Re-Directed in The Nick of Time
"Knock-Knock!" It's the Still Small Voice dropping in for a little course correction...
I recenly sent you an update of what’s going on in the writing world for me, including a new play festival happening next month. If you didn’t see it, you can find that here.
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Re-Directed in The Nick of Time
Did you ever have a specific moment in life where you knew, not of your own doing, that something wasn’t was as you were led to believe? I do. But a little backstory before the main.
The Backstory
I was raised without religion for the most part. My grandmother was a fallen away Catholic and I, bringing up the rear of children was the one left unbaptized1. Oh, we did go to churches here and there with a longer than most stay at a Unity church. I remember being involved in some performance; learning a hymn (cannot remember what it was) alongside another young lady. We sang a duet. She had a crystal clear bell of a voice. I had a lovely voice too. Always could sing. But on that day her voice just plucked that angelic chord. I remember some man coming up to the both of us afterward and complimented her (and not me) on how beautiful her voice was, then, realizing his Hoof in Mouth Syndrome, turned to me in a quick corrective: “Yours is nice too.”
But we didn’t leave the Unity church because of the that. We left because the preacher started talking smack about divorce. And as I sat there between my mom2 and step-dad, that wasn’t going to work for her. So we didn’t go back. I realized that, in and of itself, is foundation for a whole other entry on Substack but it’ll have to wait.
The point is, there was “spirituality” around… mostly in the form of whatever New Age Craze was taking the 80s and 90s by storm. Everything under the sun (which we know there’s nothing new to report.)3
One of the gurus Mom followed was Wayne Dyer. He was fond of calling God “Ralph”. I’m not joking. You can watch a PBS special he did long ago where he specifically talks about the fact that God doesn’t care what you call him…. Because it’s not personal. He’s not personal. I am of course paraphrasing here. And it may be an amalgam of books and TV specials. But the teaching was that God is just energy to be manipulated into what you need. There wasn’t a ton of talk about love to my recollection. I’m not making a statement on the beliefs of the late Mr. Dyer. I’m telling you what I remember.
Mom also followed another metaphysical writer named Stuart Wilde. He was truly into the whole “create your own reality” lifestyle. I just don’t remember a lot of talk, again, about love from these gurus. Knowledge was king.
The Main Story
Which brings me to my personal moment of Truth. Around the age of twenty-six, I lived in New York in the West Village in the blossoming years of my acting career. It was a rainy summer day. Already costumed in my late 90s go-to floral audition dress (always from Ann Taylor), I took a moment to sit in the rocker by the window. It was a quiet and the rain slid down the window obfuscating the view just enough to make me forget it was an air shaft. It was a cozy moment. If it wasn’t for the audition I’d have stayed put right there.
Suddenly - from seemingly nowhere - a thought dropped into my head: