words and deeds in alignment.  We all learn something about ourselves after a tragedy.  It's such a very big story.

Back to the soul growth of the disabled . . . Again believing that we choose our lifetime lessons, imagine the greatness of one who can leave their ego behind to live a human life of what the average Joe's see as disturbing, troublesome, even bothersome, a struggle and basically, a bad lot in life.  Meanwhile, what's really going on are circumstances calling us to practice unconditional love, a chance for love to grow and expand.  What higher calling can one have?  The person in the wheelchair with deformed limbs, unable to speak with words - they didn't pick the short straw before being born.  Although unaware in their human form, they are here with what I consider a high calling - to bring out the best in those who are with them in this lifetime.  They are here serving up the opportunity for our own expansion in compassion, patience, acceptance and tolerance.  And the one who laughs at, makes fun, or takes advantage of these beautiful people?  Human - 0, Karmic Debt - 1.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Be the Daffodil

This year, the daffodils in the garden were ready for action ahead of schedule.  We had that mild and rather warm winter and they just couldn't wait to re-emerge.  Then Old Man Winter let us know he was only on hiatus, not gone for the season, and he dumped 18 inches of snow on us.  My elbow still hurts from how heavy that was to shovel.  It warmed up pretty quickly and those daffodils were undeterred.  When the snow melted, the flowers that had already bloomed were still in their yellow glory and new flowers were playing peekaboo before opening into their own brilliance.

'There's a lesson here,' I thought:  Be the daffodil.

An acquaintance, who we'll call Charlie, is being the daffodil in the Intensive Care Unit as I write this.  Bullets seared through his gut like the snow had pummeled the daffodils, yet each day he gets better.  You might say he's showing off being an overachiever, reaching levels with the respiratory blow tube beyond where the doctors want him to reach.  In physical therapy, he does more reps than he's asked.  He IS the daffodil.

He's expected to have a longer than normal "growing season" that may extend into summer, but at the end of it, he'll be that bloom that stands out among all the rest, the one that is so magnificent and resplendent that it makes one wonder why can't they all be like that.