On the Road to Tarsus

I am committed again.

Or I should be committed.

The first thing I am going to write about is my religious experience. Spiritual experience? Saul on the road to Tarsus. I was smitten.

Yesterday after much journaling about what to do with the rest of my life, I knew that what I had to do with the rest of my morning, was to get up and get in the shower. Get dressed for the day.

The shower began normally enough, with me soaping up and beginning to cry. Tears are my new accessories. I cry in the car, I weep at e-mails, stories of cancer patients, while I'm on the elliptical trainer, doing the dishes. Anything and nothing sets me off these days. Emotional lability is the psychological term.

Yesterday was more intense than usual. Before I knew it I was huddled on the floor of the shower sobbing and begging God to come back into my life, saying I have missed God (I still have trouble with the personal pronoun. "Him" or "her" seems inappropriate). Saying I am sorry.

When I finally crawled out of the tub, my adult life was in clear perspective. I saw it as a deliberate turning away from God or the Divine purpose. I saw that as the source of my grief. Eckhart Tolle would say I was out of alignment with the universe and I would agree.

It is possible that every bad choice I made was necessary to get me to this point. Perhaps cancer was God's way of finally turning me towards the right path.

And the path is? Well for starters, I may go back to church. Yikes!

In the skeptical light of a beautiful spring day, doubts creep in. Christianity!! NO! I have spent nearly 20 years in angry mockery of Christianity. Is associating with Christians too high a price to pay for internal peace?

As I go deep within, I feel decades of anger and resistance -not coating me like a breakable candy shell, but insidious and pervasive. A poisonous miasma that discolors every thought, deed and word.


Flashback. In 1976 my ultra conservative home church dipped their toes into the cultural stream of "real" experiences and participated in a multi-church bread breaking ceremony. I don't remember the particulars, but I know the purpose was for us to experience communion more like the real Last Supper.

That night instead of sitting in our pews while the ushers passed cardboard wafers and grape juice, we sat on benches and silently broke bread with one another. At 10 years old, I felt God in a new way. I was moved to ecstasy. I walked in the Light for days afterwards.

There were other experiences, but they became obscured more and more by the oppression and constriction I felt in the evangelical church. Finally I broke with Christianity altogether. A move I felt necessary.

Is it possible I will become a Christian again? What does it mean to be a "Christian?" To follow the teachings of Christ? Or as my evangelical upbringing would have it, to be "saved?" Which is it? And if we follow the teachings of Christ, what do we do with Paul?

I jump ahead of myself. What I know is that yesterday I had peace. Real peace for the first time in months. Peace - or lack of anguish - is worth giving up pride or intellect or dreams of self importance and wealth.


I will stop saying that I am a failure. All roads have led to this "conversion" and I believe that from here my purpose will be revealed. I only want to walk in The Light. I humbly ask that my gifts and talents be put to their best use. God, Universe, The Eternal Light, Allah, it doesn't matter.

If my purpose is to be a Mary Kay consultant, so be it. If it is to write stories, ok. If my purpose is to hand out pamphlets on the streets of downtown Seattle or make beds in a homeless shelter I DON'T CARE!! All I want is this peace. The peace that passeth understanding. Peace to me means to stop agonizing over my place in the world.