Muslim Envy

A friend of mine is Muslim.  She's amazing not only is she fun, she's busy doing and contributing in ways most people only talk about adding significance and substance to the world.  She's always covered, head to toe even on the days when the temperature is pushing 100 degrees.  Not once have I heard her comment or complain when the rest of us are griping about the heat we claim we love.

I'm always amazed at the numbers of male friends that she has in spite of her being covered and their seeming devotion to her.  She's that woman who can literally just look over her shoulder and know someone is standing in wait to assist her.  Her temper is lightening fast but so too is her smile.

While I start my day seated in meditation and prayer rarely do I intentionally break away from something to go pray.  I do turn consciously in my mind to ask for guidance, send blessings and I stay in a constant state of listening that I'll call being open to hear the Voice of God but rarely does it require me to physically break away.

12 years ago I hosted an exchange professional from Ghana.  He is Catholic and highly ritualized in his worship.  When he first came to live in my home he was eager to join me in my morning devotion time.  While we worship under differently denominations, I know there is only one power, one presence that some of us call God.  It matters little to me what name you use, what sex you think She is I choose not to get caught up in those trivial details.  I am and have always been unconditionally open to however God shows up.

A few weeks into his 3 month stay I started to get uncomfortable with his "joining" me in prayer.  Praying together seemed to create an intimate bond with him and I had no intention of being intimately connected.  I know that sounds strange, this man was afterall living in my house but in my mind he was a house guest not a house mate.  This praying stuff was getting us too close for comfort.

He seemed both shocked and slightly offended when I told he we could no longer pray together.  I am a single woman and had no frame of reference for the intimacy that seemed to grow out of that hour, it had to end. 

This memory was triggered a few days ago when my friend needed to make Salat.  I asked to stay and be apart of the prayer when her and one of her Muslim brothers made prayer.

Jesus said with two or more are gathered in my name there am I also.  When we started to pray I felt that all too familiar shift that seems to open up a vortex of energy sometimes when I pray in a group.  My prayer time is good when I'm alone but when I join with others I can feel the amplification of that joined intention.  That energized pregnancy that seems to open up when the veil has been lifted.  In that moment I understood that intimacy I felt many years before with my house guest and I also understood the relationship my friend has with the men she prays with.

In that small moment of time I understood and developed a new respect for the ritual.  I felt envious of the intimacy and potential it carried.  While I pray often with others it's not 5 times a day and asking someone to come join me in prayer seems awkward, hookey and in some cases manipulative.  Many of us try to create some elaborate prayer that address all our perceived needs and will stir some type of emotion.  While emotions seem to infuse our prayers with power as I listened to them pray I had no clue what was being said.  In spite of that and maybe because of it the devotion of it touched me so deeply, so sweetly that I am forever changed.

I am honored to be on my path, one that is open to God however God shows up.  By keeping an open mind I hear deep within my own soul whenever and wherever God chooses to speak to and through me.

Peace & Blessings 2u!
 ~Sandra

A Special Relationship

Am I Ready?

I thought I’d matured, I thought that if I was approached by my beloved today I’d be emotionally ready to receive him.  Today I’m not so sure.  If you’ve been listening you’ve heard me say that I was waiting on my “ME” or Mental Equivalent.  Rarely do I meet men who are spiritual in the same ways that I am, able to converse, relate or even be interested in the areas I find fascinating.  I meet men who are religious and not spiritual.  I’ve settled for less thinking that if I am the person that I think I am I can get them to at least be supportive of my path.

Honestly, I find dating difficult because I believe more in what I feel than what I hear or see, energy is everything to me and I believe I’m quite perceptive.  It’s probably not fair to a man who may have genuine interest but are dismissed because all I’m feeling/detecting in him is lust.  Lust isn’t cute, sexy or even desirable to me.  Yes, of course I want to be desired like any other person but then what?  As sex/sexy gets old then what? 

Romantic, or as we call them in the ACIM community Special Relationships are difficult enough without making them totally focused on the body and bodily pleasures.  I often tweet about men who desire a beautiful woman with a sexy body but do nothing to take care of their own body.  They operate as if all they have to do is toss money her way. 

Friends often say their 1^st marriage was for love but the 2^nd or 3^rd marriages would be for money, security and stability.  I’ve never been married due largely to not wanting to settle for something I knew wouldn't last.  

My high school sweetheart recently found me on youtube and sent me a message he lives in Florida.  He had asked me to marry him while he was still enlisted and I immediately said yes.  I was thrilled at the prospect of being married to a guy I loved.  Shortly after our engagement I started getting these excruciating headaches that would get worse when he called.  I remember the day I broke off the engagement my head was pounding so hard I thought it would split open.  When I picked up the phone that day head pounding I simply said I can’t do this.  Do what he asked?  Marry you.  It felt as if a weight had suddenly been lifted off me almost immediately.

 

Ironically, as I was writing that a familiar horn blew.  The second guy that asked me to marry him works at the fire station a few blocks from my house.  He had a plan even before he asked me to marry him he started straightening his life up.  He landed a job as a fireman, took me house hunting and was laying the foundation for his proposal.  I wish I had told him no when I got the inkling that it was coming.  The ride home for the restaurant was torture.  For all the years he’s been a firefighter he has never changed stations and still drives past my house and blows that familiar horn.  

The guys that proposed to me have been really good guys who still adore me but I never felt the yes.  I love them too but still didn’t feel the knowing that I get when something is right.  I am honored by the gentle love we still have for one another and cherish the richness of the friendships we share.

Recently I met someone who gave me pause.  I felt nervous and a bit unsure as we talked.  His approach seemed the same as most; noncommittal.  Birthing anything requires commitment and space.  I saw a documentary once of an egg being fertilized.  Millions of sperms raced towards the egg bouncing up against the membrane trying to get in.  Once a sperm penetrates the egg a hormone is released that kills all the other sperm still fighting to get in.   

I think I'll know when it's for right now as well as when its right.  When it is right I think it will be like the natural fertilization process, all else will fall away and we’ll enter into that alchemical space of gestation that happens just before a new birth. 

Blessings 2u! 

~Sandra