![\"church-steeple\"](\"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/church-steeple.jpg\" "\\"church-steeple\\"")
The extent of my own Christianity was my baptismal as an infant into the Catholic Church.\u00a0 Only once after did I sit in a pew and that was some two decades later for the funeral of my Grandfather.\u00a0 Watching the rituals and listening to the lifeless chants of “Lord hear our prayer”, I remember thinking I didn’t miss much in my absentee-faith childhood.<\/p>\n
I declared myself an atheist for much of my life, tempered with the occasional agnostic concessions to appease my still Catholic father.\u00a0 My own sense is that I was drawn to a Zen practice because there appeared on the surface to be No God.\u00a0 Buddha was a man and his teachings were to question everything including the teachings themselves!\u00a0 This suited my need to apply the scientific method to my still emerging faith.<\/p>\n
As my mind\/body healing journey took me deeper into unknown dis-ease, I was fortunate to have the Grace and guides of the cosmos.\u00a0 Teachers and paracletes seemed to arrive just as I entered a new chapter.\u00a0 Indeed my quest for wellness turned into a mission for awakening.<\/p>\n
In the middle of the road map there was something larger than the little “me” that I had come to call myself that was calling me back.\u00a0 “Turn back, towards that which you turned away from.”\u00a0 The words echoed in my mind, and I felt the breath of universal consciousness come into my body on a warm summer morning meditation.<\/p>\n
But with each insight there seemed to be an even deeper fall into a pit of ill health.\u00a0 I knew without a doubt that “I” was not alone, yet what good was God if the Grace could not pull the “me” that I had come to know out of the suffering that was growing deeper still?<\/p>\n
During a very dark summer of the soul, I spent three days in the bowels of a hospital (The Ward, as it was affectionately known to the nightshift nursing staff.)\u00a0 During my internment I endured every kind of endocrine and neurological test my insurance would cover.\u00a0 \u00a0On day two one of the CNAs noticed that I was in complete breakdown and she came over to my bed closed the curtains around her and asked me if I wanted help to bathe.\u00a0 My body shaking and eyes filled with tears, I nodded yes.<\/p>\n
She looked at me closely as she prepared the washbasin and then came right up into my eyes and said,<\/p>\n
“I know I am not suppose to talk of such things, but I feel I must tell you this and I trust you will understand.”<\/p>\n
I nodded again in silence.\u00a0 “I have always taught my children,” she began, “to seek God at every opportunity.”<\/p>\n
My eyes filled with tears and she came even closer and touched my face as she continued,<\/p>\n
“Because if God has to come seek you, then it is because you are in trouble indeed.”<\/p>\n
My head, nodded again and again and the tears poured down my face.\u00a0 She took a warm washcloth and wiped my face gently and as she washed my back, I could feel her make the sign of the cross up my spine.\u00a0 \u00a0Even in my weakened state I recognized the touch of an Angel in the middle of my own health-hell.<\/p>\n
But the summer was still young and I had much further to fall before the true healing could begin.\u00a0 As my body broke down, I found myself unable to walk or even sit Zazen.\u00a0 Laying in bed one morning as the sun rose into my window, I could feel my back contract into a tight pain filled pretzel.\u00a0 From my head to my tail bone and across my broad shoulders the heat burned my bones.\u00a0 Just as the pain reached a crescendo, I could see in the iris of my mind a form lifting this “cross” off of my body and then laying Him-Self on top of me saying that He would ease the pain.\u00a0 And for that moment in the morning sun, the pain lifted and I was in total Peace.<\/p>\n
Know Me<\/em><\/strong> the words echoed in my mind … and there was indeed No “me” to be found.<\/p>\n The extent of my own Christianity was my baptismal as an infant into the Catholic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-satori","category-i-cant-see"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":527,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"church-in-greece1\"](\"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/church-in-greece1.jpg\" "\\"church-in-greece1\\"")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"