A Lost Sheep

The greatest fear in the world is of the opinion of others, and the moment you are unafraid of the crowd, you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom ~ Osho

(9/11/2016, my birthday, I am visiting my dad for the first time in a few weeks due to my trip to AZ, and his week long stay in the hospital. He was released on my birthday; what a gift! My father had been receiving cancer treatments for a very rare type of cancer since June 29th. He was merely a shadow of the father I knew and loved. Cancer treatments killed my dad. They robbed his memory, stole his ability to care for himself, and made him do things he never would have done in his normal mind. In this picture, I see the blank look in my fathers eyes. He is gone. His body was still with us, but his mind was lost.)

My dad and I have always had a very close relationship. Therefore, my leaving the church and his way of believing behind was exceptionally hard on him. From the moment I told him I didn’t believe the Mormon Church was true, he looked at me differently, not in a positive way of course. To him, I was not the same daughter he raised, and once knew. I am his lost sheep, his wondering, wayward daughter, and he had been trying to bring me back into the fold of his religion ever since I left the church in 2011. When I gave him the last letter I channeled from my deceased mother, (see my post 'Mom's Mandala' archive March 03, 2017), he was absolutely certain I would be 'repenting' and returning to the Mormon Church. Somehow he took this letter from mom as a sign of my ‘homecoming’. He kept hugging me a lot that weekend saying over and over, “I have my daughter back!” I told him over and over, I had never left him. But, that’s not how he viewed it. I was his prodigal daughter. He believed I was, at last, returning ‘home’ and rejoining the fold. There is nothing in that letter from my mom, as I see it, which might indicate to him that I was coming back to the Mormon Church. I am not sure why that letter made him believe I would be returning to the Mormon Church, other than, it told him not to worry about things. Maybe that was what he held on to, and took as a sign that I would come back. It doesn’t really matter what put that thought into his mind. It is what he wholeheartedly believed. For a few joyful days, he 'knew' I was no longer lost. In his mind, I was thankfully, finally, ‘found’.

        After we read the letter from mom that day, dad asked me to read some articles about Joseph Smith over the next week, to pray about it again, and come to church with him on that next Sunday which was Memorial weekend of 2015. I fulfilled my promise to him. I took the articles home and read them. I prayed, and I went to church with him. It was the first time I had been back to church in a few years. As I sat there in that Sunday service, it was crystal clear to me why I left, and why I don’t attend Sunday services anymore. I am never coming back into the Mormon fold, or into the Mormon way of life, ever again. I couldn't come back just to make him, or anyone else, happy. Even if that was his dying wish, I wouldn’t do it. And, it would be incredibly unfair to ask that of me since I was especially despondent living as a Mormon. I have found my joy, my faith, and my happiness inside of myself, and outside of religion. I am perfectly at peace on the other side of his faith. I want to be clear, I am not an atheist. I might be considered agnostic in the sense that I believe the Ultimate Knowledge of God is unknowable and unspeakable. But, I do have a belief in a higher power. It just isn’t traditional biblical, Christian, or Mormon in nature; even though I may use the terminology God and Goddess, I do not refer to the God of their understanding. Paganism is more in line with my spiritual practices in that I honor and celebrate Nature, that is my religion now. We often forget that we truly are Nature in all of her splendid glory. Nature is not something separate from us; it is us. Nature is God and Goddess. And, when we say we have lost our connection to Nature, it really means we have just lost our connection to our true selves, forgotten who we truly are. I had finally found this amazing connection to myself, and I wouldn't deny it. 

             I believe we are both the Natural man, and the Divine Christos, in one. We are both the ‘son of man’, and the ‘son of God’, at the same time. That is what we are here to realize. The ‘son of man’ is our lower animal nature. It is not wrong or bad, but it is to be tamed and overcome. The ‘son of God’ is our Divine Nature. It is what we are here to give birth to, the Christos is within all of us; and, it is something only we can discover for ourselves. Another cannot do it for you, that is the real meaning of the virgin birth. The Christos within all of us is a component of the psychological foundation of every human being, and not an individual figure of history. This ‘Christ’ within is the Christos that we must ‘make room for in our hearts’. In 2 Corinthians 13:5, Paul said, “Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus 'Christed' is within you?” The Christ that this refers to is the Christos, the ancient sacred light, the sacred secretion in our bodies, and the Divine in Nature itself. It is within the hearts of all mankind, and we all must unearth this precious sacred oil within us. We can recognize this truth in the symbolism of Christmas. Green, the color of the earth, represents the Natural ‘man’, our animal nature, and Red, the color of fire, signifies the spiritual man, the Divine ‘man’ in us all. Alvin Boyd Kuhn in his work, The Red Sea Is Your Blood, when speaking of the natural man and the spiritual man inside of all of us, said, “It is the ultimate marriage of these two components in man’s nature that gives birth to the Christ Consciousness.”  The animal nature is the divine feminine, the negative polarity, and the spiritual nature is the divine masculine, the positive polarity, within us all. (I will go into greater detail about this alchemical marriage between the two energies, and the rising of the sacred secretion, the chrism within us, in another post.)  It is through direct experience of this Great Mystery called Life that I have come to my own conclusions about God, Life, and why we are here. I enjoy discussing religion very much with those who are open to different points of view, but I am not trying to convince anyone to change their way of thinking. I would encourage everyone to investigate their deeply held, heartfelt beliefs, but that is something only they can do for themselves. I wish my dad could have been happy for me, now that I had discovered the true source of Joy, which is inside of me. But, he didn’t believe that it is possible to find true joy outside of the Mormon religion. In his opinion, I was just being deceived by Satan. 

          When my dad realized I truly wasn’t ever returning to the Mormon way of thinking, we had a very hurtful, disturbing, and heartbreaking conversation outside in the cold, early morning of that Memorial Day 2015. We both agreed never to speak about religion with each other again. Unfortunately, we didn’t stick to our agreement. About five months later, we were discussing it once more. However, there might be some good that came from our last debate concerning our different beliefs. Over the first eighteen months after my mom died, my dad and I had many conversations about our differing faiths and beliefs. I have tried to explain to him that my spiritual experiences only increased after I left Mormonism, which is the exact opposite of what I was repeatedly told would happen if I left. I have a stronger connection now to my Divine Guidance, and my intuition, as an ex-Mormon than I ever had as a Mormon. Growing up, I was taught that the Holy Ghost could leave me if I wasn’t worthy of its presence. I now understand that to be a terrible lie. We are always worthy to have a Divine relationship with God, just like we are always worthy for our heart to beat and for our lungs to breathe air. Nothing we do can break our immortal link to God. There is no way to lose that affiliation. We can ignore it, deny it, abuse it, and not use it. But, we can't disconnect it. And, when we learn to use it properly, it is as natural as breathing. I don’t call this amazing link to God the Holy Ghost, I refer to it as my Sacred Self, or my Sacred Light within, that is what I believe my intuition and my Divine Guidance really are. The truth is, Mormons don’t have better access to the Cosmic Intelligence, or God, than other people. I tried to explain my beliefs about God to my dad, now that I am free of the Mormon frame of mind. It never went well. His understanding of God, and mine, will never be the same again. That’s okay with me. I was never trying to change his mind, or what he believes, when we discussed religion. Yet, he desperately wanted to change my mind. I told him, "Why would I ever want to believe in a fearful, vengeful, jealous God again when I have felt the perfect Peace of an all loving, intelligent, compassionate Creator"? For that question, he had no answer.  

          I love the Jesus portrayed in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas. This is a gospel my dad, and many others, will never read because it is not in the bible. Yet, it has the most beautiful parables about the Creator, Life, and the Kingdom of God within us. The summer after my mom passed I shared this parable with my dad to help him understand my beliefs about an all loving Creator during one of our debates. In the Gospel of Thomas it reads, “Yeshua said: the kingdom is like the shepherd with one hundred sheep. One of them disappeared- it was the most beautiful. The shepherd left the other ninety-nine sheep and looked only for that one until he found it. After his great effort he said to the lamb: I love you more than the other ninety-nine.”  The truth is that God loves the sinner as much as the saint. That is the hard message religious people don’t want to hear. Jesus is not a believer in punishment. Nobody like Jesus, meaning enlightened, can be a believer in eternal punishment, or Hell. Punishment is revenge. The Jesus from the Gnostic Gospels dropped the quality of Justice from God for a reason. Justice is Human. Compassion is Divine. I believe God is compassionate, and God has unconditional Divine Love for all. And, God extends unconditional forgiveness because God sees only Love for God is only Love. The truth is God doesn’t need to reward or to punish us. God is not a person handing out judgments. Religious institutions made God in our image. God is not a supernatural human being; rather, Creator is Infinite Intelligence, and the Vital Life Force Energy of Divine Love, Sacred Light, and Cosmic Christos Consciousness. The Universe has Natural Laws in place. ‘Jesus’ understood this. We are in control of our own destiny. We reap what we sow through the choices we make. Natural laws bring consequences, not God’s judgment. Karma is a consequence of ignorant behavior. Dharma is our conscious realization of our true purpose. Dharma is knowing the truth of who you really are. We are either living unconsciously making Karma through our ignorance, or we are living consciously from our dharma creating our life, either way, God is not judging us as right or wrong. God is merely Divine Love and Sacred Light. In this Gnostic Gospel, Jesus said, He loves those that wander the most. Thinking about that statement, and studying this gospel, has made me realize that those who wander are actually the lucky ones. The lost sheep are the free thinkers, the critical thinkers, the skeptical ones, the ones who ask questions, who want to know why, the rebels, the non-conformists, the mystics, and the Zealots just like Jesus. Jesus was a lost sheep.  This parable about the lost sheep is the story of Jesus. It makes perfect sense that those who question, who are different, who don’t fit in with the norm, the square pegs unfit for round holes, are essentially liberated. It makes sense to me that our loving Creator would want His creation to think wisely and to be free. When I shared this parable with my dad he shook his head 'no'. No way! No way would his God love the sinner as much as, or more than, the saint. In that moment it became very clear to me, a person will never be better than the God they believe in. If your God is judgmental, favors some people over others, can kill over beliefs, and can actually have hatred towards certain people, you can justify doing that too. (Just look at what happened on Sunday in Texas, another mass shooting by a white Christian.) You will never be better than the God you understand. (If you don't believe in a higher power, that statement isn't about you.)

          That Memorial weekend of 2015, my dad sent out a letter he wrote explaining his religious beliefs to all his children, and grandchildren, clearing his accountability, and conscience, for our souls. That letter was written out of love, I know that. His intentions were good ones, but his actions ended up hurting, rather than helping, his cause to convert his family to Mormonism. A few weeks later, he had an opportunity to discuss his letter with one of his grandchildren. I happened to be present for some of their conversations. This grandchild is a very devout Christian and has never been an active Mormon in their life. Hurtful things were said about their beliefs during this debate over the truth of, and interpretation of, the scriptures. My dad believed he was right, and they were wrong. There was no room for him to consider otherwise. This debate continued to happen several times over the two days they had together. In my opinion, it was such a waste of their precious time together, disagreeing over religion. They only see each other once a year. What if that was the last time they had to be with each other in this life? You never know when it will be your time to return to the Light. Spending their valuable time together arguing over beliefs is missing the whole point of Life in the first place. In the fall of 2015, dad brought up religion with me once again. Possibly, he had forgotten our agreement not to speak of it five months earlier on that early, chilly Memorial Day morning. However, I saw an opportunity to hopefully shed a new perspective on his approach with the family before it was too late. I brought up this conversation with his grandchild during the summer which I had witnessed. I shared with him what they couldn’t say to him at that time. They were deeply saddened that their beliefs were discarded, and rejected, so coldly and harshly. My dad knows very little about their life growing up and has no idea what had brought them to those treasured truths, yet he was judging them inconsiderately for their deeply held faith, because it was not the same as his. I reminded my dad that the legacy that he really wants to leave his family above all else is one of love, not contention. I told him it would be best not to debate beliefs with any of the other grandchildren, but rather, to create only loving memories with them from now on. He had very limited time left on this Earth; death was waiting, just 15 months was all he had left on this earth. Earth life is fleetingly. It would be wise for all of us to live as peacefully, and lovingly, as possible during the time we have remaining. This is what he wanted all of his family to remember most about him, that he loved us all dearly, which no doubt about it, he did at that time. After he thought it over for a while, he agreed with me. He told me he was done trying to convert his family to his faith. He was only going to love us with his remaining days. I knew that was a decision he wouldn’t regret.      

          I don’t blame my dad at that time for being scared for my Soul. He had been conditioned to believe that I am in Satan’s power, which is meant to be a horrifying thought. He had extreme fears, and he suffered, when he thought about where his children, and grandchildren, were going to spend eternity. He was certain it wouldn’t be with him, or with God, since we don’t literally believe in the same myths that he does. I had great compassion for my dad. I loved him deeply. I didn’t want to see him in anguish, or in deep sorrow, for his family like he had been. I believed soon enough, he would see that God is only Love, and then all his pain, and worry, about his posterity would be gone. Until that moment, I practiced extending unconditional love to him, seeing only love, and being only love when I was just with him. It was time for me to walk my talk. If I believe in a God that is only Divine Love and Sacred Light, then it was time for me to extend only Divine Love and Sacred Light back to others and most especially to him. When I was with him, I tried to just truly love him. I may have been his lost, black sheep, and his prodigal daughter, but I am at peace, the kind of peace that surpasses all understanding, that is precious and priceless to me. 

          On May 25, 2016, my father was diagnosed with peripheral T-cell lymphoma with large T-cell transformation and negative BF1 which acts like mycosis fungodies. In layman’s terms, this is such an extremely rare form of aggressive cancer that survival rate is usually less than 12 months from diagnosis to death due to its aggressive nature and lack of response to treatments, which was accurate for my father. He died on January 14th, 2017, which was 7.5 months from diagnosis to death for him. Shortly before his diagnosis, earlier in the spring, dad asked me if I would like to speak at his funeral. I have to admit that I was surprised at this request; he didn’t even ask me to say the blessing on the food any more. Yet, at the time he asked me, I happily told him, “Yes! Absolutely, I would be honored to speak at your funeral!” 
Unfortunately, speaking at his funeral would be both a blessing and a curse for me.

Namaste!

www.iamsacredlight.com
www.sacredlights.net
www.secretsfromtheuniverse.blogspot.com