Wednesday Prompt: What does having purpose mean to me?
Personal Responsibility to “Breathe Life and the Love of God”
Aloha ke Akua with a Dose of Kuleana: taking responsibility and being a shining light in the likeness and image of God
Introduction:
This question of purpose harkens back to “Layers”, as my paintbrushes, a/k/a my fingers, and my palate, a/k/a my keyboard, manifest layer upon layer of purposefulness — purpose to loved ones, purpose to human-self, purpose to humanity, purpose to soul, purpose to planet, purpose to Creators — hopefully, these will align and not conflict.
Song lyrics are often prophetically poetic, and undoubtedly so when Lord Rama, literally, not figuratively, introduced me to this song, Aloha Ke Akua, by Nahko and Medicine for the People:
Lend your ears, lend your hands Lend your movement, anything you can. Come to teach, come to be taught.
“Breathe Greg — inhale, exhale — breathe life into this oeuvre of God and hold the tears for when you are finished.” “But the pockets need to be cleared.” “Just breathe and stay in the moment. You start to cry when you get ahead of ourselves and see where I am taking us — when you begin to see what Rama and Sitara (tearing) and I wrote before all of us actors incarnated into this play. Stay in the moment. Breathe. Ok, now together let's paint this picture of purpose. We spirits wrote it. We need you, oh miraculous human, to paint it for us!”
Come to teach, come to be taught.
For as long as I can remember, when asked what I would do if money were no object, my answer was, “teach.” Being in front of a class with chalk in hand never resonated, and besides, my handwriting is atrocious (loving that irony). Being in front of a lecture hall of sapiosexual female college/grad students sounds hot, and Sitara thinks so too, but that's enough tangenital humor. What form of teaching? That is a layer in my purpose-cake that the universe has yet to reveal.
This is quite synchronous:
Me: It’s better. How do you feel about it?
Mentee: I’m happy about it, it was accepted and published right away.
Me: Yes I saw. I would have suggested one more draft. You are far from the best writer you can be. I am very pleased with the progress though. The other editors will publish anything without typos and guideline violations. If you want to work towards being the best you can be, I will push you so that each essay is better than the one before and will push for two-3 drafts of each essay unless you are doing many drafts on your own. You should be pleased with the essay but not satisfied other than very short term. I will do a mark-up of this one just so you see where I think it could have been better and then you keep that as a reference for future work. Would you like that? If you want to work with me, I would prefer you exclusively work with me unless I'm being unresponsive — I don’t want someone else with different goals than we do to create a false sense of accomplishment. What are your thoughts on all that I said?
Mentee: I’m cool with working with you exclusively, and please send me a markup. I have been hoping for someone to take an interest in helping me. And I’m well aware that I have a long way to go and a lot more to learn. I appreciate your interest and help
Me: Don’t be discouraged — be inspired — I can do better, but it’s enough for our present purposes. [link to mark-up deleted]
Mentee: I see where I need to be more descriptive and I need to give more examples to make my point. That’s something I never noticed or even thought of.
Me: I need to go — in general, you should be doing multiple drafts before sharing with me — since your essays are short, perhaps have several going at once so you can put some space between yourself and each draft — I often have 3–5 or more going at once — some I pick up and put down with days or even weeks in between
Mentee: Okay, doing several at once is a good idea
Me: “I see where I need to be more descriptive and I need to give more examples to make my point. That’s something I never noticed or even thought of.” — it's an easy trap to fall into — I fall into it when not careful — thinking that I know what's in my mind so the reader will too…
I included that conversation because the amount of joy I received back from this giving of myself is a large crumb of bread; as is the mentee’s permission:
I am in the midst of a personal essay. I am sending you this draft because I want to include some of our conversation and rather than do so because I decide it does not break any confidences, I would rather you read and grant me permission — no details of you whatsoever are mentioned but I still want your informed consent because trust between mentor and mentee is essential.
Permission was granted.
Come in the likeness in the image of God.
Tuesday’s prompt was about “eureka” moments. I had had so many in the last eight months that I simply submitted: My Epiphanies Begat Epiphanies, 8 months in the spiritual journey of my 17,043rd life. However, I apparently saved one to highlight here.
There’s a publication that very much interests me — Interfaith. I’ve been itching to get accepted as a writer because I have so much to say there. I’ve been holding back from responding as a reader, until today, when the synchronistic opportunity was too clear not to seize.
Allison J. van Tilborgh dropped a piece called How Eve Has Been Manipulated Through Texts and Time, The Symbolic Role of Eve for Jewish Women, in which she states the common belief that there are two contradictory creation stories surrounding Adam and his rib, Eve, because an earlier verse is different than the rib fable and says:
So God created Mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.Genesis 1:27.
In my 2020 portrait, I had written of this thought that I had in May:
I was listening to Aloha Ke Akua and the line “in the image of God” caught my ear, and I started to wonder what the uncorrupted meaning would be. It could certainly refer to souls, and to a baby; after that life takes over — only a newborn is created in the image of god and new borns do not display any masculine vs feminine. New borns are divine innocence.
Ergo, I responded to Ms. van Tilborgh thusly:
This is not the story of the creation of Adam nor Eve; it is not the story of the creation of a man nor a woman. It is the creation of a baby, which is neither man nor woman, nor even male nor female — it is oneness; it is the creation of them, a divinely innocent baby not yet corrupted by societal constructs of male and female — that is the image of God.
Much to my pleasant surprise, Ms. van Tilborgh acknowledged me with 15 claps.
“Man” was not created in the image of God. Humans are born in the image of God. After that, the soul-contract-scripts start to erode that innocence; life then becomes a journey away from and then back to Source (wow I hope some of you reading this get to feel the energy shift I am now experiencing — every hair on my arms are raised as if I am in an energy field of the most kinetic static electricity).
“My friends, my children, Greg is painting a picture for you in the presence of God.” That was what I will a “chanspirational” statement.
The reason for all of this — Earth, Humanity, Everything
I had no idea this essay was going here. Wowsa. I see it now. The chessboard is imprinted on my visual cortex — I see the moves now — I see it All. I have gone from tears to joyous laughter of the reveal of Immense irony.
In my 2013 portrait I quoted my inspiration for so much of me, Hermann Hesse from Steppenwolf:
The way to innocence, to the uncreated and to God leads on, not back, … ever deeper into human life. … Instead of narrowing your world and simplifying your soul, you will have to absorb more and more of the world and at last take all of it up in your painfully expanded soul, if you are to ever find peace. This is the road that Buddha and every great man has gone, whether consciously or not, insofar as fortune favored his quest. All births mean separation from the All, the confinement within limitation, the separation from God, the pangs of being born anew. The return into the All, the dissolution of painful individuation, the reunion with God means the expansion of the soul until it is able once more to embrace the All.
Not even 24 hours ago I met a soulmate of the kindred variety here on Medium, Timothy O'Neill, when the universe placed in my feed his story, When The Void Opens Up Inside You And Swallows The Light And All You Can Do Is Breathe Your Way To The Next Moment. Very quickly my HSP-INTP-enhanced “third-eye” sensed deep connectivity, so I piercingly reached out to a warm reception, and we started exchanging pieces of ourselves. Interestingly, he found his way to my essay on my Mark of Cain and suggested I start to read his The Story Of Me, It is a tragic tale of a fallen star, a wise shadow and a cunning serpent. Having alerted me to its 39-minute length, I replied:
thank you — i am in the middle of painting a rather long essay — perhaps reading yours is to be part of this process of a prompted essay on what purpose means to me.
So, I embarked on that journey and barely got one sentence into his 2nd paragraph when all my split screens burst into my consciousness. Timothy had written:
I will ask you to suspend your disbelief for the duration of this article. Sit back, relax and let me tell you a story. It isn’t a happy story. Not by a mile. In fact, it’s tragic. It might seem at times like what happens when God goes to sleep and has a bad dream. That’s me. I’m God’s nightmare. But that’s okay. Because that means God has to wake up. I’m screaming and I’m crying for my Father in heaven. I’ve given Him what He desired most in all of creation. A new experience. Now He knows Himself better than He did before. I created a wrinkle in time and space. God has all the answers. He needed another question. That’s what I’m here for. (emphasis added)
The reference to a Wrinkle in Time opened my floodgates because this stage was set in 4th grade sitting on the floor when the first female on whom I had a crush, Ms. Pam Lee, read that book to the class. At that point I responded to Timothy:
OMG yes yes yes I forgot this aspect of Conversations with God (the Neal Donald Walsh book introduced to me by Mystical Meredith) — it’s not just that we learn it’s so God can learn through us!!
(I suspect most that read the book do not pick up on that subtle yet infinitely heavy irony)
And that my friends is what I believe Nahko means when he says:
Would you believe it if you knew what you were for And how you became so informed. Bodies of info performing such miracles. … I am not a leader, just a creature. Stick the peaches of my teacher when you follow where they lead. All mysterious ways of nature and I am in to it. Changing management.
…
All the love and understanding between the father and the son? Do you believe in the perfectness of where you are?
I have written many times that the meaning of life is to learn. What has my soul cackling with delight is that the purpose of all of this learning through suffering is so God can learn. I discern that our creators are not omniscient. They know more than imaginable, but I believe they require us so they can continue to learn.
What of my specific purpose? I wrote it the other day and now know it because Timothy highlighted it for me:
That I endured 50+ years of intentional acts of sabotage by my father is relevant only in that that it focuses me on the true significance to me of my Mark — I have been exposed to diabolical evil, and rather than seek vindication by swimming against the currents to prove my case, which reeks of resentment, my voice, onomatopoeiaically heard as the tat tat tat clicking of the keyboard, is loudest and clearest when used for future good — when it offers transendence to those who wish to hear.
I am here to share my insights with whoever finds them interesting.
I conclude with the first sentence of the second paragraph of Timothy’s story of himself:
I’m a puzzle, a paradox, a riddle, a stubborn motherfucker. I come in peace and I’m ready for war.
That prompted me to send Timothy the link to the video with lyrics of the other Nahko song my Lord-Creator imparted to me, to which Timothy replied:
That song was terrific. Loved it.
Please listen, it’s the most inspirational song.
Rama-crate
YG
