Where to start? A few weeks ago when I started doing A Course in Miracles for the third time? Five years ago when I had my first child and my world was completely rocked? The day I was born with all my past life, current life, genetic, cultural and human baggage? I guess I’ll start with why I started to write about my journey with the Course and go from there.
Two days ago my younger son sliced his knee open on a stereo speaker in my car. We were in the parking lot at the library, just stopping to return some books while on our way home for lunch. He was climbing out of the car across the back seat and he slipped. He hollered and I turned around, thinking he must have bumped his head or something and saw blood gushing out of an open cut on his knee. A little more worried now, I went over to have a closer look and saw a bloody, seething gash with layers of skin and fat and who knows what exposed. I had never seen so much of the inside of the human body up close and I immediately started screaming for my older son (who was standing nearby watching the high school band across the parking lot practice), “O come back! Get in the car! R got hurt! We have to go the the doctor!” while at the same time looking for something semi-sanitary with which to stop the bleeding while simultaneously searching for my cell phone to call our doctor’s clinic - which was CLOSED.
“Closed?! On a Thursday afternoon?! Why are they CLOSED?!” I am screaming to no one and everyone, completely hysterical by now sure my son is going to bleed to death in the library parking lot. He of course is crying and telling me to STOP TOUCHING IT! while I try and stop the bleeding with a baby wipe and alternately look again to make sure it really is as bad as I think it is and to reassure myself that it’s really not that bad.
I call the clinic again. And again. And again. And they are still closed. WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY?!? Are they closed on Thursday afternoon? Meanwhile, I get my younger son back in his car seat (my older son has miraculously - and for the first time in his life - immediately heeded my wishes and is already in his seat, strapped in and ready to go) with a wad of baby wipes pressed to his knee and then I realize I do not know where my keys are.
“S**T! Where are my keys? S**T! F**K! S**T! Where ARE they? G*D DAMMIT! I can’t believe I’ve F***ING lost my keys right now! Where the HE** are they? What an idiot!” I scream at full voice in the parking lot as my kids sit stunned in the backseat.
“Mom, why are you saying so many bad words?” O asks in a soft, confused voice.
“Oh Honey, I just lost my keys and I’m worried about R and I don’t know what we are going to do,” I reply, semi regaining my motherly composure.
I look over and see that the keys are sitting on the driver’s seat, just where I left them. I climb in and start the car and then I realize I still don’t know where we are going. I call the clinic one more time - just to MAKE SURE they really are closed - before deciding it’s the local children’s hospital emergency room for us.
Once we are on the road and I know where we are going I feel a little bit better. I have a plan. I realize that R probably needs me to be calm, cool and collected and not the screaming, cussing, hysterical mess I have been so far. At the first stoplight I turn around to look at him and see that he is really scared.
His face is red and tears are streaming down his face. He is saying, “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts,” over and over again.
“Honey, are you all right?” I ask in my calm mommy voice.
“Yes,” he replies in a small, sad voice.
It’s going to be all right sweetheart. We’re going to the hospital and they are going to help you with your knee. They’re going to fix it right up, okay?”
“Okay, mommy.”
At that moment I remember that I am a reflexologist, a trained healer and someone who believes in the power of energy work. (It only took 15 minutes : ) For the rest of the trip to the hospital I sweep his knee at every stoplight using a technique I learned from Master Stephen Co at a Pranic Healing seminar I attended a few weeks ago. This seems to help a little bit and he has stopped crying by the time we get to the hospital.
We pull into the emergency room parking lot and there is a spot right near the entrance. I take this as a sign that it is not too crowded and we will not have to wait long. I carry R into the waiting room and check in with the front desk while he and O watch “Snow White” on the waiting room TV. And thus did our odyssey begin.
As I sat there, I was finally able to reflect upon this experience and how I was handling it in light of all the work I have been doing for the past five years. The answer was: Not Very Well. And I realized that it is all fine and good to live and love and forgive as if this is all an illusion when your children are basically healthy, your relationship is basically good, and your basic needs are basically met. It is a whole other thing when you are sitting in the emergency room waiting for someone to come and help your child in a way that it is not possible for you to help them. And I realized that as hard as the past twenty minutes had been for me, it had to be harder for someone whose child is probably not going to recover. Or for someone who is worried about how they will pay for this visit after it is over. Or for someone who does not have a husband to call for support. I couldn’t stay in the moment, think clearly, forgive myself or remember that this is all an illusion. I couldn’t even remember to try to stay in the moment, think clearly, forgive myself and remember that this is all an illusion.
What was I doing? That was the question that came up for me at that moment. What was I playing at doing A Course in Miracles? Sure, I could do it much of the time in my cushy, middle-class, whitebread existence, but when push came to shove, when things got really hairy (and they hadn’t even gotten all that hairy), all of my meditation, energy work, loving and forgiving and staying in the (this is not from the Course, but from another seminal work in my journey, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle) gone right out the window. Where would I be when things really got tough?
I didn’t have an answer. And I still don’t. After three and a half hours in the emergency room, four stitches, and an apology from the doctor over the long wait, during which time I went from despair (when I saw all the other sick kids being brought into the emergency room, both because so many of them looked sicker and in more pain than R and also because that meant we would have to wait longer), to anger (when the wait dragged on and on and they kept telling me not to give him anything to eat, even though has was starving and begging me for some food, without telling me why so that I finally gave in and gave him 10 pieces of cereal only to discover that this meant he could not have any oral pain/anxiety medication and he had to endure four stitches with only a bit of lidacane to numb the area), to relief (when the doctor finally came in and sewed up his knee and said we could go home), mostly keeping myself in check and not screaming or cussing again (at least not out loud). I still feel like I blew it. I blew my chance to really apply what I have learned and to live the Course. And that is why I am writing this blog. Because after all was said and done I wanted to talk to someone who is trying to live the Course too and have them reassure me that setbacks are normal and that someday even a trip to the emergency room will be just another forgiveness opportunity and not a fullblown crisis of faith.
So, I hope you are out there doing the Course and living your life and wanting someone to talk to about it. I’m listening and I hope you are too.
Blessings to you,
The Everyday Seeker
