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Hi. My name is Gil. I’m a writer. Unfortunately, I am not in recovery. Admittedly, I am addicted to writing. I crave it. Need it. Must have it. When an imaginative word, an artfully woven phrase, or a delicious sentence appears on the page, I get high, flush with the bliss of another emotional dimension. I’m a writer because I write. I’m a writer because I throw myself into the cosmos. For good or ill, I’m a writer because I secretly desire the critique of others. As a confession, my soul is always giddy when I see my work published. True, I am still depressed when I add another rejection letter to overstuffed box. But, I will never give up this addiction. Why would I?
But, I have another confession. Hi. My name is Gil. I pray. I’m addicted to prayer. I pray when I write. I pray when I walk. I pray when I give my dog a bath. I pray when I drive (of course so does everyone else). I’m a person who prays because I pray. I am also one of those weird praying people because I throw my prayer into the soul of God. Then I wait. I ache to hear a response from the Divine. When there is a whisper, a word, a sign of recognition from the Holy, I drift lightly above the earth, riding on the clouds of the Spirit. Though, mostly, I hear nothing. Then I am soul sick. But, despite the wrenching of my heart caused of silence, I cannot give up my addiction to prayer. How could I?
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Ok… here is Cathy's confession…. I really, really, really, really, really want anyone who reads this blog to like me… and think I’m cool… and want to keep coming to our website to see what we are saying and doing… so this “wanting” keeps me paralyzed from blogging.
Does anyone out there wrestle with “looking good” and “OMGoodness, how flawed am I?” If I look deeply, I see FEAR hiding in the corner… smirking… Recently, an inspiring friend of mine posted this on her website (by the way, check out her website at www.wholebeinginc.com) Excuses, Procrastination and Perfectionism Are just masks. What is your HEART saying that the MIND feels it needs to protect you from? My heart says, wisdom is not found in perfectionism. Wisdom just comes along as your walk your path and open your soul. Quit procrastinating… just blog. Ok… so here it is… and I’m not going to ask if you like or not because I’m already cool as the one and only me! As long as I can remember, I have loved learning. I love the intellectual workings of my brain grasping a new idea. I love the feeling of something creative being born in me. I love the sense of expanding my mind and heart and life. There is nothing better than an “ah-ha” moment when something clicks or illuminates or moves my perspective in a different way. Oh, did I mention that I have an insatiable curiosity?
A colleague recently told me he was “Living the Dream.” He has worked in his field for thirty-nine years and has no intentions of retiring. Living the dream, he said, has meant doing his job. He went on to tell me that he has absolutely no idea what he will do if he is forced to retire. I’m genuinely happy for him.
But, for me, living the dream has other meanings. When I lie down to take a nap with my two-year-old grandson, just before he dozes off, he is staring into my eyes. The holy soul moment is living the dream. After forty-two years of marriage, my wife still tells me multiple times every day that she loves me. Continuing to fall deeper in love, for me, is living the dream. When my two adult children call me and want to just hang out for the day, I feel like I am living the dream. Walking across Ireland is living the dream. Writing is living the dream. Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoy my work. Truthfully, I feel a calling to my job. If there is such a thing as a vocation, I humbly think I have one. Still, my job has little to do with me living my dream. You might be screaming at me right now, “Well get a job that is your dream!” Okay, well, let’s all calm down and breathe. I am not about to say that a job cannot be the means of your dream life. For my colleague, truly, his job is the source of him being able to live out his dream. A dream, though, is something that draws out our greatest imagination and lifts our spirits into a new level of creativity, a feeling of rapture, a state of bliss, a moment of nirvana. Dreams allow us to move into a world that integrates the world of consciousness (a job) and the unconscious (the dream). A dream pushes the reality of a job as the source of my identity into the realm of being able to imagine my self as living out who I am becoming, in any circumstance. When I say I can’t image what I would do if I didn’t have my job, then my identity is attached to my function in the job. Whether or not I have my dream job or not, has nothing to do with who I am. I am Gil. I am my Self. My identity is not intertwined my job. I am differentiated from my occupation, even from my vocation. Jobs are temporal. Loves, passion, imagination, joy, bliss, creativity, these un-measureable experiences of the human condition, are the moments of living in the dream. I trust for my colleague, his job is his love, passion, imagination, joy, bliss, and creativity—all good—until he is forced to retire. Then what? How about living into your imagination? Live in the moment. Love the work. Live the dream. Keep the possibilities of tomorrow wide open. Keep living into the imagination—for tomorrow may bring a new learning, a new way of loving, a new experience, a new dream to be lived. Being open to what may come can inspire the now. Carl Jung wrote in The Red Book, “You can attain the knowledge of the heart by living your life to the full. You live your life fully if you also live what you have never lived…” (133) To live the dream is to live this day fully while craving the unknown possibility of tomorrow. Gil |
Musings about the journeys of Cathy and Gil ...
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