Essay originally published by Evening Street Review, Number 17, Autumn 2017 As a bi-racial lesbian couple in 1982 Catholic Boston, friends were hard to come by. So when a neighbor invited us for dinner, Anita and I sprang for Heineken and ran to her door. There was...
Nine weeks have passed since the Inauguration and once, twice, thirty-seven times a day I hear something infuriating. Today’s insanity? A health care plan that plans to not take care of people’s health. Every day there’s another vortex that sucks me up, whirls me around...
Welcome to Chronicle of Joy. I’ve launched this new website—and an emailed newsletter—because the world has gone mad and I need to write about it. Some writers are satisfied scribbling in a diary. Not me. I, sadly, feel compelled to share. So, I've built this stage and you are...
I like to pretend I’m not woo woo but between you and me, I’m full of crap.
I poo poo the wackos who unblock chi by ohming into their chakras. I question the motives of the people who take pilgrimages to Dharamsala. I feel sorry for the people who continually plop down credit cards to pay for endless “Harnessing the Law of Attraction” workshops in the hopes of manifesting the BMW they always wanted.
In my darkest, most cynical moments, these poor souls are lost sheep in search of a shepherd—someone or something who can lead them out of the briar patch into a new, less prickly life. I judge them as irrational nuts but, ladies and gentlemen, the hard truth is—I’m one of them.
Yes, indeed. There is no denying it now because a few weeks back, I picked up the phone and called — wait for it — an Animal Communicator.
AN ANIMAL INTUITIVE.
What, dare I ask, is woo wooier than that?
Why do people dress up for God?
I remember being a kid on Sunday mornings watching my friends climb into their parent’s station wagons to go to church. The girls had on prissy, pressed dresses and patent leather mary janes; the boys wore skinny neckties and little plaid sports jackets with sleeves that always seemed too short. They were miniature versions of their parents.
Looking back, I’m not sure who they thought they were kidding. I don’t imagine God was fooled by a primly folded, breast pocket handkerchief or string of pearls.
Being all omniscient, God sees everything, right? He knows what we look like in the morning in our ragtag pajamas and cockeyed bed-head hair. He knows we wear stained jeans and socks with holes in them. He knows, to my horror, the condition of our underwear. And, because he’s so damn omnipotent, he knows how badly we can behave — bitchy and cranky and passive aggressive (who me?) and impatient and judgmental and superior and…oh, how I could go on.
There’s no slipping a mickey past this God guy.
A message from The Voice
You come here to this spot on your couch to tap into the reservoir of goodness that exists in the world, everywhere, all the time—even in you. You know that as you proceed through your day people will interrupt you, rocks will fall in your path, flowers will bloom right beside but go unnoticed. That’s why you sit here with me. You know that right beyond the front door of your physical experience are rolling hills and green pastures waiting for you to play and be your best.
You come here to remember. You come here to remember the ever unfolding, infinitely available fields of possibility. As far as the eye can see, up and down, across and around, there is love and joy eager to be expressed. You are bathed in it. It infuses your skins and is absorbed to your core. It is what you are made of.
Close your eyes for just a moment and see
I spring from the rivers of great mountain ranges and fall into the oceans that feed the world. I am a child of my parents. I am the living breath body through which Spirit expresses itself.
Beyond my body is a world. Other people, trees, fish, swamp and sea, ferns and foxtail, swan and swallow, worm and seed. This planet is rife with throbbing life. The wind blows from Kuala Lumpur to Kentucky bringing with it the sweet nectar of promise. On the winds come rain and clear skies and the possibility of newness. Beyond my mind and my limiting view of what’s possible is a whirl of life, dreams, hopes and love – unending, warm, soft embracing love. On the winds from the west come all that we seek. On the winds from the west comes Spirit.
A message from The Voice.
Life is the balance between your deepest intent and the natural unfolding of the universe. It is similar to the dance between long- and short-term planning. You must clarify where you are going in the long term then let go of the short term…
Cathy, I can feel you grasping and anxious about where this offering is going. I invite you to use this morning as a practice session for what we are talking about. You know and you proclaim that you are a courageous writer who