Something New: Conversations with God

My feeling about any kind of higher power has always been confusing, unsettled, shifting... This post could be incredibly long if I was to explain what I have believed or how I was raised in regards to "God" or religion. Suffice it to say that I don't remember being raised with a strong sense of God, which is not to say we were raised atheist, maybe agnostic, and we definitely didn't belong to any religion.

Did I go to church with friends and other family? Yes. Did I feel out of place, uncomfortable and alone in that? Yes. Did I at times truly wish and desire a connection with God and to feel a sense of the belonging and purpose and sense of unconditional love that religion and faith seem to offer? Of course. But ultimately church, even Buddhist practices/meditations, anything about God always felt very empty to me. Nothing ever resonated. Nothing has ever felt real. I look around at life and it's so intricate and beautiful and amazing and I think there must be something. Even if it's just collective energy. There is so much more that I don't know and don't understand, I've always believed that, but what that is, no clue. And for the most part, though my life feels empty in that way, it's never felt full so I haven't had a strong desire to seek that. The closest I've come to anything seeming more right was attending a service at the Unitarian church, but ultimately I thought why am I the youngest person here by about 20 years? and geez I don't know if getting up early on a weekend is something I'd ever want to do with regularity, even if belonging to a "church" would mean a sense of community that I am wishing I had. I wouldn't even have ever classified myself as "spiritual." Just "n/a."

A changing moment came for me during(?) my car accident. Have I told this story? I can't remember. These pictures are actually from a drive Richard and I took in 2004 between Crater Lake and Bend. We'd stopped on some back highway we were traveling because (as usual) I had to pee and couldn't hold it. But then we goofed off a little, so this ridiculous picture is me kicking ice. Richard always liked these pictures but something about them, especially the one of me staring off, always seemed a bit haunting to me, I thought maybe just because of the heavy fog and how dang cold it was. But...

Around(?)/during(?) my car accident, I had a dream(?)/vision(?) that has all the imagery typically associated with death (hey, I was an English major, I know this stuff, snow represents death). I remembered this when I was recovering in the hospital but have never been able to remember when it happened...

I was standing facing a snowy field, separated by a wooden fence (not like the fence in the picture below). At the edge of the field to the left and at the back of the field was forest. There were hills behind the field, very much like in the picture below. It was overcast and cold. Behind me was a road or highway and Richard's truck with the engine running. I could hear the engine behind me but was looking into the field where in the middle stood a woman in a gray wool hooded cloak. She was older, maybe in her 60s, with long gray hair though I'm not sure how I knew that because I think she was wearing the hood up. She seemed familiar but I didn't recognize her yet she seemed to know me, or had been waiting for me. She was facing the woods so I was looking at her back and right shoulder and she looked over her shoulder at me and with her right arm motioned for me to follow her off to the left into the woods. I knew that in the woods, maybe near the base of the hills, others were waiting for us. Maybe they even had a fire because I knew it would be warm. I had the thought that it would be fun to have the first footprints in this snowy field and I started to move toward the fence. I put my hands on the wood railing so that I could start to climb over. It was so quiet, I remember how quiet and peaceful it all was. But I remembered that Richard's truck was there. I felt guilty and hesitant to just leave the truck on the side of the road because I wasn't sure how long I'd be. I thought I should at least take the keys out and lock it. So I started to turn around to my right to head back to the truck...

That was all. One of the strangest parts was that I was completely sure that's where my accident had been. I argued with my mom that I'd crashed in front of a big, open field. In fact where I crashed looked nothing like what was in my head, and the truck had almost hit a tree. Still whenever I've driven by it, it seems like the wrong place to me. Another strange part was that when I described this to Richard for the first time, he said "like that field we took pictures of between Crater Lake and Bend?" I don't remember if I'd made the connection or if he did first. So hmm, that's my "near death" experience, and the start of my re-considering what I really believe about after-life, etc. Oh, that, and I heard a voice loudly whisper my name when I was in the hospital, just as I closed my eyes to take a nap. It was so loud -- Gretchen... -- as if someone was trying to gently wake me, that I snapped open my eyes only to find myself alone in the room with the door closed. And I immediately thought of my passed grandma Georgia.

My housemate Adam and I apparently feel similarly about this. His wife Jesse told me he'd read a book Conversations with God, which had actually made a big impact on him. They've had an interesting new-age-y exploration and discovery in the last year and it's been interesting to hear some of the theories/ideas/truths? about life and God that they've come across -- from spirit guides to the purpose of life to past lives. I guess I'm still just trying to be open-minded and open-hearted about most things spiritual.

So I suppose still seeking some sort of greater understanding, and connection, though I don't expect to ever find that, I read Conversations with God. And for the first time, something resonated with me.

Basically (from Wikipedia): Conversations with God is a sequence of books written by Neale Donald Walsch as a dialogue in which Walsch asks questions and God answers. Walsch described the inception of the books as follows: at a low period in his life, Walsch wrote an angry letter to God asking questions about why his life wasn't working. After writing down all of his questions, he heard a voice over his right shoulder say: "Do you really want an answer to all these questions or are you just venting?" Though when he turned around he saw no one there, Walsch felt answers to his questions filling his mind and decided to write them down. Walsch writes that God presents four concepts which are central to the entire dialogue:
1. We are all One.
2. There's Enough.
3. There's Nothing We Have to Do.
4. Ours Is Not A Better Way, Ours Is Merely Another Way.

At the highest level there is no separation between anything and there is only one of us; there is only God, and everything is God. The second statement, following from the first, means that we, in this seeming existence, lack nothing and if we choose to realize it, we have enough of whatever we think we need (or the means to create it) within us. The third statement combines the first two to conclude that God, being all there is and is thus always sufficient unto Itself, has no need of anything and therefore has no requirements of humanity. The final concept puts an end to our need to always be right. Given that we have and are everything, and there's nothing we have to do, there are an infinite number of ways to experience this, not just the one way we may have chosen so far.

This is a difficult post to write because I'm not entirely sure what to say. Except that I read this book and felt touched. I felt like if ever my creator spoke to me or communicated with me, that was it. Everything before always brought a bit of melancholy because something felt missing. Empty. Incomplete. Untrue. But there were passages I read that I just felt moved by, so that I kept reading and when I eventually put down the book, I said a thanks that I finally felt something, that I was finally reached.

What does that mean for me now? I'm not sure. I remember hearing Joe talk about The Secret and thinking it sounded like a bunch of bullshit to keep people optimistic dreamers who don't have to face the reality of their mediocrity. Wow, sounds pessimistic. Nah, I'm just a realist. I have thought positively about outcomes- I saw Teach For America being an amazing and successful experience for me. And I've then lived a very different reality. And I wouldn't say it's because I just didn't believe or have faith in what I wanted the outcome to be.

But what I do know is that it brings me back to wanting a partner to share my life with who is open-minded, like Richard can be. Not judgmental or closed off to possibilities or who makes me feel like a weirdo or whack-job for reading something like this book and considering new ideas. I want someone who will help me be my best creative self in life. So in that way, I'm more clear (again clear) that this is a quality I'm seeking.

Here are some passages from the book that stood out to me:

Emotion is the power which attracts. That which you fear strongly, you will experience... Plants -- which you consider an even lower form of life -- respond to people who love them far better than those who couldn't care less. None of this is by coincidence. There is no coincidence in the universe -- only a grand design; an incredible "snowflake." Emotion is energy in motion. (pg 54)

That is what my mom SAYS- emotion is energy in motion. She's smart. And my dad has made that same statement about plants. Maybe they are on to something.


You are goodness and mercy and compassion and understanding. You are peace and joy and light. You are forgiveness and patience, strength and courage, a helper in time of need, a comforter in time of sorrow, a healer in time of injury, a teacher in times of confusion. You are the deepest wisdom and the highest truth; the greatest peace and the grandest love. You are these things. And in moments of your life you have known yourself as these things. Choose now to know yourself as these things always. (pg 86-7)

This reminds me of a quote from Nelson Mandela that I've always loved and will post later. Also I was trying to meditate during Jesse's weekly meditations that she's coordinated, in which we just all sit in a silent meditation (which is new for me in the last few months). And while trying not to think of anything in particular, I suddenly had the thought "but who am I to be loved by God? Who am I to really be a child of God?" and felt such a sense of sadness realizing that a part of me maybe really fears that. And just as suddenly I had an image in my mind's eye of someone above me (couldn't tell man or woman) stretch its neck out so far (just saw head and neck, no body) that it kissed my forehead... and I felt better.


Bless... every relationship, and hold each as special and formative of Who You Are -- and now choose to be. ... Most people enter into relationships with an eye toward what they can get out of them, rather than what they can put into them. The purpose of a relationship is to decide what part of yourself you'd like to see "show up," not what part of another you can capture and hold. ... It is very romantic to say that now that your special other has entered your life, you feel complete. Yet the purpose of relationships is not to have another who might complete you; but to have another with whom you might share your completeness. Here is the paradox of all human relationships: You have no need for a particular other in order for you to experience, fully, Who You Are, and... without another, you are nothing. This is both the mystery and the wonder, the frustration and the joy of all human experience. It requires deep understanding and total willingness to live within this paradox in a way that makes sense.... The problem is so basic, so simple, and yet so tragically misunderstood: your grandest dream, your highest idea, and your fondest hope has had to do with your beloved other rather than your beloved Self. The test of all your relationships has had to do with how well the other lived up to your ideas, and how well you saw yourself living up to his or hers. Yet the only true test has to do with how well you live up to yours. Relationships are sacred because they provide life's grandest opportunity -- indeed, its only opportunity -- to create and produce the experience of your highest conceptualization of Self. Relationships fail when you see them as life's grandest opportunity to create and produce the experience of your highest conceptualization of another.... Let each person in relationship worry not about the other, but only, only, only about Self.... When you lose sight of each other as sacred souls on a sacred journey, then you cannot see the purpose, the reason, behind all relationships. The soul has come to the body, and the body to life, for the purpose of evolution. You are evolving, you are becoming. And you are using your relationship with everything to decide what you are becoming. This is the job you came here to do. This is the joy of creating Self. Of knowing Self. Of becoming, consciously, what you wish to be.... You have brought your Self to the relative world so that you might have the tools with which to know and experience Who You Really Are.... Your first relationship, therefore, must be with your Self. You must first learn to honor and cherish and love your Self. (pg 123-6)

I don't know what to make of my feelings about this. On one hand, I love it. Yes, I don't want someone to complete me. I want someone with whom I might share my completeness! So much in my life I've felt such a sense of loneliness. And I realize that meeting my special other will and won't change that. I am happy with myself but I'd never really seen myself as being on my own journey. I guess that does change who I'm looking to end up with, someone who is supporting me on my journey.


You exist in this life in the world of the relative, where one thing can exist only insofar as it relates to another. This is at one and the same time both the function and the purpose of relationship: to provide a field of experience within which you find yourself, define yourself, and -- if you choose -- constantly recreate Who You Are. On your way to mastery... it would be well to recognize hurt, damage, and loss as part of your experience, and decide Who You Are in relationship to it. Yes, the things that others think, say, or do will hurt you -- until they do not anymore. What will get you from here to there most quickly is total honesty -- being willing to assert, acknowledge, and declare exactly how you feel about a thing. Say your truth -- kindly, but fully and completely. Live your truth, gently, but totally and consistently. Change your truth easily and quickly when your experience brings you new clarity. (pg 134)

Speak your truth. In the last few years, this has definitely been a phrase I've found important. No matter how much it hurts, I'd rather people just spoke their truth about a situation, about a relationship, about their feelings. And also I wonder, how do I remember "Who I Am?" How do I know "Who I Want To Be?" and create that, which is something that is talked about in the book but that I don't fully grasp.


On how to enter into relationships: If you both agree at a conscious level that the purpose of your relationship is to create an opportunity, not an obligation -- an opportunity for growth, for full Self expression, for lifting your lives to their highest potential, for healing every false thought or small idea you ever had about you, and for ultimate reunion with God through the communion of your two souls 00 if you take that vow instead of the vows you've been taking -- the relationship has begun on a very good note.... Know and understand that there will be challenges and difficult times. Don't try to avoid them. Welcome them. Gratefully. See them as grand gifts from God; glorious opportunities to do what you came into the relationship -- and life -- to do. (pg 141)

I have never thought about relationships in that way before. I've always thought it about gaining love and holding love and maintaining love, about the relationship itself, rather than the relationship as part of something larger (and more exciting). That the whole point of life is just to experience it and ourselves, to rediscover how we are all one and all connected and all a part of God, to create and recreate the life we're interested in... it seems so easy and such a relief and at the same time so mysterious and frustrating (how exactly do I go about this?) It makes me feel like there's been this internal shift, an expansion of the mind that I don't think will be the same. But this is on such a subtle and personal level right now, it's hard to communicate and share it.

Ramifications so far have been that I've felt a bit more positive lately. One thing that also stuck with me is a section in which Walsch asks God if Walsch has the power to create/draw in what he wants, to choose his reality, why would he ever choose to suffer. And God replies something about loving the drama, loving the grief. And it reminded me of thoughts I've had about being addicted to my emotions (especially after re-watching "What The Bleep Do We Know" recently) and how I wonder how much of my ennui or loneliness or heartache is just obsessive emotional addiction which I could, with enough effort, work myself out of... I've concentrated lately on flipping negative thoughts toward something positive, on being more mindful of my gratitude, and on acknowledging that some negative feelings actually... don't have much weight to them if I'm deeply honest with myself and ask "hey Gretchen, why are you really upset? What are you really wanting to cry about? Do you really think you still have feelings for that guy? Okay, but so what. Is it really that big of a deal? Isn't really something that you can sit with and just deal with, even just in this moment?" And surprisingly, it works!