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Reflection 14: Away at School

4/3/2010 6:18:33 PM

This has been a hard winter from many aspects. Since I live in the Northern Hemisphere, I live in an area just emerging from bitter cold, snow and soaking rains. It’s also been a time of personal transition that isn’t yet completed. But times of transition—in-between times—serve a purpose and so I’ve been learning and letting go and trying to find my way.

If Earth is a school where we are both to learn and serve, and I think it is, then the most important attitude we can have during times that stretch us and threaten our inner peace is: what am I to learn from this? In what ways is this experience changing me? Without purpose, experiences become meaningless and we judge them good or bad depending upon how we feel about them.

I’ve been trying to see life from the perspective of being at school, away from the Home where I really belong. This has helped me understand that where I live isn’t the most important thing. Whether I live in the school of the U.S. or Ireland or Argentina, I will learn. I will experience life and grow and find ways to serve, to help others who are also on this earth struggling to learn.

The house I live in, while important, doesn’t define me or give me a sense of identity. It is my dorm room, a temporary home away from Home. I try to make it as comfortable and pleasing to me as possible but losing it would not make me feel as though a part of me were missing. I would mourn the loss; that’s something we always need to face. My happiness, though, would not depend upon having a particular house in a particular neighborhood or country.

It wasn’t easy for me to get to this place. I had to let go of my need to have a house and location ground me and give me a sense of self and place. That was hard for me. What helped was seeing myself as a person who is filled with God’s light and love, able to go wherever I am called to be, and feeling at home regardless, because when you’re filled with God’s light and love, you are complete.

This has also helped me feel less negativity toward life and toward others. If I’m here to learn then I have to experience all kinds of things, things we call positive and things we call negative. That’s the only way I can keep growing spiritually and find deeper ways to be of service in this world. If my experiences were all positive, I’ve never learn to persevere or search for deeper meanings hidden far below the surface. If my experiences were all negative, I’d be totally overwhelmed and probably feel defeated.

When I begin to feel negative about another person, I imagine them as a being of light, just like me, here on earth to learn and trying to do the best they can. It’s not a perspective that ignores evil or discounts the ways we demean ourselves and others, but rather an image that helps me cope. What I’ve found is that most of my day-to-day negativity is directed at other people who aren’t dark or evil, but who I simply find irritating at times. It may be another driver I don’t even know or someone whose personality isn’t restful for me.

If I can stop my negative thoughts then I have a better chance of seeing them as they really are: another Soul who belongs to God and who is in this life as I am, trying to survive and make life meaningful. We are all in classes together, learning different subjects but nevertheless, sharing the same story of creation that is uniquely God’s.