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October - December, 2008

Gifts from Gustav and Ike

Rev. Myron Jones

In the last few weeks I have evacuated twice. On the level of form I was doing this because hurricanes were coming. But as with everything that happens in my life I get to be the one who gives meaning to each occurrence, and I give it all the meaning it has for me. The purpose I give it determines my experience of it. I noticed that it is a moment to moment decision. Each moment is an opportunity to decide what I value right now.

Gustav seemed to be coming our way and though it never made it to us we didn’t know that until after it actually touched down elsewhere. While we were still unsure about the direction it was taking, we decided to evacuate. I was pretty calm about the whole thing, just doing what I had to do to make it happen. But I noticed that it required constant vigilance not to join in the drama that was going on around me. There were lots of rumors flying around and it is hard to know which of them were true. I had to watch TV to keep up, but I hate to do that because TV is really big into drama. While searching for the elusive tank of gas (when everyone in town is gassing up at the same time the stations run dry) I heard a lot of ego chatter, many people expressing fear. In each of these moments I had to decide anew which voice I wanted to listen to. If I was not vigilant I would find myself joining in the drama. Panic is contagious.

Off and on during the day I would notice that I was thinking: “I hate not knowing where it is going to hit. I wish it would go someplace else. I sure hope it doesn’t hit New Orleans. That would be the end of them.” I became aware that I was wanting things to be different. This is the same as saying that I could not be happy unless things changed, and that I am the victim of the world I see. None of this is true. I was grateful that I have been practicing forgiveness and acceptance. This constant practice made it easier for me to notice these thoughts and to relinquish them.

My family and I actually enjoyed our evacuation. We went to Houston and stayed at a nice hotel. I traveled with my daughter and two grandchildren. My oldest son lives in Houston and we don’t visit that often so it was nice to have this visit. My youngest son lives in New Orleans and he and his girl friend joined all of us for lunch at a really good Mexican restaurant, so it was a pleasant family reunion. Later we took my two year old granddaughter to the children’s museum.

Still I began to notice my stress level increasing. It was because I was allowing my mind to engage in ego stories. I began to wonder when we could go home and if there would be damage. I worried about the cost of the evacuation and what if we had to do it again. I started thinking about how this was affecting my job and what I could do about it. I started planning for a future that was only happening in my imagination. I then remembered that I have committed to making no plans on my own, and that when I leave the future in God’s hands I can trust that I will be given the answers I need when I need them. It is only the ego that thinks I need to bank answers for future use. As I let go of my need to plan, I also let go of stress and went back to my evacuation vacation.

Gustav caused a lot of damage in Louisiana, but none in my town and I went home to discover that everything was as I had left it. I’m glad I didn’t waste too much time worrying and making plans.

In just a few days we had to evacuate again for hurricane Ike. Instead of getting a hotel room for me and one for my daughter and grandkids and then eating out three times a day for several days, we decided to get a cabin on Lake Bistineaux. It is at the top of the state and so would be much further from the hurricane wherever it hit. It is a beautiful place and the cabin was very nice. It was fully furnished and had a full kitchen so we did not have to eat out.

We had left everything packed and hurricane ready so there was not all the hard work of getting prepared for Gustav, and this evacuation would be much less expensive. It was also in a very peaceful and lovely area. This evacuation should have been a lot less stressful and yet, as I told my daughter on the second day, I had a migraine I just couldn’t shake. She said that it was probably due to the stress. I know that this is true, but like I told her, I just didn’t feel stressed. She said, “Mom, you’ve been through a lot in the last few days.”

When she said that to me I felt the prickle of tears behind my eyes. I was so surprised. I really did not know that I was feeling the stress of two back to back evacuations. I was failing to acknowledge my emotions. I was making the common error of going from “mistaken thoughts” straight to my destination of “healed thoughts” without stopping off to hang out with Holy Spirit for awhile. This is the ego trying to usurp the Holy Spirit’s job, but the ego cannot solve any problem. It can only conceal and that is what happened and the reason I didn’t realize I was experiencing stress.

I asked the Holy Spirit to help me. I was pretty cut off from the outside world as there was no Internet service and my phone seldom worked, but I could sometimes get and receive text messages. Very soon after I asked for help, I received a surprise message from Regina Dawn Akers (the scribe for The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament) which was very helpful. The first message I received said, “Let the storm pass. That’s what storms do.” How perfect that was! I was having my own personal storm going on and fighting it wasn’t going to calm it down. I went into acceptance and simply allowed everything to be as it was. I immediately felt more peaceful. The Holy Spirit, through Regina, helped me to return to sanity.

I spent the rest of the time giving my thoughts to the Holy Spirit for healing and Regina’s messages continued to help me do this. Regina posts her Single Quiet Thoughts from the Holy Spirit daily at her yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NTIDiscussionGroup/. The one that was most helpful to me was:

The mind will tell you stories to defeat the peace within. That is only because the mind was made to deliver the experience of something different. The mind is not bad. It is not scary or frightening. It is simply distracting you with stories so you may choose to have an experience. To return to the peace that resides within, remember that peace is your reality and stories are just a game you play. (From our Holy Spirit)

This message was really helpful to me because I was starting to feel like a victim to my own mind. I knew I was indulging in ego stories but I couldn’t seem to stop. Reading this helpful message reminded me that the ego is just doing what I designed the ego to do. It is not bad or scary and even though it was my desire at one time to make an ego, I do not have to continue to believe what it tells me.

Also helpful to me is that the peace which I am in truth is not changed when I play the ego games. Sure, I lose my awareness of peace when I listen to the ego stories, but I do not change. Peace, love, joy, all are my true nature. I cannot destroy or even alter that because it is true creation and cannot be lost. So I can stay in the ego all I want and love remains what I am and waits patiently for me to return my awareness to it.

Once again, I have been given the opportunity to use what is happening in the illusion for the purpose of awakening. At times during the evacuation I felt as if I were failing in my purpose and sometimes lost awareness of that purpose. But always I came back to it and when I did, I realized that I never failed at all; I simply chose an experience and then decided it was not worthy of the Son of God and made a different choice. I am in gratitude to Gustav and Ike for the forgiveness opportunities they brought to me.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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