Category Archives: My Story

A Poem from My Hurt Self

Sometime ago I wrote a poem.

It came after I had cried deeply, I’m not sure for how long. Afterwards, I sat down with my journal and, without any fore-thought or planning, out came this poem, exactly as it is written below.

I haven’t shared it before now for a few reasons. The main one being that these words came straight from a part of myself that felt judged and vulnerable, and definitely not yet comfortable with sharing very personal parts of me and my experience.

Indeed, this poem felt to be so me when I wrote it that I felt very exposed even sharing it with a few close friends.

Also, some of these hurt feelings were angry when they were first uncovered and my purpose in sharing is never to model that living and acting in anger is something that I think is worthwhile, good or loving.

In publishing this poem publicly today, I am certain that I don’t have a point to prove with my parents by doing so. In fact, strange as it may seem, I don’t even feel that it is a poem about my parents.

This is a poem about me and my journey. It came from a part of myself that felt very raw and real when uncovered and I’m sharing it now because I think that the words have a certain power because they are written with the childlike lack of sophisticated and facade that I experienced at the time.

Today, Jesus will welcome our first round of participants for the “Developing my Loving Self” assistance group. This group will address the importance of connecting to and releasing all of the injured parts of ourselves. So, it seemed apt to make this post today.

I hope that the poem might inspire you to be real and to become more sensitive to the hurt, often childlike, parts of you that are long suppressed and desperate for your attention, care and love so that they can be integrated and their pain released.

******

A Poem from My Hurt Self

I never got to feel pretty

I never got to feel free

You always were the bosses

And I never got to explore me

 

I’ve never liked my body

I’ve never felt at ease

I’ve always felt as your puppy

That has to beg and fetch and please

 

Now I feel so angry

I feel I’ve lost so much

I want to take back my body

And I wish you would know the cost

 

You’ve taken such a toll on me

I feel so much regret

My life, it feels half over

And I’m not even a grown up yet

 

I want to make you sorry

Make you pay for what you’ve done

But none of that will help me

I’m in this for a longer, better run

 

So instead I’m reclaiming my body

I’m learning to say no

I’m claiming my own territory

My heart, my body, my soul

 

You are betrayers and abusers

You made me feel so wrong

to want my life, my joy, my partner

You’ve engulfed me for so long

 

It’s been hard to find myself

Amidst your needy cloud

You felt so damned entitled

I could never speak the truth aloud

 

But I am hiding not a minute longer

I’m breaking up these chains

A new girl is emerging

And taking up the reins

 

She is stronger and braver

Than you have ever been

And you won’t even recognise her

But eventually, I know – you’ll want her on your team

 

In the end you’ll turn to her

You can’t outrun your terror

And there is only so much pain

you’ll take before you’ll want to know how she could change

 

I am proud of who I’m becoming

And I don’t want your shit no more

I’d rather please my Maker

Than abide by family law

 

There is a bird within my heart

Still caged but breaking free

She is crying but also singing

She is finding a new way to be

 

I want to soar through treetops

And dip and glide with grace

I want to heal my wounds and worries

Until I find my home, my space

 

Your reign on my life is over

It’s me now, but I’m not alone

I found a friend, a lover – a fine, good man –

With the same heart as my own

 

While I want to wish you all the best

In truth, I hope one day you’ll see

The pain that you’ve been running from

And how that’s damaged me

 

I say that for your own sake

Because by that time I’ll be long gone

Soaring free into my new life

With my prince upon my arm

 

vegemite kid

Not Drowning, Waving

 “The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else’s imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!”   Thomas Merton – The Seven Storey Mountain

I struggle with feeling insignificant. You wouldn’t know it to look at me because most of my life I’ve been fighting that feeling like crazy. And, I’m ashamed to admit that I’m also apt to get tetchy at anyone who doesn’t help me avoid my gaping lack of self worth. Thus I end up looking stroppy rather than meekly shy and unworthy.
But underneath all the bluster and brashness I feel about the size of a pea. A tiny green pea.
I also care deeply about how you view me. I want to avoid you knowing about my ‘green pea-ness’ at almost any cost. I’d prefer you think of me as worldly, knowledgeable and, if we could arrange it, attractive, kind and considerate too. Underneath I feel I am none of those things. But, did I mention? I don’t want you to find me out.
I firmly believe that to teach well we must honour only that which we wish to teach and not our own part in it. I can’t be full of Truth if I am full of my own self-importance or concerned with my image. Hence when we truly love and want to give the gift of learning to others there is a place we find – where only the Truth and not ourselves matters.

Sometime I strike that balance, a rare magic where I forget all about what you think of me, or how silly my passionate proclamations must look. Instead I am caught up in the beauty of Truth and Gods wonder in everything.

Saturday was not one of those days for me.
On days like Saturday I find myself in a sea of inadequacy. Book group starts I’m floundering in feeling less-than-you and my brain goes to mush.
I don’t want you to know it though. I want rescue… although I haven’t quite figured out how that might work.
AJ arrives – ready to rescue the teaching – and all I can think is how dumb I must seem and how little point there is to me being there…
And that’s where it all goes wrong. I’m still waving, vying for attention, not drowning, and submitting to my feelings. I’m struggling for façade. I still won’t crumble to those emotions so I project out. I want control back.
I want control so that somehow I might prevent the world knowing how insufficient I really am. 
I’m spluttering away in half sentences, trying to keep from drowning, trying to hold back the landslide that really needs to overwhelm me if I’m ever going to be free. I’m looking cranky and cross with AJ.
AJ – who loves me more than almost everything, who values me even when I think we shouldn’t, who involves me in decisions and discussions that I joke are way beyond my pay grade – meaning I have no clue about what we should do since I’m still trying to ward of personal landslides and grappling with humility daily – AJ is there, quietly rescuing truth, aware that I just need to drown, giving me space to do that. He is calm and kind – in the magic place – of loving truth and giving to you.
All the while I’m caught up in my own private melodrama suspecting that you see right through me, but still valiantly attempting to stop you (and the world) from knowing that I really am a tiny pea person, who has no business here.
Its tough and its emotional. And reading my own words I know I see the world through my own error (e.g. perhaps its not entirely true that I’m a tiny pea – but the point is that this is what I feel).
Truthfully I find it hard to share about this stuff, because of the aforementioned dread of you, reader, knowing how small I really am, but also because so many people seem to relish the belief that these feelings are in me because AJ has me in some kind of self-depreciating cycle. If only I could show you all the truth. That I am loved by him so much more than I have ever been by anyone and this is healing me in the tenderest way, in a way I didn’t know was possible.
Since I met AJ my care and respect for myself has grown enormously. Have I told you that I used to drink and smoke and go home with men who didn’t care to know me let alone care to love me? I have wandered around for years trying my best to cover up how desperately bad I feel though addictions and anger. Despite my ‘drowning/landslide private/ public melodrama event’ on Saturday things are actually better inside me than they have been my entire life.
There are days when I do let myself drown in the grief of feeling less-than men and insufficient. I have a long stored up wealth of memories that bear out a painful history of being abused, hurt, overlooked and tortured by men, not to mention I live in a world that has acknowledged me only as ‘whore’ for 2000 years. There is pain to feel and slowly I am submitting more and more.
I’m only disappointed on days like Saturday because my façade, though shaky, still grapples for control. I push out instead of softening inwards. I want you to like me more than I want to love myself. I worry that others, particularly women, use my obvious struggle, to justify their own difficulties with men or with AJ.
I know that such things are beyond my control but truly it would be my hope to challenge you in my humility not offer you validation in my resistance. How can I have you know that crazy, courageous, humility is the only way to freedom and that my pains are my own, and not right to be blamed upon others who love me?
Its so easy to keep blaming men for the feelings already inside, to punish them for the lie that ‘I am less than men’ that I bought and now carry. Regardless of how men may treat me, I will believe this until I am brave enough to grieve it. The sad truth is that the men in my life now had nothing to do with creating these feelings in me. These errors came from men and womenin my past.
I am so grateful that the man who God gave to me loves me. He honours me even when I struggle to do this for myself.
  “Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture.”                               Thomas Merton – The Seven Storey Mountain

God, walk with me while I uncover those worthless, hurting parts of myself. Help me towards humility rather than façade and defence. Let my grieving open me to the truth about myself and to the love that already surrounds me. Let me strive to embrace the suffering of the past so that I may open my heart to a hopeful future, full of freedom.

Living a Life Unexpected

*** This post has been mentioned in the Brisbane paper today, Sunday 21st August, claiming that I am full of complaint. 🙂

Sadly it is clear that journalists feel the need to sensationalize facts in order to sell papers. This is why they create dramatic and misleading headlines which include words such as ‘Doomsday‘ (we don’t believe there is a doomsday) ‘Cult‘ (dodgy overused word that I don’t identify with and could be applied to any number of religious movements on the planet.. but a word used because it also brings to the mind of most readers horrible mass suicides, inquisitions, and people acting mindless zombies and/ or having group sex… and we do not endorse, support or participate in any of these things, or anything remotely resembling such things.)

I doubt whether anyone would read an alternative headline such as “Mary Luck Tells The Truth About Some Stuff That’s Happened In Her Life”. That’s not too catchy, and does not create very much drama, anger, resentment or other emotions in potential readers.

I wrote the post that follows in a spirit of reflection, at times in wry humour, and in completing it I was left with a deep level of gratitude for the gifts that I have received by simply living fully through what have been some trying events and emotions.

It amazes me that many people feel that one is voicing complaint (or as the headline states ‘claiming harrassment‘) when in fact one may be merely recounting the truth about events and the emotions that accompanied them. I do believe that I am allowed to recount the truth of what has happened and how I have felt over the past 3 years. (As a side note many of these events did occur prior to our recent media coverage. Therefore not all were not as a result of the coverage, as implied in the newspaper piece). Obviously others are also allowed their reactions to what I write :). Just thought I’d pop in and point out (for those not sensitive to the nuances in what I have written) that I in no way feel upset, ‘crucified‘ or am crying out for sympathy!

It also does occur to me as I sit and write these words tonight that these new comments are very likely redundant as I believe if one were to read this post without prejudice one would probably feel all that I have just stated. On the other hand those who wish to judge my words through their own anger will likely skip over what I have just said!

Anyway folks, wishing you abundant living and critical awareness of the world that surrounds you!

Love Mary

 *****

The following started out as a sort of zany thought process in my head one afternoon, reflecting on all of the crazy stuff that happens in my life. I began to think how cool it would have been if God or an angel could have given me a downloadable list before this all began… sort of a “What to Expect in the Life You Never Expected” preparation list. I started writing it down in my journal to amuse myself. As I wrote (as often happens for me) the list became a process in itself. I began to reflect a lot more deeply on my past few years and it actually turned into some really good therapy.

Things to Expect When You Change Your Spiritual Beliefs, Reveal You Are a Re-incarnated Biblical Figure & Your Boyfriend is Jesus
  • Many people (including people you have known all of your life e.g. Mum or Dad) will now see your new partner as license to dismiss anything that comes out of your mouth as irrational and under the control of said new partner. It won’t matter how rational, well regarded or educated you were before; you will now very often be regarded as a bimbo with no mind of her own.
  • Some people, who claim to be Christians, and quote the Bible to you, will also feel it’s OK to threaten you with death.
  • In fact you had probably better get used to the fact that your belief system will pretty much challenge everyone e.g. people with ‘new age’ spiritual beliefs, Christians, Muslims, mediums, healers, historians, even atheists will be looking for your ‘angle’ to manipulate the ‘believers’. News and media industry of all kinds will be under extreme pressure to present you as loonies (even if they find you not to be) because popular societal belief will be so strongly against you. Just give up on being well received (at least for a while)!
  • Behaviour which would generally be viewed as harsh and attacking (e.g. verbally abusing your partner, slandering your partner, irrational defence of false beliefs about your partner, imputing evil motives to innocent thoughts or actions, threatening you with dis-ownership, having you uninvited from family events for no other reason than your loyalty to your partner, stating that you deserve rage and anger because you no longer tow the family line, expecting you to not only maintain a relationship and visits without your partner, but also while your partner is openly regarded as an evil, narcissist i.e.“we hate the partner you love, its not up for discussion, we know better than you, but you are still letting us down by not coming here without him and putting up with us projecting that, we want to know you but just not anything about the life you are leading with the evil demon” or sentiments to that effect.. and yes, even though you will be shocked that such things could ever happen, they will and in many cases these exact words will be used), when enacted by your immediate family, will be viewed, not only as reasonable behaviour, but proof of love, by same said family and also a great number of personal and family friends. Some strangers will even see fit to tell you that the outright attack of you, your partner, and your partner’s family, by your brother on an internet forum, is in fact evidence of his love for you.

    This will be difficult. You will wonder where the family you knew has gone. After a while you will begin to wonder if you ever really knew them. You will feel sad for a long, long time about this.

Later on, you will begin to wonder at the larger connotations revealed by such events. Like, how injured is a world that believes that harsh words, violent emotions, raised voices and attempts to pressure people away from their own free will are all permissible when explained away as acts of love? You will see that this very same damage, carried in the psyche of humanity, is what begins wars and genocide. You will know then, with stark clarity that the healing of your own injured soul is the only hope to truly forgive, and to effectively act as a force of positive, loving change in the world.

  • Store assistants who were on a first name basis with one week, will run from the showroom in fright as they see you coming and have their manager to serve you, the week after you appear in a national newspaper.
  • People are going to feel it’s OK to laugh, point, and/or sneer at you while you are minding your own business doing your grocery shopping. In fact by now you are probably getting the picture that lots of things that people wouldn’t dream of doing to many others, they are going to feel justified in doing to you both merely on the basis of who you say you are.

  • In the midst of really difficult times, when the media is slandering you and your very core trembles in terror at the violence and sexual threats that immediately fill your inbox, there may also arrive a treasure or two. Like the gorgeous email that managed to include genuine enquiry about homosexuality, Jesus, love, God and Lady Gaga in one paragraph. And you will laugh and cry at the same time because you realise that somewhere in Brazil or Montreal there is a really cool person that can see through the sensationalism and stupid lies. More than that, you know regardless of if that person ends up believing you or not, that you’d still like to know them and they you. If they didn’t live in some far flung place you’d have them over for dinner sometime and hang out.

  • Even when people have known you for years, and watched you close-hand for days and months at a time, the hardest thing for them will still be to believe what you say about your identity. And while you will understand what a big deal it is for them, (reflecting on how much the implications of it still boggle your own mind), this will place a sort of invisible barrier between you and them. Because there will always be the unspoken doubt in the air between you. And more than that, you will not feel entirely comfortable sharing of yourself and your own experience while you know that the other person does not really accept as truth that which is deeply personal, real and raw to you. You won’t blame anyone for this. You will only feel this as a sort of quiet, constant, loneliness until you open your heart to your Soulmate and find friendship, love and companionship there.
  • Prepare to be inspired and overwhelmed to finally meet a small group of new people who want God and growth as much as you do. This will feel like finally coming home.

The biggest homecomings – to your Soulmate and to God will be the most challenging. Truly, sister, this will challenge you in ways you didn’t think possible and most of the time it will feel like you are bending out of shape and growing at a pace so rapid it leaves you reeling – and yet this will be where you find your true joy. The unnamed longing inside of you will finally be acknowledged. You will come to know and understand yourself in a way that you have yearned for as long as you can remember. You will see yourself and your future in the eyes of another. You will feel complete.

Receiving your soulmate’s love will change you, and indeed it will be this gift of his that teaches you so much about the kindness, the long suffering-ness, forgiveness and gentle nature of real love. His tolerance and patience will simultaneously inspire and humble you. His passion and fidelity will be the most intense and beautiful offering ever presented to you. For some time you will struggle to be open to the grief of remembrance and loss that his offering of love triggers within you .

  • Don’t ever underestimate the power of your open heart to reach people. Yes, it will be tough for others to truly believe who you are, but when you share your authentic self, when you express your journey and your feelings from your open, un-edited heart, people will be moved. It will be hard for you to trust this. But every time you remember it, you will kick yourself for ever forgetting it.
  • In three years from your big ‘announcement’ you may find that not many (and I mean really, nearly NONE) of the people you knew ‘before’ want to know you anymore… Just be prepared for the landscape of your life to utterly change. In fact, forget it, you can’t really prepare for it, because before you begin it, you can’t quite conceive it.

But in amongst this there will be people who surprise you. And sometimes they surprise you because they weren’t front and centre in your life before, they are people you have known and loved but not necessarily the ‘BFF’ kind who you call every week and think you’ll be each others bridesmaids (you get the picture..) Sometimes they are those ones, but sometimes they are the people you least expect. And they shock you because, instead of ditching you when you break the ‘big news’, they say things like:

‘Hey, this is unexpected from you, but I really like you. I respect you as a person. I know you’re not an idiot or a liar. I know that you only do things that you really believe in… so can you tell more about what’s going on for you? What’s happening for you?’

These people may turn out to be rare but you will look at them with fresh eyes, because you know that out of everyone ‘before’ they must be the ones who saw you the most. You will be grateful, truly grateful for them. And partly because of them, and partly because of the others who can’t accept you anymore, you will come to reassess your life as it was ‘before’. You will see that there were measures you had in place, methods you used to quantify the quality of your life, that included how much you accomplished, the way you were viewed, how much socialising you did and so on. You will begin to see how flawed these measures were. You will start to review your life with altered eyes, ones that search out the threads of love. You will weep for the places that you hadn’t realised it was missing, in yourself, and in your relationships. But you will also treasure with a new attentiveness the people who practice acceptance, openness, and understanding with you, regardless of what they personally believe.

You will begin to see that sometimes it was ones you overlooked who demanded the least of you and who loved you most. And somewhere amidst all of this heart-breaking, heart-opening process you will realise your heart has expanded. You will find that, amongst all of the grief and undoing of the life you thought you had, you have been delivered an enduring gift. That gift is the greater knowledge of what love truly is, and how love acts, and that this currency, this love current flowing through your life, is the thing you will value the most forever more. You will have been given new eyes to see and value this thing, love. You will know that it is worth more than anything. Now, instead of common beliefs, emotional addictions, or shared interests, this love expression will be the thing to guide all future relationships. Love will be the new bedrock on which you want to base your life.

You will want to find and foster new strength within yourself: to seek out love, to give love, to forgive, to let-go, to finally believe that love just may be something you deserve and that never again will you live in relationships where others belittle you or dismiss your unique gifts and passions.

  • Over time you may find that even those treasured ones, from ‘before’, that stood by you in friendship may yet begin to be challenged. Because, this living for God and ‘just being true’, is radical in a world accustomed to façade and full of cynicism. Your words about your journey may start to stir new questions in these old friends about their own lives and relationships. They may shrink back a little in fear because they do not want change in this intense, all-encompassing way that you now do. You will see this and understand.

Others may withdraw because their husband or partner is frightened and judgemental of the man who says he is Jesus (even though they have never met him). And you won’t chase them because you know too well the pain of people pushing you to break the bond with the man you love. You know how people believing they have rights on your affections above all others feels like a bridle on your soul that smarts as you pull against it. You will let her go because you want her to be free to follow her dreams with her man, to be happy and to foster their love.

It might be that when you see a ‘before’ friend you talk about what’s happening with them (which is great – you ask and want to know their life), about the weather, about your dress or old memories but you never again seem to get to the part in the conversation where the talk turns to what you are doing now and what you live for. And if you try to bring that up sometimes they will accuse you of expecting them to believe as you do. And you will feel winded and stung and your eyes will fill salty, because you know that nothing is further from the truth.

Your heart will speak the silent question ‘But don’t you remember? This is what we always used to discuss, the things that mattered to us; the things that gave us meaning.’ But you won’t say it out loud because inside you will suddenly start to question if that really did happen? Or was it just the clatter and noise of agreeing voices that went on and not a true meeting of hearts in conversation?

Still another friend may try to convince you, each time that you speak, to just understand your parents who ridicule and reject your life, and just go see them. Because – this is what they would do. Time and again they will bring it up and it won’t matter how much you try to explain. You will try to tell this person, who you have known over three quarters of your life, but they just won’t see that you are learning to love yourself too much to endure rage and ridicule from anyone, and that you can no longer sacrifice the love and loyalty to your mate in order to placate the ire of the ones who are tied to you through blood.You will get better at letting go because you are learning that grieving gives gifts of its own. You will know that your tears will help you give up expectations and instead of expecting friendship from these people you will just love them more (even if you see them less). You will feel that you will always be there with a hug and a heart listening should they pass your way again but that you will no longer desperately seek them out for words or comfort that they do not give. Because also, you are remembering (ever so slowly) to seek Love from One who provides it perfectly. This Love fills you up and starts to take away the gaping holes in your soul that before you so desperately sought to fill with friendship or a career or sex or travel. 

Where-as once you would have found it unbearable, now you will not feel so frightened to simply feel those empty places inside and let them be. You will begin to honour your sorrows and your losses. You learn that they are important because they are a part of your story, a part of who you are right now. And you will start to want to know her more, this you who you are right now.

And through all this realising and letting go and opening up and just allowing you will suddenly notice how much you are changed. Some days you will loose sight of this and then on others you will be halted in your tracks, stock still in the moment as you are struck at the quiet wonder of this newfound freedom you have discovered – to feel and be and know yourself.You will know that in most ways the journey is still just beginning but you will be overcome by how exquisitely beautiful the road which you take, this Way to God, is and what a treasure it is to have Him find a place in your heart once again. Then there will be tears of joy, just as intense as those you have cried in loss, and you will wonder how you ever became worthy of such a Love; that there could be One Who, even knowing your failings and desperate error, would want Cherish and Nurture you in such an intimate and personal way again.

  • Some days you might feel just plain weary that every move you make, every gift you give, every time you express yourself publically, your motives are questioned, or you are analysed for proof that you really are either ‘the dark cult leader’, or ‘the bimbo manipulated by the dark cult leader’. You might feel tired of people thinking they know how you tick; that they know how you feel and what drives you.

And then, from time to time, you might just repent the fact that once you were also quite cynical about the motives of people who spoke of God. You will sit in your chair and smile and wonder at how sweet and strange this life is.Again and again you will thank God for teaching you humility. A chorus of gratitude will rise to your lips, manifesting as half a smile, half a sigh, half a sob… and yes, it will feel like a ‘one and a half’ amount of thanks. You will feel that God has filled you to over capacity for thankfulness. 

You will feel blessed.

All photos are of winter 2011 in Wilkesdale,QLD

Where To Begin?

I have been afraid for a long time. Afraid to remember, afraid to tell my story.

Its hard to know how or from when to start telling my story…. Do I start three years ago?.. do I start 32 years ago?… 2000 years ago?… or in some space in between those points?

I’ve decided to start today and write what I think will become my story in a blog format. What will be in part my daily journal, in part a chronicle of my first century life and spirit life and I suspect in the main part a description of my ongoing struggle to come to terms with my identity, my passion for God and my emotional journey in striving to come to love myself and others in the Way that God loves each of us.

Why Tell My Story???

I want to try to explain why I have decided (feel compelled) to start this project. I’m struggling to find the words to do so and am reminded that AJ always says to me: ‘stop trying to explain and just say what you feel’ 🙂 so here is how I feel;

Mainly I feel ridiculous, awkward, self-conscious. Who would want to read my story anyway?! I’m afraid of being judged as self-involved and a freak… the intense vulnerability of it is terrifying..

I have been on this path for sometime now, teaching it even, but I have largely avoided sharing of myself and my experiences.

I have been full of the terror of judgement, ridicule, speculation, mis-interpretation… but fear is not love and it is not truth.. in fact I’ve been reflecting lately that fear is usually my excuse NOT to love and NOT to give myself a voice. I have become more able to see that even my smallest, seemingly inconsequential decisions, when driven by fear, inevitably result in more fear and pain for myself or for those around me. So I have been starting to view my fear as just an emotion, to experience some of it rather than live in it, to challenge it rather than accept it as truth and as I have been doing so I keep feeling that I need to share more of myself, to find my voice, to be more vulnerable.. to tell my story…

So here goes!

An Introduction – of sorts… 🙂

There is no simple or easy way to summarise my life in the last three years, since I began to understand my emotions and memories, so I’m not going to try to do it all at once. I’ll just give you an introduction of sorts, some context hopefully and no doubt in future posts I will reflect and recount on it in other ways.

I’ve always considered myself a fairly down to earth person. I’m not really sure how others have perceived me. While I have always had an interest in things spiritual; it has been mainly a personal and fairly private interest. And I’ve always considered myself somewhat of a pragmatist. i.e. ‘OK so you/ I…. (insert various ‘spiritual practices here e.g. chanted for two hours/ attended a church service/ wear crystals/ went to Israel/ etc). …and how does that make you/ me a more loving person in daily life? How does that love reflect in your lifestyle? How does it translate to your shopping list, your voting ballot, the way you talk to your kids or the waiter, or the guy who just asked you for a dollar for the bus?’

Frankly a lot of times I just didn’t see it. I don’t believe that wearing crystals is the key to our spiritual enlightenment; I don’t believe that if you are on the church committee you are therefore a loving person.

What bothered me a lot was that I seemed to also encounter, in those people who had God or spirituality in their lives, the same injuries I thought were problems in the rest of  the whole human race. It seemed that the only difference was that they dressed up their judgement and separation in ‘spiritual’ words. I felt like New Age throw away comments like: ‘you know we are all one, its all an illusion, a reflection, we are all God, etc…’ were actually ways to distance the person from love and connection with others and from their real emotions, when I was discussing things like mothers dying in Africa, refugees in the Middle East (OK so they are big topics, but these were the things I wanted my spiritual life to help me understand and respond to… and by the way I don’t think we are all one, life seems pretty real for those refugees, I don’t see you going through what they are going through and I’m sure God is not an axe murderer…’ which is of course vastly different from loving the axe murderer!). I couldn’t come to terms with Christianity because it excluded homosexuality, and it seemed to me at the time to be full of fear and exclusion, not acceptance and love. I couldn’t meditate.. my mind kept thinking all of the time and just what was the point again? I didn’t feel that peace and calm my yoga class was supposed to induce, my hamstrings are too tight.

I’ve always wanted to talk about the deeper pains, the things that are important to others but I have also always harboured a bigger insecurity. I wanted desperately to ‘fit in’. I felt so different as a kid, being the only one at school in a tiny farming community with homemade brown bread sandwiches and dried fruit in my lunch box, wearing second hand clothes and no TV. So as I grew up I never strayed too far from the mainstream (only enough to be fashionably cool and different) and I never wore my passion for understanding God and Love on my sleeve.

I want answers! Actually.. maybe not these answers…

This is why when I met AJ Miller in December 2007 it was simultaneously the most scary and exciting time in my life.

Here were the answers, they seemed infinitely loving and they translated into a practical world view. But I was also very afraid… ‘this man is saying he is JESUS… and I am Mary Magdalene…. This means NEVER FITTING IN AGAIN…’

Sadly my terror of rejection, ridicule, being perceived as a freak, arrogant and, insane interfered a lot in my early relationship with AJ and also in how I communicated my feelings and experiences to my family, friends and to others on this path

Not long after I met AJ I began to have memories in full force (I want to write more about this another time). I became very afraid. I felt disorientated, thought I was going mad and I grappled then (and now) with the bigger picture of what it all meant.

I shut down, I ran away, I got angry…. My family decided none of this was true and I was actually being manipulated by AJ.

This was an incredibly painful time for me. I have always felt so close to my family and for the first time in my adult life I felt that I thoroughly disagreed with them… but it was difficult for me to stay true to these feelings as the pain of their disapproval and rejection of my experiences was quite intense. I wanted desperately for them to understand and accept what I was going through.

There were many times when I tried to pressure AJ to change so that he would be more acceptable to my judgemental family and friends. There were also times I flat out rejected him because I felt I couldn’t trust my own feelings and the fear was overwhelming. I blamed him for my memories, I raged against my own inner knowing. I rationalized, I thought up other possible explanations.

I did not want this Truth.

I still feel so much sorrow over these times – the power of my fear to shut down love and trust of myself is a lesson hard learned.  And during all of this AJ only ever respected my feelings and decisions – he stayed away when I demanded it and came back with a heart of love when I felt so lost and desperate and alone, as I often did.

The year following meeting AJ was one of the hardest in my life. I was full of terror about the experiences and feelings that I was having, regardless of whether I was around AJ or not. I knew the Truth lay with AJ but I risked loosing my family’s approval and my relationships with friends. I felt torn between changing the world in a socially acceptable way i.e. completing my Masters degree and heading off to a remote African village to work with disabled children, and following my heart and being regarded forever more as a crazy, cult lady by the majority of the world. There were many times when I quite seriously thought of packing up my backpack and getting on a plane to anywhere other than here.

Ultimately my heart won out. I’m ashamed to admit how long the decision between love and fear took, years really, and my relationship with AJ suffered as a result. I also now no longer seek out the company of my immediate family as when I do I am still met with their harsh judgements of my experience and of AJ, whom I love.

Today I still have great fears of ridicule and rejection, I still have pain at the lack of my parent’s approval and their anger but I have decided to stop letting these thing prevent me from sharing of myself.

My heart is full of love and passion for the message of God’s Way of Love, the Divine Love Path. My fears still make me feel that I would like to talk and teach about the Way while ignoring who I am and my personal journey, but that would be hypocritical. How can I encourage others to tell the truth, to be vulnerable and humble while I hide what is happening for me and how I feel?

I have decided to teach this path for the rest of my life – as I have done for most of the past 2000 years – and this online journal, however long it may last, is about me sharing that journey with whoever would like to hear about it.

AJ & Mary meet in LondonApril, 2008

AJ & I meet in London
April, 2008