THE HOLIDAYS AR= E GOOD TIMES FOR GRIEVING (A Recipe for healing)

It’s Christmas Day, and I still haven’t ca= lled my Mom to wish her a Merry Christmas. She called me on my birthday, two weeks ago, and I haven’t returned that phone call. She invited me to Christmas Eve services, and I didn’t respond. Now I am on the verge of that most unspeakable act, not calling my Mother on a major holiday. I love my Mom unconditionally, yet= I am angry at her. This past year = has seen the two of us arguing with each other, desperately trying to hurt each other, scattering the feelings of uncomprehending grandchildren, fueled by = the lifelong resentments and unresolved conflicts of my five brothers and siste= rs, resulting in a perfect storm of anxiety, mistrust, and alienation. If only I could call her and tell = her how much I love her, and wish her well, and speak to the love we have that transcends this sticky web of hostility. . .yet I fear is that I will ruin = my own family’s Christmas if I call my Mother to wish her well.

For our family, it started with a small hallucinogenic molecule, misnamed Ecstasy. Teenagers tell each other that it just makes everyone want to love each other, and tens of thousands of them take it at dance clubs and parties.

My oldest son became addicted to the drug. Overnight he went from a sensitive gifted musician with excellent grades to menacing angry young man wearing tribal beads speaking of his sexual conquests and costumes so bizarre he co= uld no longer function in school. To prolong the effects of Ecstasy, users frequently add methamphetamine to it, resulting in an inexpensive yet powerful drug that can last for days.

My current wife and I were convinced our love could ov= ercome any problem including drug addiction. One night he wanted to go out to a party, and we held hands “of love” in front of the door to our home and told him we loved him too = much to let him leave. He cried li= ke a baby, and I found myself lifting my 6 foot 200 pound son in my arms and cry= ing with him. After we went to sl= eep that night, he immediately left and did not return.

I frantically searched for him for days. I finally came to a place I did not think could exist in America, a place so foul, filled with emaciated skelet= ons openly committing sexual acts that were disgusting parodies of the concept = of a “love drug”. R= 20;Yes”, one young man eagerly told us “I know your son. I am so glad you are trying to find him. He is with really really bad people, people you definitely= don’t want him to be with”. I= looked hard at his ruined face and blackened smile for any sign of irony, and found none.

My son’s story ended with our family in ruins. <= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He involved my younger son, who at = age 16 became completely addicted to methamphetamine and hasn’t been seen by= the family in months. The family = began a long slow implode the day I came home from work and found my son on the r= oof of our home with an ax screaming that I was trying to kill him. My wife Pauline was on the front l= awn, urging him to “come down, dinner is ready and your father is home.= 221;

Two years later, I cannot bear to pick up the phone to= call my Mother on Christmas. My ex= -wife, (the boy’s Mom who had abandoned us years before) got involved, and wanted custody of all the children, convinced that it must have been my fau= lt that the teenagers were drug addicts. I half agreed with her, so I defensively fought back, leading to the Mother of All Custody battles. I lost my money, and my health, and then fought on without an attorney, fooli= shly convinced that I could save something good out of it all if only I could &#= 8220;win”.

I FELT BETR= AYED BY THOSE WHO I THOUGHT LOVED ME

My well meaning sisters and Mother took my ex-wifeR= 17;s side, and before the police, the prosecutors, Child Protective Services, an= d a horde of well meaning social workers were done, no one in our family was talking to each other anymore. Every unresolved conflict and sin within thr= ee generations were re-exposed and re-examined in light of this new battle, and all were found lacking.

Pauline sat down with me on Christmas Eve and asked me= to tell her why I couldn’t call my Mom.

At first, I said it was because I was too angry and af= raid to call her. She would just a= sk me (so I said) why I didn’t return her call on my birthday, or come to Christmas Eve services with her. Then I said it was because we would just start fighting about the sa= me old issues, and I didn’t want to deal with that on Christmas. Mostly, I just stared at the floor= and said I don’t know, I just don’t want= to call her.

I felt overwhelmed by conflicting feelings of anger and shame, and pride, and grief. I simultaneously felt I had hurt her in ways I could never repair and that she deserved it because of all the hurtful things she and my sisters did to me.=

Pauline urged me to suspend judgment and analysis, and= let prayer and God’s grace flood into my heart and give me the strength to forgive myself and my Mom and call her.&nb= sp; I tried, for about 5 minutes, but could not stop thinking that (in my mind) my family’s meddling had destroyed my relationships with my sons. I was too angry, and re= peated again and again that the holidays are a time I should be with my children, = not estranged from them.

A SIMPLE RE= CIPE FOR HEALING

My problem was that I felt I could not sort out what I= really wanted, what I really felt. D= id I have a right to be angry, or was anger and ego fueling a dysfunctional fight with my own family, the people most likely to be able to help me. We have all had the experience of = thinking that a given conflict is so intense it can never be resolved, only to see it melt away with well chosen words of humor, compassion, and love. Could that be the case here?

Pauline, oddly enough, then urged me to use my remote viewing protocol to try to solve my problem. Remote viewing is a natural abilit= y that human beings have to see things such as land structures or events at a distance, through mental imagery and automatic drawing. The protocol is a system of organi= zing one’s thoughts into “primary” sensations and feelings, and secondary thoughts involving a lot of judgment, analysis and complex thinking. Primary thoughts are placed in the center of the page, and secondary “analysis” is placed on the right hand side of the page.

As I reviewed the events of the past two years, it was= easy to quickly separate my thoughts into the two categories. Emotions such as rage, grief, ange= r, a sense of loss, betrayal, humiliation, loss of pride, and shame quickly fill= ed the center column. Reasons and judgments such as “my ex-wife only wanted money”, and “if only my sisters had supported me everything would have turned out all right= ” quickly filled the right hand column.

I then came to the moment which remote viewers call &#= 8220;the aesthetic impact” of the target, meaning our deepest emotional respon= se to what was written before. I= was overwhelmed with sorrow, with a sense of unbearable grief, and loss. “My sons, my sons” I c= ried out. My youngest son was born= on my birthday; only a year ago he took a construction tool to destroy his room i= n a drug fueled rage and I have not seen him since.

I then began to quickly sketch, without thinking. I dr= ew my own home, with my two girls with my wife Pauline, sitting around a Christmas tree. Our house was surrounde= d by dots of light, all woven together. A thin man seemed to be looking on, from the outside, smiling, happy= to see our happy home. A typical remote viewing session ends with a description of the “target”,= but in this case, I suddenly felt I was done, and wrote “session endsR= 21;.

BUT THE HEA= LING THAT OCCURRED WASN’T WHAT I EXPECTED (ONE SIGNATURE OF THE TRUE SPIRITUAL EVENT)

My wife acts as the ‘monitor” of my remote viewing attempts as research has shown that remote viewers have a difficult time properly interpreting the data that they “receive”. She pointed out that my “tar= get” was my own immediate family, and I had unresolved conflicts at home that I = had ignored for months. My daught= er, age 7, once was so close to me, but recently had openly expressed a complete lack of respect for me. I had= been angry back at her, lumping her in the same confl= ict that I discuss above. She had recently told her teachers at school that I slapped her at home (something = that was untrue) resulting in more of the same chaos I had already endured with = my sons. I felt my daughter had betrayed me as well, and turned my back on her.

I realized that my anger and grief at the situation wi= th my sons had caused my own daughter to think I was angry with her.

I never did call my Mom, but I am no longer conflicted= about it. I realize that I am griev= ing the loss of my sons. I was pu= shing away my daughter because I had lost my sons. When I can finally speak to my Mom= , I will simply tell her the truth as I now know it, I am grieving; I need time alone, and with my immediate family, to heal. I am not ready to talk to her, yet= .

Pauline and I wondered who was the man watching our home. The previous owner had = died suddenly, and we always joked that he was our house ghost. Perhaps my subconscious mind added= him to our “family”. = The next day we received a piece of mail addressed to him, something that had n= ot happened in years. Coincidence? Perhaps, but as my professors at Johns Hopkins always declared: “coincidence t= he refuge of the lazy mind”, so perhaps not.