Post-chair carrying Day 23
Nothing is quite so riddled with potential potholes of Fear like being a parent. And when your child/ren get older, the owies get bigger. I am SO gaining understanding for the agony I put my parents through. Letting go of Fear around your child's life and well-being actually doesn't stop when they move out. It actually becomes more difficult in ways because you don't see them or hear from them as frequently and because you have zero say in their choices. When I was pregnant someone told me deciding to have a child is like deciding to live with your heart outside your body. When that heart takes itself out into the world and lives on it's own in another city many miles away, I begin to understand the person's point on a whole new level.
I had to get that out....
Wanted to mention a conversation snippet from yesterday. Talking with Carol, she mentioned she'd walked past a church and seen a poster in the pastor's office that read (she thinks, but what does it matter if it really did or didn't say this?) "God is Power." We two agnostics sat with that for a moment then began dissecting it. For some reason it struck both of us (she for a week longer than I since she's the one who saw the poster) squarely at the center of our experience.
Not, "God is powerful." This is something I'd heard all my life, being raised Catholic. But "God IS power." Carol and I are both reading about quantum physics lately and so we are very keyed into this because of that as well. The thought that God Is Power resonates. So I shared with Carol that because of the Fear Chair Project, I lately have gained deeper and broader understanding that Fear is HUGE. Fear is POWERFUL, far beyond what we can even know I think. It reaches so far back in our history, in our individual and collective psyches. It finds it's way into FAR more interactions and reactions, I think, than people realize on a day to day basis. Fear, unbenounced to us often shapes our lives. Fear Is Powerful! I believe Fear and Love have come to be the MOST powerful agents/things in existence in this human experience. BUT, to contemplate GOD IS POWER, makes me realize that as ginormous as Fear and Love are, there IS something bigger, something that trumps "Most powerful" and that is "Power" itself.
For years I have replaced "God" with "God,Universe, Spirit Source of Life (G.U.S.S.)" I believe I will revert to the use of God again more frequently. "Universe" is not power. Universe is BIG but it is not power. And if I must call the Power that IS Power, why not use the word "God."
This also sparked a conversation about whether at the level of "God is Power," there is, can be, must be an equal and opposite. Must evil be AS "Power" as God? According to science balance is what the universe is dependant upon. Equal and opposite reaction and all that. Then there is the religious dualism and yin yang perspective as well. And I am all for balance. I LOVE balance. Yet. Yesterday I found myself wondering if .... if "God IS Power" is beyond the most powerful things we can comprehend, wouldn't the properties of God also possibly be beyond the limits of our comprehension of properties? That is, could evil be ginormously powerful but ultimately God would be beyond this as God IS power? So, perhaps, God doesn't need a balance point? Evil can try to match God but God being the positive force is beyond powerful. God IS power. And, yes, out understanding is that power has positive and negative forces within it. Can God be power beyond this understanding as well and be purely positive? I don't know.
Anyway, related to the FCP because these questions of God would not have been approachable for me a few months ago. I was too wrapped in Fear. The FCP has blown my world wide open. So many thoughts I was afraid to explore are now very possible for me. All my life I have watched people ask very good questions and I have sat by the sidelines thinking "I wish I knew how to ask good questions." I see now that Fear stood before me much to closely for me to open my mind to questions. Not that I was afraid of the answers, I literally didn't know how to ask questions very well, so of course discovering answers has always been extremely strenuous. I am beginning to see that opening up to my Fear and my Fear OF Fear allows me to be more present with life and with the questions that answers require. Knowing Fear and being comfortable in it's presence, my curiousity, my hunger for growth and learning are no longer buried or silenced by it. And Love gives me voice.