The Other

Today I feel compelled to write about the “other”, the other people that scare us, the places within ourselves that we dare not go and the monster under your bed ;)

Today I was called upon to do something that I recently chose to stop doing. This is care giving. I have been either a caregiver or a nursing assistant for the past going on seven years now. I still consider myself to be a caregiver in my life and for others but it is not a profession I wish to pursue any further.

I have taken care of around 60 people from all walks of life. It has been a blessing to me in many different ways that I cannot describe because most of those reasons are abstract. A person does not get into being a caregiver for money alone. I never made that much money. Last year I made more money than I ever have in a single year and I spent most of my days at an adult family home taking care of six people at one time.

The reprieve that I got from all the care giving was helping Sister Zeph. I still help her but not as intensely. I am blessed that I have had the opportunity in my lifetime to visit Sister Zeph, her family, her friends, school, students and countrymen. Going to Pakistan was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. I had a great time and I got to see what very few westerners, especially young white American women, get to see in their lifetimes.

Before I went to Pakistan I went through a tumultuous process emotionally before arriving at my own decision to go without any judgment whatsoever. In addition to developing a strong relationship with Sister Zeph and her students I had been doing much of my own research about the nuances of the culture and its challenges. I went through being angry, sad and miserable before letting all that go to arrive at the choice to take the “high road” and let all my fears of being kidnapped, raped and tortured go. I know this is a dramatic way of putting this but I definitely had those fears come up and the US Embassy Travel Warning read like a book… more of like “1,000 ways to Die”.

Within the three days leading up to me leaving to go to Pakistan my car got rear ended and the Easter Park Bombing in Lahore happened. Even Sister Zeph told me I didn’t have to come at that point and my own family was literally going bananas. I decided to listen to my heart and intuition and it told me to move forward.

Now ten months later I get to watch the elections and their outcome every day on social media outlets and see the fear mongering. What has transpired since Obama has left office is surreal but that division and fear, in reality, has always been there. It has just been exacerbated by many small minded and hearted people in order to divide further and conquer more. I will not stand for any of it and I will not give any of it a chance. I have seen with my own eyes what hatred does and I am not even a “minority”. You have to be purposefully not caring in order to be free of the pain in this world. I don’t understand how people can be so indifferent and apathetic to it unless you seek to make gains from this pain and desperation.

This brings me back to “the other”. Human beings have a great talent at creating fears in their lives. We fear what’s inside us if we dig too deep. We fear who may be coming in to “our country”. We fear what may be on the other side of a situation that we can’t control (getting kidnapped for example). We fear everything that is unfamiliar to us. With that I will leave off with a beautiful excerpt that speaks to me and the times that we all are going through collectively.

“Behold the oneness of all that is. None are rejected from the whole spirit, and none are unchosen by the father. However, many have become so comfortable within their own circles of spirit that the whole spirit is rejected. By their own rejection, they are separated out from communion. And by their own unchoosing they are unchosen to have a greater and purer awareness. This is what I meant when I said, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” For in judging, you have actually separated yourself from the one spirit, and have rendered your own judgment. The original sin was simply judgment. By judging, every being initiated his own consequence of separation. That is the only way a pure and innocent soul, created in the image of God, could ever have turned away from the community of love. The direct consequence of judgment is separation. Whether you know it or not, you are in an eternal dialogue of “the on and the all”. Whatsover you caste off, will caste you off from itself. No inner circle of spirit can protect you from the consequences of the eternal dialogue.\"

\"The Last judgement will be the judgement against judgement itself\"

Love Without End by Glenda Green pgs. 123-24