I am reading a life-altering book in terms of spiritual growth. I haven't been this excited since I discovered Marianne Williamson. Now I've read Julia Cameron before, particularly, "The Artist's Way," and some of her other books on creativity. I always gain a lot from her sharing her experience, hope and strength of her recovery. But I recently read an interview with her in a writing magazine, and I learned she had written a book called "Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives," which you can get in hardcover from Amazon (here) new copy for $2.56 and used for $1.70. It speaks about what happens when you are left wondering where your higher power has gone to. You're just not feeling that old connection. You'd like to do His will, but He's not letting you know what it is as far as you know.There are clues as to why this might be other than the old standard, "Who moved?" when God is
missing. She writes, "Most of us are too hurried to know God. And yet we act as if God is too
hurried to know us." She's right of course. It's not God, our Higher Power, or the Creator who
is afraid of missing Pilates at the health club at 2:00 so you can get in the step workout at 3:00.
"It is we who have abandoned God." She adds, "It is easy to be addicted to anxiety. It is easy
to make worry our home vibration." "Just for today, I am going to reach out toward God. Just for
today, I am going to act as if I am a believer."
Just as love, I know, is a decision, Cameron writes here that faith is a decision.
Just remember that we are right where we are supposed to be in the here and now. God, the world,
your significant other, aren't going to finally love you in a few years when you are a perfect human
being. They love you as you are, right now, this minute, and never forget it.
I need people--writers and teachers--like Julia Cameron to bring me back and help me remember
what's important. Like only worrying about taking the next right step. That's all I have to worry about.
After that I don't know what happens. I'll know when I get there.
Cameron suggests we reunite with our H.P. by praying something like this, "Dear God, I want to be
united with you. Here's where I am at right now: (List what you're doing that doesn't feel good. You
won't shock God. He's heard it all. List your failings you need to have removed. Ask for help to
forgive yourself and others and to be forgiven. Ask for guidance and follow it.
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I have been caught up in arts and crafts suddenly. I decoupaged a flowerpot, and now want to decoupage either fish or stars on my coffee table. I am art journaling up a storm and releasing so much it's like writing my memoirs. I am even scrapbooking. I've been reading about why you should do scrapmoir as a form of memoir and I'm sold. Listen to this insightful quote I didn't just come across at the same time:
"No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly
where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present
place." --Maya Angelou
I am learning so much about my healed and still healing places. I am putting together a newer, stronger, more flexible version of me and I feel open, free and joyful while I shape the pieces and figure out where each goes. Last night I did a lot of scrapbook pages on some people who have made a difference on the journey of my life. It was good to stop and recall and write a few words. I still love many of them. I even made a tiny beaded necklace to wear among a certain group of groovy peace, love and good drugs old pals. It's amazing the creativity that comes out once you get going.
I'm cheating on my scrapmoirs and I'm glad. I started it some time ago and then let it collect dust because I lost interest in it. No wonder I lost interest. It was a very boring project that went from my birth to preschool, grade school, and quit just when things were going to get good as a teenager. But then I had to think about my first husband, getting married at 18, being so poor, a miscarriage--just so many sad things I didn't feel like jazzing on. Instead I did a page on a few of my lifetime jobs and then went into adult friends, which is where I still am. It won't be a normal scrapbook or scrapmoir. I have the feeling I'd be utterly bored if I were to take a class in it--same for art journaling. It conflicts with one of my new favorite quotes that I hung up on my desk over my monitor:
"Don't play what's there. Play what's not there." Solid advice from Mr. Miles Davis, who knew.
So go do the next right thing. I hope for the benefit of your inner child it's something creative. I just bought some fingerpaints, and they felt good. I felt five again.
