Laughing Cherub Inspirations

2011-12-27T18:46:00.000-06:00

Please note: This is a reprint of a post by the author on another blog

COME EARLY, STAY LATE: A CHRISTMAS STORY

BY MARY ELIZABETH RAINES

On Christmas Eve, 1998, my father spoke to me the best words that anyone could say.

Let's back up for a moment. Daddy had been a stern man. He was a minister. Even though he took his faith seriously, he did not really know how to express love and tenderness. I perceived him as a harsh, rigid, distant and critical parent. It took me many years to get over my resentments about that, but I did.

Rev. David A. Leach, 1921-1999

Back to Christmas Eve. Daddy and I were on the phone, making plans for the next day, Christmas, when I was going to make a trip to the senior community where he and my mother lived. They had been divorced for many years, but curiously, in their old age, they’d both moved across the country to live in the same retirement community. Each had a separate apartment. I doubt if they were romantic, but they did enjoy one another’s companionship.

“What time would you like me to come?” I asked my father.

And here is where he spoke the Best Words that anyone could say to another human being.

“I want you to come early and stay late,” he said.

I was blown away. Think about how incredible those words are! A person has to like you a lot to say that. With my father, I'd never been sure about being liked.

Christmas Day was wonderful. Mother, usually a very dominant and chatty person, faded into the background, and allowed it to be a time of sharing between my father and me. We talked and talked.

"Unless you're the lead dog on the sled team, the view is pretty much the same," he remarked wryly at one point in our day. For all his sternness, you see, Daddy possessed a wonderful dry humor.

In his apartment was a fabulous and expensive crèche made of paper mache.

Among the elegant figures, however, he had planted a silly-looking, out-of-place plastic lamb. It was supremely ugly.

I picked it up. “What’s this?”

“That?" he grinned with a twinkle in his eye. "Oh, that’s the black sheep.”

Later that Christmas afternoon, we took a walk. My father had always been a cynic; for him, the glass was not just half empty, but would doubtless soon be dropped and broken. Thus, on our walk I asked, “Daddy, what’s it been like to be a pessimist all these years?”

“Wonderful,” he replied with a glowing smile. “Everything has always turned out to be much better than I ever expected!”

As night fell during our visit that Christmas, an ambulance pulled up to the health care center next door to his apartment. My father's energy faded visibly at the sound. I thought it might be because of a recent experience of his. He'd needed to go to the emergency room for a bowel obstruction, which turned out to be the after-effect of a minor surgery he’d had a number weeks ago.

Daddy described what that visit had been like, and it wasn't pleasant.

“They shoved a tube down my throat to look at my stomach,” he said. I noticed that he began clenching his fist so hard that the knuckles lost their color.

He continued.“It was the single most painful thing I have ever felt in my life. I would rather die than have that done to me again,” he said. Vehemently.

These words came from a man who was so stoic that he once ate a whole chicken dinner when he had the stomach flu just to set an example for his children; his belief was that no matter what, you don’t cave in to illness. A nurse later confirmed that the particular procedure he described was possibly the most painful thing that could be done in an emergency room without anesthetic in those days. Certainly that was the case for my father.

I am a hypnotherapist, and know that not only can we alleviate pain easily; in some cases we can even create complete anesthesia.

“Daddy,” I said, “if that situation should ever happen to you again, call me right away before they stick the tube in you. Either I’ll drive out, or I’ll get the best hypnotist in the area to the hospital, and you won't have to undergo that kind of pain…”

But he did not listen to what I said. Even though I have an international reputation as a hypnosis teacher and writer, to him I was just a child who didn’t understand.

He repeated his words: “I would rather die than have that done to me again.” The statement turned out to be prophetic.

That night, when I said goodbye, I spontaneously hugged and kissed my father. While it might not sound like a big deal to most people, it was to me. My relationship with him had always had a cool distance to it, and our family simply did not touch. The hug and the kiss sprang from my heart, though, and not from my mind.

And as I hugged him, tears began spilling from his eyes. It was a sweet, quiet, and yet monumental moment of love and healing. We both felt it. Daddy's tears melted away the remnants of any of the difficulties we’d ever had.

“I love you,” he said, his voice choking softly.

I left, and still remember how he stood at the top of the stairs and watched until I was out of the door.

And that is the last time I ever saw my father conscious. Less than a week later, I received a phone call. He had been taken by ambulance to a large city hospital where he had been put on machines to keep him alive.

It turned out that once again my father had experienced the symptoms of a bowel obstruction. Rather than go to the emergency room and have that tube shoved down his throat again, however, he told no one. For four days he stayed alone in his apartment, vomiting, as his bowels began to perforate and his organs started to shut down. The medical staff couldn’t understand why he didn't call for help, but I knew. When they finally got him to the emergency room, he was the sickest man in the entire hospital.

And what was the first thing they did? Shove a tube down his throat.

His words echoed in my mind: “I would rather die than have that done to me again.”

And so he did.

For four days I stayed at his side as he lay there in an induced coma. Finally, it was time to pull the plug on the machines keeping him alive, and it was up to me to make the decision.

I still remember the nightmarish sensation of walking down the hall of that hospital, knowing that I had been handed the power to choose the day and hour when my own father would die. It was the most anguishing experience of my life, no matter how necessary or right. I was pronouncing a death sentence on my own father.

After they turned the machines off, the monitor that beeped in conjunction with his heartbeat gradually began to slow down. Finally, there was silence. His heart had stopped. I fell across his chest and cried, “Oh, Daddy!” As I did that, to my astonishment his heart actually began to beat again: thump thump thump. What a testimony to the power of love! And what a wrenching moment! It couldn't keep on, however; his heart soon stopped beating for good.

Some of those who have had near-death experiences claim that after the body dies, we go through a life review where our soul sees and feels each reverberation and consequence of everything we have ever done to anyone in our life, good or bad. My prayer was that my father not see or know that anything he'd said or done had ever harmed me in the least way. Forgiveness is a grace, and that grace healed all the negativity that had ever occurred between us.

I still keep the ugly little plastic lamb from the Nativity scene at my desk.

And I will always remember the Best Words in the World:

“I want you to come early, and stay late.”

*****

(c) M. E. Raines, all rights reserved. Please do not reproduce in part or in whole in any form. Feel free to share links to this true story.
Go to Amazon to read about UNA, a novel by Mary Elizabeth Raines

NO, BUT I'M RIGHT!

2011-09-17T17:11:00.003-05:00

Throughout time, clashes over spiritual beliefs have been responsible for more cruelty, suffering and murder than anything else. It is baffling that people are willing to hurt and butcher one another simply to prove that their concept of God is the right one!

I used to think that I was different, and always considered myself to be a tolerant and fair person who was above such nonsense...until last week, when I found myself swept up into a disagreement with a friend about some differences in our spiritual beliefs and practices. We argued via email. It was a sad and stupid disagreement that probably destroyed a beautiful friendship.

Curiously, my friend and I actually hold spiritual beliefs that are nearly identical. It turns out that this isn't unusual.

The folks we love to hate in the name of God are often those who have beliefs that are close to our own. For the most part, we don't waste our time rampaging against people with religious views that are alien and weird compared to ours. No suicide bomber is going to try to prove his point by blowing himself up in the marketplace of an obscure New Guinea tribe who worships tree gods.

No, we turn to our neighbors when we want to wage religious wars. The most horrific acts of violence are inflicted upon people who almost believe the same things we do. That's when we really get upset. Look at the conflicts between the Shiites and Sunnis in the Middle East, or the bloodshed throughout European history between Protestants and Catholics. Christians, Jews and Muslims, who have battled one another for centuries, share many core beliefs and even honor some of the same spiritual figures, like Abraham and Moses.

Back to my friend: I was furious that something as sacred as my connection to that which I choose to call God had been judged and found lacking. Even after our e-conversation ended, my mental chatter continued. Loudly. A tape-loop in my mind replayed the specifics of our differences over and over again. I defended myself mentally against what I perceived as his attack and, in my imagination, let him know, point by point, precisely how wrong he was. How dare he criticize my relationship to the divine??!!??

I was the one who was RIGHT, doggone it! My thoughts churned faster and faster with all the reasons I was right. My spinning mind kept me awake that night, and continued pestering me the following day, driving me to distraction.

And then I remembered a little saying I heard once:

The mental hospitals are full of people who were RIGHT!

Oh. Oops. Wait a minute.

There seems to be something inbred that demands that we win at all costs, especially when it concerns our spiritual beliefs; perhaps it's a survival technique dating back to our hominid days on the savannahs, or a way of determining who is the alpha of the pack. Hoping, however, to be vindicated and proven right is definitely not a path that leads to security or peace of mind in today's world.

One of my friends has a motto. She used to be a long-distance truck driver, and she learned this on the highway. She is an amazing, loving person who lives by her motto.

It is a great motto. Think of the suffering, both on an international and a personal level, that could be escaped by adopting it:

I would rather be kind than be right.

HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD

2011-09-11T18:45:00.003-05:00

Do you believe that the energy of your thoughts and emotions have power?

Many of us mistakenly believe that certain circumstances warrant being filled with misery, anxiety and worry--that these sodden emotions are the best way to show compassion.

If you were gravely ill, however, who would you rather have at your bedside: someone who stood wringing their hands and crying about the devastation of your illness, or someone who chose to smile and laugh as they projected positive healing energy around you?

Being positive doesn't mean stuffing our negative emotions or going into denial. It is not just wise, but necessary, to acknowledge and feel pain. When sad feelings have been honored, however, we then have a choice. We can perpetuate the misery by hosting thoughts filled with worry and fear, or we can move into happier states.

I used to fret about the sad state of the natural world--the plants and animals that had no ability to protect themselves against the destructive forces of humankind. A wise friend suggested that my fretting was only adding to the layers of despair and pain surrounding the planet, and recommended that the best way I could help, at least on an energetic and emotional level, would be to find more opportunities to experience joy in my life! I loved that message!

Another wise person, an older Quaker woman, told me that prayer is not just those times we set apart to converse with the Divine.

"Our connection to God doesn't stop when we say amen," she said. "It's not just those few short minutes that count. Every thought we think, every feeling we have, and every word we say is a prayer. Our very lives are the prayer. And God answers prayer!"

"If you really want to help the miserable of the world, don't be one of them." - Sonia Choquette, Author

See Mary Elizabeth Raines' newest novel, UNA, available in paperback or Kindle.

THE BEST THERAPY IN THE WORLD

2011-08-31T23:17:00.003-05:00

by MARY ELIZABETH RAINES

Last night I awoke in the middle of the night and went to my window. A gentle late-summer rain was falling in the darkness.

I live on a lake where, to the chagrin of some of my neighbors, I have restored both the natural shoreline and a small patch of woods, and have allowed much of the property to be returned to the wild. My half-acre is thick and lush with life.

The sounds and smells of the rain outside my window were ancient, familiar and magical. I heard plops of water, some expansive, some subtle and skittering, as the raindrops fell on all sizes of leaves and foliage. The scent of the damp woods was startling in its intensity. I realized that I hadn’t smelled woods like that since camping in a tent decades ago as a child with my family.

It was profoundly healing.

Eventually, however, I chose to return to my bed. Despite an open window, the scents and sounds disappeared, swallowed by the civilized atmosphere of my bedroom.

As I lay in my bed, I was struck with the kind of clarity that only comes in the middle of the night. I realized how profoundly ridiculous our human lives have become and how miserable we have made ourselves in our attempts to better our lives. We have managed to become the only species of animal that cannot survive if we are turned out naked, on our own, in the wild. Even the lowliest insects and the smallest minnows retain the gift for figuring out basics like what to eat and where to go, a gift that we have lost.

There was an indescribable comfort in the sounds that I heard and the air that I breathed as I stood at my open window. This soothing balm was better than any pill, any drug, any escape. And I saw clearly that the natural world, which was originally intended as our home, cannot help but bring forth joy and comfort and magic of more depth and in more abundance than we can imagine. We’ve forsaken this joy and comfort and magic. We have replaced them with concrete and loudspeakers and computer screens.

In my moment of clarity, I saw that we had originally been created (or evolved, or what-have-you) to go to sleep to the hum of crickets and awaken to the songs of birds, not to the roars of vehicles rumbling on pavement and the inescapable merciless screams of digital alarm clocks. We were created to breathe in layer upon delicious layer of scents of earth and flower and rock and water and other creatures as they come and go, not the throttling chemicals of air “fresheners” and fuel exhaust and fabric softeners.

We rush to civilize the few remaining primitive tribes who live close to nature, plying them with polyester shirts and plastic bags, while ignoring the fact that, by and large, their lives are happier than ours. We smirk at their nakedness. Meanwhile, our most important men tie cloth nooses around their necks, and our most desirable women encase the flesh of their breasts and legs in unnatural fabrics while balancing on precariously awkward footgear, and not only do we take ourselves seriously costumed like this; in such absurd garb, we decide the very fate of our planet. Smug and patronizing, we grimly carve our way through the blasphemous stink and wretched shrieks of the inescapable trap we have built of our lives.

And we wonder why we are unhappy.

The best therapy on the planet does not involve blotting out one’s emotions by taking a pill or buying more stuff or droning on and on about one’s problems to someone who has been paid to pretend to care. No, the best therapy on the planet is to listen to a cricket.

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Ms. Raines' novel, UNA, can be purchased at Amazon.com

2011-04-07T11:36:00.002-05:00

CONTRACT OR EXPAND: AN EASY WAY TO STEP INTO YOUR POWER
by Mary Elizabeth Raines

In every situation life offers us, we have the choice of responding in one of two ways: we can CONTRACT or we can EXPAND.

Remember the last time you fell in love? Or achieved a goal? Or something really good happened? Chances are that you were in a state of expansion. Conversely, our knee-jerk response when things aren’t going so well is to contract. The contraction or expansion we choose happens on all levels: physical, spiritual, mental and emotional.

Here is what contracting feels like:

Imagine that you are entering the bathroom of an airplane near the end of a long, uncomfortable flight. The door closes. The loud sound of the airplane engines seems magnified in this tiny space, the ride is frighteningly turbulent, and this bathroom is smelly and nasty. You have to be careful where you step, and you try not to touch any surfaces, or even brush against them accidentally. You squeeze your arms in closely against your body, clench rigidly, and don't even dare breathe too deeply.

Here is what expansion feels like:

Imagine that you are standing on a wonderful plateau, with the temperature just the way you like it. There is no traffic, and there are no buildings nearby. You are completely in nature, totally safe, and you can see for miles in every direction. Perhaps there are mountains in the distance, or valleys. You breathe in the cleanest air on the planet, listen to the sounds of the breeze, and stand firmly with your arms spread wide, taking up all the space you want.

Many of our sufferings are due to resisting what is. We clench when we resist. We expand when we are in our power.

How about making the choice to step into your power, regardless of what is occurring in your life?! Here’s an experiment that will make it easy:

Bring to mind any life situation at all that is troubling to you. Now imagine clenching as a response, just as if you were in that bathroom on the airplane. Hold still, hunch your shoulders up to your ears, squeeze your back and hips and arms in tightly, take in only shallow breaths, and see how that makes you feel. Yuck.

Next, still thinking of your life situation, imagine expanding your energy as though you were back on that plateau. You are free to take up all the room you want, balanced and secure. Loosen and unlock your body, let your shoulders and back ease, hold your head a little higher, and experiment by stretching your aura. Fill the area around you with bright, luminous energy--YOUR energy, even expanding it beyond the boundaries of the room or space you occupy. Take in a good deep breath. Feels better, doesn’t it?!

See UNA, the newly released novel written by Mary Elizabeth Raines