Writing stories

I am often amused and bemused to realize I’ve been working on different versions of this same project for close to 20 years -- revising and reworking the narrative for who I am today. This endless task has kept me sane in many ways, allowing me to organize the meaning of my life into eighteen chapters.

It doesn’t seem all that different from my day job, writing scripts for television, narratives “inspired by real events,” fictional versions of the truth, organized into eight acts.

I used to think spiritual effort was supposed to help us “wake up” from the stories we tell ourselves about reality, supposed to help us live here in this moment, free and unfettered by our fictional versions of truth. But it has become clear to me that just like meditation does not stop thoughts, we cannot stop our own story-making. In the act of setting one story aside, another automatically composes itself along the structure of new insights, new emotions.

It has also become clear to me that’s exactly why we are here, why the universe peopled itself. We are here not to wake up but to dream -- dream up stories of meaning, revise and revise with new insights, until we dream up a story that rings true, a story that connects us.

“Restoration,” writes Peter Block, “is the willingness to complete and eliminate the power out of the current story we have of our community and our place in it. This creates an opening to produce a new collective story. A new story based on restorative community, one of possibility, generosity, accountability.”

I so much hope I am doing that.

The risks

After talking myself into believing I was getting a "sign" from the universe, I decided I simply had to get to making a youtube video for the site -- oh it was going to be so cute and funny, talking to people about the New Age. So I drove up to Flagstaff and Sedona where all the liberals and New Agers are -- and struck out terrible. The two owners of the New Age stores in Flagstaff refused me, and the wind died in my sails right then and there.

I have been stuck since on how to approach people, WHETHER to approach people to invite them to contribute to my little endeavor. I am "live and let live" to a fault, terrible sales person, no hardcharging promoter, so what do I think I'm doing? My next step was to try to contact different authors and invite them to add their two cents, but it is hard, hard, to bring myself to it. Then tonight I run across this in Peter Block's book on Community (oh what a book, profound book, beautiful book), a little section called: The Risk of Invitation.

"The anxiety of the invitation is that they might not show up. I do not want to face the reality of their absence, caution, reservations, passivity, or indifference. I do not want to have to face the prospect that I or a few of us may be alone in the future we want to pursue."

"And I do not want to face the same truth about myself, for my fear that they will not come is the caution I feel myself about showing up, even for the possibility that I am committed to. My fear is that what I long for is not possible, that what I invite them to is not realistic, that the world I seek cannot exist. And so I imagine myself as a misplaced person, an exile. It is today's version of an old story that I am wrong and I will soon be found out. The fear that no one will show up is a projection of my own doubt, my loss of faith."

It is equal parts unnerving and comforting to see one's fears and anxieties laid bare by a stranger. Now what to do with this diagnosis? The few invitations I've offered thus far regarding this project have indeed resulted in no one showing up. I keep wanting to make this a sign from the universe as well, to let myself off the hook, and go back to life as normal.

But I can't, I can't, I believe the words I have written. I have to go forward. But at least I have the understanding of Peter Block of Cincinnati Ohio.

Signs from the universe

Two days ago, I finally for the first time ventured out into the world on behalf of this site. I drove to my local New Age store to ask if I could some photos for my photo gallery, permission to make a youtube video, etc. After all, who would want to see a New Age revival more than the owner of a New Age store? But after a visit, and a follow up email, I haven’t heard a word of acknowledgement about my request. Likewise, the dozen or so people I’ve emailed, New Age-y types I know, asking them to help me out, please contribute something – nada.

Now from the New Age mindset, when you’re on the right track, doors are supposed to open. When you have an idea that resonates, people are supposed to resonate back. I thought I was getting those little signs early in the process, but lately? Thick indifference. It makes me second guess all of this, the site, my book, everything.

Last night, I heard myself blithely say, “Well, I better get used to being blown off if I’m going to take this on.” People inherently resist change, resist effort. The changemakers of the world have had to push steadily, relentlessly against complacency – they don’t let apathy get into their heads and make them give up… Right?

But we New Agers, we want signs from God. We believe in synchronicities and the magic of intention. We are urged to “manifest” thought beliefs rather than action. It is one thing to sit safely at home and envision outcomes, but it is another to assert one’s will in public. It seems like flaunting one’s ego.

Even as idealism tries to talk us into doing what’s right rather than what is comfortable, the pluralistic New Age comes along and asks, who is to say what is right? Right for who? It is a trick question impossible to answer, and it allows us (me) to sink back into complacency.

So I’ve been sitting on the couch in the early morning hours, scribbling down these thoughts, and stopping to ask the god-universe, please show me a sign I’m on the right track, let me find help. And what do I do if I get no such sign? Give up before I even start?

Another question I don’t know how to answer. So I log onto this blog to post this – and I find an unmoderated comment from Old Hippie a few weeks ago. And what do you suppose he tells me?

“I suggest a way out of your fears - stop doing what they want you to do - Praying to a god is what they want you to do, as they know such denied delusion will divert you from doing what is really needed to stop them... and that is to communicate with your fellow citizens, not an unanswering god.

‘Pray’ to your family, friends, co-citizens to stop the 'allowing.'…

Asking this god (praying) to now intervene is… useless, as it is now our free-will and self-determination that controls events."

The New Ager in me is stunned – and is convinced that this guy telling me to forget about needing signs from God is in itself a sign from God.

But sign or no, the man is right. Clearly, I am going to have to figure out how to get around my own New Age-iness in order to promote the New Age.