Conversations with God

Friday 10:21pm 13Oct06

My friend invited me to see the pre-screening of the movie, Conversations with God. It was at a church (Unity) in the Yonge and Eglinton area. I got there an hour early. It was a nice change to be out of my own neighbourhood and walk and admire some of the houses. It's good for the brain too to think of dreams that lie dormant. Maybe I might like living in a house. Maybe I could be happy with a family of my own choosing brought together on my beliefs of what a family could be. You never know, maybe I'm ready to live a different sort of life.

I was looking forward to meeting my friend's new friends. There was to be four of us in total. It turned out to be just us three. Three is always an issue when it's three people, I find. Especially when you don't all know each other. My friend and his new friend are working on a major project together, their excitement and subsequent conversations are filled with their project. I couldn't hear what they were discussing nor could I add anything even if I could hear them. At one point they both left me at the seat so they could mingle with people they knew and then they stood at the back of the theatre together chatting. I had a longer conversation with the guy across the aisle from me. Apparently attending the church changed he and his wife's life. "It's not one of those churchy churches. The Sunday discussions are inspirational," he told me. "You might consider coming one Sunday morning to see for yourself."

I just might.

I wasn't mad about feeling left out. I kept thinking about my blog entry about the Law of Recognition and repeated in my head, I don't belong here.
"Your assignment is always to a place. You don't belong every where. There's a place where your gift will blossom. There is a place where you are celebrated. "

The amount of people that stood in front of me in the aisle where I was sitting (including my friend's friend) reaffirmed that this new trip my friend is on is not my trip, it's not my place. And it's good not to force ourselves into the wrong place.

The movie takes a leisurely pace. I'd wondered how they would handle Conversations with God. It's not like there's any action in the books. Overall, come the end of the movie, I felt they did a great job. Without giving any thing away, it made me want to hand more change to the homeless. You have to rethink why someone is dirty. One powerful scene is when Neal, after having the strong intention to never eat food out of a garbage, succumbs to his hunger and pulls food from a plastic container inside a dumpster and eats it and he cries from his shame. But he can't stop eating it, he's that hungry. A child stands there staring at him and the child's mother pulls him away. I kept thinking, "give him some money, give him some money."

No one ever dreams of becoming homeless and scrounging out of garbage bins or dumpster diving. But with anything, our shame subsides out of necessity, out of a hunger so great it's debilitating.

There were some lines that inspired me:
We do things out of Love or Fear.
It's not what others think of you it's what you think of yourself.
Love as much as you can where you are.
When Neal is preparing to go for a job interview he gets scared and asks the woman who has helped him to clean up, "What if it doesn't work? And she replies, "What if it does work?" That's a question I'd like to start asking myself, What if it does work?
You can't have anything you want. This one stumped me for a second. You can't have anything you want because your focus is on the lack of having it. You have to stop wanting and start having.
And the brilliant question, What would love do?

I had a bit of a breakthrough while watching the movie that ultimately brought me to tears. In the close to ten years that my mother has been gone I've stopped living. I've been on a subconscious death trip slowly dying each year. It's that child that says I want my mommy when she is hurt or sad or scared when it's too dark. I've been slowly preparing myself to join her because I've felt alone. But I'm not alone when I'm where I belong, when I'm in my right place.

In my right place I shock myself by the loudness of my laugh, like at lunch with Lolo today. In my right place I can take serious criticism about my conduct and see it as helpful and a sign of that person's genuine love for me to tell me the truth like Ado has been doing lately. My happiness is in the process of writing whether I ever become published or not. I am alive when I look up at the clock and don't know where all that time has gone when it's been hours but it feels like it's been minutes. I feel alive when I flirt with a certain fellow who makes me laugh and catches my unnoticed innuendo then lets me know he's going to let that slide.

We can all change our lives. That's the main message I took from Conversations with God. I can change this life that feels like it's breaking down and falling to pieces. I wouldn't try to build a sturdy building from one with decrepit floors and walls. No, I'd tear that sucker down first. I can stop wanting a better life and have it instead.

Go support the movie on its opening weekend 10Nov06. We need to have more movies like this and the only way it's going to happen is by getting bum in seats on the opening weekends. We really do have the power to change what the choices we're given but we have to show up.

Until then, I'm going to go back and read the books again.

And possibly write a new prayer:
Today, I will do things out of Love
I will focus on what I think of me
I will love as much as I can from where I am
I will be the one I've been waiting for
When I'm scared of attempting I will ask myself, What if it DOES work?
Before I react to trying situations I will ask myself, What would love do now?
I will stop wanting a better life and start having one
by being in my right place


EY