Teacher, Teacher

There is a greater responsibility that comes with teaching, which needs to be recognized and often times isn't. It is that, the person learning could construe what you might teach to be "dogma," especially if the person is young or impressionable. There were times, when I was growing up, that a youth didn't question their teachers, especially if the one questioning was of the feminine persuasion. Boy-O-Boy was I the hellcat there, and with blond curly hair, too. Because of my current community of friends, and also because of who I am, I find myself in a new questioning mode that probably could have taken place several years ago. The fact that it didn't is more than likely due to blindly trusting others, and that the Lord would take care of and provide alone for me. It's not to say that He hasn't, mind you, because He has. It's just that most other people's eyes would have been opened sooner to a different reality than I am facing now. It could only be the result of the Universe having a hand in my destiny that had this be different for me. In the mental aspect alone, mind you, one could say that I'm finally going through puberty at forty-seven.

This awakening began when I realized that I had spent the greater part of my life looking at, and resolving situations, through the eyes of a six-year old. At six, my mother passed away, and in my grief, coupled with shock, without my mother's guidance now, I started looking at the world with the analytical mind of a six-year old. Now we all know that it isn't possible for a child to truly be analytical! I began training myself, and molding my long-term beliefs for all future events that were to shape who I am at this moment, with this six-year-old approach to life. This pattern of looking at the world and every situation through a child's eyes continued throughout my physical adult life; until I began to have a shift in my thinking. This shift was like nothing I ever before experienced. It wasn't in the realm of something I knew (Like English), or something I didn't know (like French), but I was beginning to delve into the realm of what I didn't know I didn't know. Think about that one for a minute! What I didn't know that I didn't know. There is another language out there to inquire into that can bridge a gap for me to an all-together new world, and I hadn't known that I hadn't known it existed. What a paradigm shift! Besides that, I didn't even know what a paradigm shift was, and I was having one!

Things began evolving rather quickly -- too quickly. It was so overwhelming that I had to stop communicating at times with everyone around me in order to put a sense of balance back into my life. I became well aware that if I were going to make any progress, it would need to be through me establishing a new dogma; one that strengthened my integrity. I could no longer, once more, recreate the learning process that was to be the foundation of my future by just accepting what was said because someone else said it was so. Each new shift was throwing me out of my conventional universe and dumping me smack into the center of an ocean of new existence. The possibilities were not only endless but also too devastating to comprehend all at once. The harder I tried to tread these new waters, the more I began going under. I was growing weak from the struggle. I needed time for my logic center to absorb the first set of input before getting a jolt of the second set, but the universe wasn't going to be so nice this time and oblige me with trickles, one at a time, as it had throughout my past. This was a monsoon of experiences coming at me all at once.

Too much input was causing my logic system to break down. But only with breakdown could my system reevaluate and reprogram itself for the breakthroughs that would follow. My past religious beliefs have come from my Catholic schooling and devout Catholic family. I'm not saying that they were all wrong, but more, that some were misinterpreted. Some of what I now need to rethink is in regard to my own personal beliefs. One more important thing I needed to sort out and realize was that I needed to "uncollapse" the true beliefs with those teachings the teacher taught me. By "uncollapsing," I am making the distinction that there are two things, or two meanings that I had collapsed to mean the same, when in fact; they were and still are quite different. The operative practice in my life had been to collapse two different meanings to mean one, and then live with that totally new meaning as "dogma" that has me be who I was now. For example, I now became reluctant to acknowledge that the rules I was living by were no longer practical to guide me to the future, and some were based on my Catholic beliefs or teachings. To my way of thinking at the time, if I were going to rethink and give up some of my previous "trained" practices, I might need to give up some of my Christian beliefs as well. This thought I had conceived left me perplexed. That's when I needed to uncollapse the two thoughts. First there were what were true beliefs; then there were what my teachers interpreted and taught to me. It is only by going back to the main source, questioning, rereading, and rethinking that I am finding the peace that now guides my new belief system, not only regarding religious dogma but all other beliefs as well.

I have my work cut out for me on this one. I feel that living in my questioning, and not necessarily in someone else's answers, will provide the nurturing space I have hungered for, to sprout. And I have also learned that all the answers are truly inside, so that is where I will look.