In stillness we will hear God's Voice today without intrusion of our petty thoughts, without our personal desires, and without all judgment of His holy Word. We will not judge ourselves today, for what we are can not be judge. We stand apart from all the judgments which the world has laid upon the Son of God. It knows him not. Today we will not listen to the world, but wait in silence for the Word of God.

A Course in Miracles

The Journey: first stop.

The first time I stepped into a Catholic Church I did it in defiance of the beliefs of my family. I had recently married my best friend.  We had leaned on each other to escape our troubled households and eventually, the Cult.  We had no idea of what we were doing, but we felt we could trust each other.  My new husband, was a Mita too, but his musical pursuits had expanded his world, venturing out of the cult to sing and play with a very special group of friends.   These friends were devoted Catholics with a music ministry. They would travel from town to town in Puerto Rico in their mission, sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  They were a jolly crowd, filled with  conviction and enthusiasm.  They would talk about their Jesus in a very casual and personal way.  

 I was mystified to hear them talk. Up to that point, to me, Jesus was one of the characters of the Bible.  I am sorry if I am bursting someone's bubble, but Los Mita will try to convince you that they are Christians. I would assure you that Christ was an outdated concept to me. I was taught that we were living a new dispensation and that Mita en Aaron had come to fulfilled what Jesus Christ, apparently was not able to accomplish in his own time.  That is the core of their teachings, regardless of what they want to portray in public.

Our new Catholic friends introduced me to the name and person of Jesus.  I started to recognize that this Jesus was someone I was already acquainted to, inexplicably, by some sort of innate intuition.  I had battled with the contradictions of the god of my childhood's indoctrination and GOD.  It was a painful and lonely battle, and finally, I had met someone handing me the first matching pieces of my puzzle. I acknowledge the first pieces I kept in a secret place inside my heart, were passed down to me from my grandmother -remember she was  raised a devout catholic-I recall spending time with my grandmother, secretly indulging in conversations about Mother Mary, the saints and the angels from her childhood memories.  These memories gave me strength to do the unthinkable for a Mita believer and visit a Catholic church.  For twenty something years, I had received terrifying admonitions about stepping into another church or entertaining their doctrines.  

Fear had effectively kept me from venturing out of the cult for two decades, but something had change.  At that time I was a student of Social Work at the University of Puerto Rico.  I had started recognizing and identifying dysfunction in my family, I began questioning things in a way that did not escape my family's scrutiny.  They started to label me as delusional, they took me to the Cult's elders and the Prophet, to be prayed for, reprimanded and intimidated.  The exercise of their control and abuse intensified to destructive levels of emotional and even physical abuse, as my mother repeatedly beat me up to expel demons of rebellion and disbelief off of me.  I ended up running away.  The few families that would take me in, in the beginning, denied me support after hearing the story of my mental instability and rebellious spirit.  It was then, when facing my worst fear made me fearless.  

In retrospective, I see that converting to Catholicism was the place for me to rebuild a faulty foundation. You must understand that my belief system was so corrupted that medieval doctrines and rituals where a breath of fresh air. Concepts such as Salvation, Forgiveness and Redemption, where revolutionary and new.  I fell in  love with the Eucharist: Jesus was living bread and I was starving!  The scent of incense was intoxicating, the Creed offered a solid ground for my feet and spirituality was now open for exploration.  I was proud to share my beliefs with ancient mystics and with people all around the world.  My faith was a more universal one, not secretive and mysterious anymore.  

To be continued...

The Secret Place

Daily meditation is my lifeline.  For so many years I tried to cultivate a genuine prayer life. I started setting aside some time in the mornings, especially the weekends- sit down with my Bible and just casually talk to God.  When I could not find the words to use, I would use the Scriptures, especially the Psalms.  I always found in the words of King David the echo of my own inner voice.  Other times, I would be so troubled and distressed that, like Job: I would lay my cause before Him and fill my mouth with arguments.  Job 23:4 Then, over a period of time, Jesus shared in a little secret with me: Silence is my worship place, the place inside of  me where true communion with God is not only attainable, but it is eternal and uninterrupted. 

 For me it started when I felt so overwhelmed with the presence of God that I had no desire to talk.  I experienced the Silence, first as a gift of pure grace.  Now I seek it consciously and enthusiastically.  Inner Silence is my hiding place, my sanctuary, away from the appearance of things and circumstances in this World. I am speaking not only about quieting your mouth, I mean suspending the activity of thought. This is something that you can spend all your life trying to learn, but I have an excellent Master.  I followed Jesus into that Secret Place, and I have found no need of a better altar.

Note: Meditation and contemplation are ancient spiritual practices, common to all world religions, Christianity no excluded.   It is what clearly separates religious ritual from mysticism.

Today I just want to share a few Scriptures that to me, make clear reference to the experience I just described.

1. Psalm 27:5
   For in the day of trouble He will hide me in His shelter; in the secret place of His tent will He hide me; He will set me high upon a rock.
   
   
2. Psalm 31:20
   In the secret place of Your presence You hide them from the plots of men; You keep them secretly in Your pavilion from the strife of tongues.
   
   
3. Psalm 81:7
   You called in distress and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
   
   
4. Psalm 91:1
   [ Psalm 91 ] He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand].
   
   
5. Psalm 91:8
   Only a spectator shall you be [yourself inaccessible in the secret place of the Most High] as you witness the reward of the wicked.
   
   
6. Song of Solomon 2:14
   [So I went with him, and when we were climbing the rocky steps up the hillside, my beloved shepherd said to me] O my dove, [while you are here] in the seclusion of the clefts in the solid rock, in the sheltered and secret place of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.
   
   
7. Isaiah 45:3
   And I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, Who calls you by your name.

Oops, I did it again!

There was a time when I envied the predictability of the lives of certain people.  I wondered what would it be like to live in the same place, having the same friends and calling the same people family all of your life.  Those people will probably die having the same religious beliefs and political ideas they grew up with, they would have the same value system, have the same taste in food, dance to the same music, dream and pray in the same language through decades.  I know that there are moments when people have what we call paradigm shifts: experiences or encounters that challenge their worldview and gives them a whole new perception of Life.  How many of those does an average person have? I am really curious.  

I can't count the times I have reinvented myself.  I have lived many many lives, in this same body. I've shed my skin so many times.  I really think I don't evolve, I "revolt". I feel sorry for the people that have loved me who could not possibly keep up with me. I miss them, and I can't blame them for feeling betrayed when I change into someone they could no longer relate to. I know I scare the hell out of so many.  They might even think I am just a flake.  I have only one thing to say in my defense...~just as I am writing this post, trying to come up with an intelligent argument, Spirit whispered me this verse:

John 3:8
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

Wow! I'm blown away, Lord. Thank You.  I get it now. I love you God!

The Best Time of My Life

Most people would say that they love Freedom, that they treasure Peace and that they want all that Life has to offer.   The question is: What are you willing to give up for the things you say you value and yearn for. Is there really a price to pay? Would you be willing to pay the price when the time comes?  Would you volunteer to experience dying to the old to give birth to your true self; or, would you be forced to get in alignment with divine will? Would you be guided or pushed? Would you be led or driven? Is there really a difference?   

Each single moment of every day we face those choices and make those decisions.  Think of the things you do to please others that are a betrayal of yourself.  Think of the times you settle for contentment, because pursuing what you know will bring you true joy, involves taking a scary risk.  The times when you hide your true feelings, thoughts and opinions, terrified of disappointing your loved ones. You reject yourself, dreading the rejection of others.  

What if facing your worst fears was not an option anymore? What if you lost everything and everyone that now brings you comfort? If all your present relationships were lost in the blink of an eye, if the things you utilized to define and determine your value, suddenly  vanished. 

I can tell you that the pain you will experience will kill you, but not as quickly as you would desire.  You will surely die, but it will, in no way, be the end. You will realize that pain is not the worst thing that could have happened to you, that your brokenness is opening you up to what you always dreamed of and that the best is now yet to come.  One day, you realize you are not the same person, you are not so easily scared or intimidated.  You know your value, your worth, regardless of the opinion of others. You are having the time of your life.  You still remember you paid a price, but what you feel here and now is priceless!

---

When I talk about my quest to Wholeness, this is what I really mean...

Healing is a lifelong journey toward wholeness.

Healing is remembering what has been forgotten about connection, unity and interdependence among all things 

living and nonliving.

Healing is embracing what is most feared.

Healing is opening what has been closed,

softening what has hardened into obstruction.

Healing is entering into the transcendent, 

timeless moment when one experiences the divine.

Healing is creativity and passion and love.

Healing is seeking and expressing self in its fullness, 

its light and shadow, its male and female.

Healing is learning to trust life.

                                                                    ~Unknown

Out of the Shadows

Last week I was given an assignment by my Reiki teacher to explore the ways in which my life experiences, especially the painful ones, have contributed to who I am today. Such type of self assessment and exploration is in no way new to me.  I can confidently say that I know most of the answers he wants me to figure out. Or do I?  When you grow up within the subculture of a cult, like Los Mita, you learn what your leaders, especially "the prophet ", want you to learn, you are not encouraged to think for yourself when it comes to spiritual matters. You do not inherit the values of your family, like most people living in the real world (well the one the majority accepts as real), your family is also completely assimilated into the cult culture.  Anyone who does not share those values, is no longer part of your family, even if they are by blood. You learn to accept everything you are told as the only possible truth, even when sometimes it does not make any sense to you, in which case you figure that you are the one who does not make sense. 

The first time I saw the movie The Truman Show it hit me.  I had lived in a fictional world for the first 23 years of my life.  The difference is that, most of the characters in my movie had also believed their own lies and forgotten about the outside world.  They had created a new worldview, a new paradigm out of some mystical experiences or out of their own psychosis, who is to say? And now they were trapped in this complex alternate dimension they created with the power of their own beliefs.  I swear I had an out of body experience when I saw Truman finding the door out of this huge movie set.   I was Truman and I was finally free to go have a real life.  

But those lies that you are told when you are just a kid- by the people you must trust to guarantee your own survival, before you are all grown up and can  fend for yourself- those lies become that superego you can not easily rid yourself of.  They had become your own voice, your own cosmology.  You can reject them on the conscious level while they will still be so ingrained  in your psyche: they are an ever present unpleasant feeling, the nightmares that wake you up sweating and weeping in the middle of the night, or in my case, severe recurrent Depression and acute Anxiety.  The devastation of seeing your world crumbling down; the vertigo of loosing your ground, your roots, your faith, the most basic sense of trust you ever developed during your formative years.  How do you come out of that? Figuring that out has been the quest of the rest of my life.  You can not give yourself rest until you have removed the last single thread tangling you up to the darkness.  You become a light chaser, you pursue Truth relentlessly, almost obsessively, just because you can not breathe in the presence of the shadow of a lie.

Let Me Introduce Myself.

I was born on October 22 of 1973 to a troubled teenage mother who had run away from home with a  young orphan boy from her neighborhood.  My mother was 18 when she had me.  She was coming from the trauma of loosing her father to Leukemia a couple of years before.  My mother was lied about her father's illness, no one told her he was going to die, and then, one morning she was getting ready to see him at the hospital.  She had laid down her clothes on her bed; she was proud and excited about a new pair of boots she would wear that day. She was her father's little girl, his pride and adoration.  She was just wondering when her father would be back home.  That day, my great grandmother entered her room and unceremoniously delivered the devastating news.  My grandfather had passed away.  She demanded that my mother did not cry.  I imagine my mother heard then the thunderous sound of a crack in the Planet, the loudest noise smothering her own inner wail. I heard stories growing up of how my mother suffered serious but partial memory loss at that time. Even now I know she is unable to recall events, names and faces of people she met before her father died. I remember walking with her in the market when someone approached her to greet her effusively.  She would be embarrassed not to remember that person claiming to be a former classmate or a childhood friend. 

I was born within the darkness of my mother's memory; I came forth out of  her alienation, her confusion and distrust of the world.  My birth was one of the events of the aftermath of the great tragedy of her life.  One of the stones stumbling down from an avalanche of disastrous, unplanned occurrences. I came into this world in an atmosphere of crisis and drama.  Those conditions shaped up the way I perceived life from the very beginning.   Pain became familiar, trauma was my emotional hometown.  

Those circumstances should be enough to make one's upbringing especially difficult, but to fully understand where I come from I need to make reference to my family's unique background. My grandmother joined a religious cult at the age of fifteen. She was homeless  after being thrown out on the street by her own father.  She had just become a young woman in his eyes and that, to him, meant trouble.  My grandmother left her parents' home in the Country, in our native Puerto Rico, and came to the city to work as a maid.  

At that desperate time in her life, she came across a group of people in a religious gathering who had very strange spiritual beliefs and practices.  They had come out of their Pentecostal church to form their own, led by a woman who claimed having received a special revelation from God, making her the messenger and medium of the Holy Ghost.  So was my grandmother's need to belong somewhere and be accepted by someone that she was willing to forsake her before cherished Catholic faith to utterly assimilate herself into this new cult. 

The beliefs, practices and idiosyncrasy of this communal religious group, latter called Mita Congregation, formed a parallel dimensional  universe in which I grew up inscribed in the outer socio-cultural reality of every other Puerto Rican girl in the 80's and 90's. My childhood and teenage years where anything but ordinary, with all the common characteristics of life within any religious cult.  You grow up controlled, manipulated, terrified of the outside world, denying your own thoughts and feelings every time they stretched out of the frame of their doctrine.  

Why do I feel the need to write about this and publish it for anyone to see?