Day 64- Doubting Thomas

I have lunch with my friend Todd who has been inviting us to attend Garden Park Unity Church for a while. Ty and I finally went on Sunday and we missed him.  Todd’s been on a quest too, but we don’t talk all that often. Over lunch we each share some of our wilder thoughts about this existence.  Man, I wish Todd could meet Nico. Todd is telling me some of the same stuff Nico has told me.  

I’ve been calling myself a hopeful skeptic, but the realization hits me, I’m Doubting Thomas. I believe what I’ve been studying.  I have a large degree of confidence in it.  What I don’t have is certainty.  Is it wrong to want certainty? I want to stick my fingers in the wounds. I want to have the experiences others have had that have led to knowing rather than believing.  I want know- experientially.  Is that possible for me, just an ordinary guy?

Fast forward to the next day- my daily Podcast today is by a guy who says he started out not as a skeptic, but as someone trying to prove ESP, etc. was baloney. The more he studied the evidence the more convinced he became. So much so that he has now written three books and come up with a rating scale for the probable veracity of individual spiritual encounters or reincarnation stories. He rates them on a scale and he has published them 1-40 on a website. He says when asked why he believes in an afterlife, he tells people he doesn’t believe, he knows.  Aha!  That is what I want.  I have lunch with Nico.  I ask him for advice. What should my next step be?  Healing,  Meditation class(es), yoga, hypnosis?   What?  Nico looks at me and simply asks “Why?  What are you trying to accomplish?”  I tell him I’m a believer, but I want to be a knower.  Surely he senses the desperation in me, the frantic running from here to there.  He reminds me this journey isn’t so much about getting more stuffed into my mind as it is about letting go and letting it happen.  More isn’t necessarily better. Faster isn’t necessarily better.  Take your time and let it happen.  This is something I am really bad at

What I have become confident about is it will all be “OK”.   “Bad” things will happen but I have a trust in the universe/God/Source whatever that what happens was meant to happen.  I don’t see the universe as a bad place anymore. I don’t even see it as a neutral place. It’s all working out for our good.   It’s ironic that I finally believe that after Shayna’s passing, but frankly it’s the only way I can cope with her passing.  It took the ultimate bad thing, the worst thing I could possibly imagine, to get me to believe that.  If I believed that her passing were meaningless and that this life is all there is, well, I just can’t go there. There has to be some deeper meaning, there has to be some redemption.  

So, Nico says to slow down, take deep breaths and trust in the process. I am on the path, but it’s not a short path (and it seems like it’s decidedly uphill).  One step at a time, one day at a time and trust. :::: sigh :::::