Many years ago I went along to the meetings of a local New Age group for a little while. At the time I wanted to belong somewhere. Anywhere.
Many years ago I went along to the meetings of a local New Age group for a little while. At the time I wanted to belong somewhere. Anywhere.
At one of the meetings there were approximately fifteen of us sitting in a circle. As we passed the 'speaking stick' from person to person we were each asked to tell or show the group our experience of Divinity. One person sang of the Divine, the next strummed a guitar, another recited ecstatic poetry, another shared a hushed and careful story. I hung my head. My turn would come soon enough and I didn't have a clue what to say or what to do. What was the Divine? What was the Divine? I felt like the numb and shy schoolgirl I had once been. I hated group sharing with a vengeance. I wanted to run out the door and never ever come back.
But as I stared down at the floor with dread in my stomach I caught sight of someone's toe wriggling ... then someone's handbag ... the flickering shadows cast by the candles ... the way the woman across from me moved her hand ... I felt my feelings of doubt ... I listened to the loud and ecstatic poetry recitation ... and I smiled ... HERE was the Divine. Wherever I looked I could not but see it and it was all somehow 'me'. And so when my turn eventually came, I pointed to a shadow, to a hand, to the light in someone's eyes, to my own heart, to a book, to a door, to a speck of dust ...
Without fail every person in that room turned to look at me in disapproving and puzzled silence. My heart sank; I had missed the point. Why did I always seem to miss the point? I never went back to that group ...
... but of course I hadn't missed the point at all.
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