Church Today

It's been a long time since my last post to this blog, and a lot has changed. I'm now a practitioner student at the Center for Spiritual Living, a Science of Mind church in Seattle. And Rev. Kathianne's talk today was exactly what I needed to hear.

I seem to be undergoing what Catherine Ponder called chemicalization, a period when you've made some spiritual growth, and all of a sudden your whole life falls apart. In the past few months, I've had a job that I thought was my Right Livelihood end, had a roommate act very bizarrely, lost several close friendships, had another roommate situation end strangely and abruptly before I finished moving in, and done some things that are pretty out of character for me, which caused someone I care about to apparently withdraw from my life. I've also been pretty frustrated with myself because I'm not accomplishing as much as I feel like I should with so much free time (being unemployed).



But today, Rev. Kathianne was talking about the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly, and the fact that there is a stage in between the two where the caterpillar actually turns completely to mush before it becomes the butterfly. But the mush stage doesn't happen until the butterfly DNA is reproducing faster than the caterpillar's body can kill it (the body sees it as a foreign object). And, I was telling a friend, that's how I felt this morning-- like caterpillar soup. But a kind woman walking by pointed out that I was actually butterfly soup, because the mush stage doesn't happen until the butterfly DNA is present.



So, I like that better-- butterfly soup. This is a good thing, because it means that I've grown spiritually, and my life is changing. Rev. Kathianne also pointed out that the word Jesus used for 'good' in Aramaic actually means ripe and fully mature. So now, as I expect my good from this (because the Universe is in a conspiracy for my good), I know that my life is reaching a new level of maturity. That's definitely for my good, because people who know me know I can be a little immature-- a touch rebellious. I know at least one woman who's going to roll her eyes at this and say, "No kidding!"

So, where do I go from here? First, I need to increase my spiritual practice. It hasn't been regular, and that's always the first thing that improves my life. Secondly, I'm going to see a Practitioner this week to get some guidance. And finally, I'm going to break my to-do list up into more manageable pieces, and try to accomplish a few things every day. Not whole huge lists, but a few things. I intend to be kinder to myself ,stop kicking myself over what I don't do, and still accomplish more.