Written in Protein

One of the things I've promised to do in this blog is to describe the school I've been attending for the last three-and-a-half years. Here's the Short Version:

The school is founded on the notion that spiritual healing and self-transformation are available to everyone -- but that this may require some guidance and support from like-minded people. That rather than spending years in psychoanalysis finding out exactly why you feel depressed or frightened, it's possible to shift away from or dissolve those feelings without necessarily knowing the details of what caused them. That finding the true, healthy self that has resided inside of you all along may make the attachment to the past causes of depression or fear unnecessary.

And that's all I want to say about the school at the moment. Except to say that the experience has worked wonders for me and for my classmates.

Now, with that background, I want to relate an experience that occurred at the school this last weekend.

A fundamental tenet of the school is that meditation and chanting can be immensely helpful as we make our journey to higher enlightenment, to more freedom. The meditation part has been easy for me -- perhaps because it's so similar to what we do at my Quaker Meeting for Worship. But the chanting has been a major stumbling block. Of the three times I've tried to sit through a chanting session at the school, I'd twice felt it necessary to leave in the middle of the program. And the third time, I felt I was just "gutting it out" until it was over.

My negative feelings about chanting have ranged from tedium ("Why is anyone bothering to sit here swaying from side to side, singing the same thing over and over? I just don't get it!") to righteous indignation ("Why am I being asked to sing the praises of some Hindu deity about which I know practically nothing?").

None of my classmates seemed to have any problems with the chanting, which added to my bewilderment ("Why am I the only one who's balking at this?").

I had been ready simply to put the issue to one side ("I'm getting lots out of the school, but this chanting stuff just doesn't seem to be for me. So let's just move on to something else."). But it turns out that, to move to the next level within the school's curriculum, I would be required to join in the chanting -- and not just to "gut it out," but to immerse myself in the experience.

So last Friday night -- the night before the weekend school session started -- I had dinner with some classmates and brought up the above issue: If I can't figure out how to join happily with the chanting, then there was no future left for me at the school. That things would come to an abrupt end when classes ended in June. A very unpleasant prospect.

Rather than address my issue directly, my classmates began to talk about how chanting and the literature that went along with it had brought them new awareness, new strength, new comfort. And listening to these wonderful people that I held as close friends, I knew that what they said was absolutely true. They had latched into something very special, very quickly -- and I wanted to join them in this new experience.

And as I sat there sipping coffee, something in me shifted. Something clarified. Something that had been holding me back dissolved. And I felt strongly that I could join in the chanting and experience it fully.

Friday night, as I lay in bed, the implications of my new-found insights kept resonating, expanding, lighting new pathways. I slept well, but not until after I saw how much my life could change based on what I had found that night.

At the school on Saturday, it was announced that there would be a chant that evening. And rather than my normal attitude of "Geez, here we go again," I found myself thinking "Oh, this is great! I have a chance this evening to test out my new-found enlightenment. If I need to bolt out of the chant again this evening, I will know that my new insights are shallow and of little use. But if I can stay there and search for the peace and energy that chanting is supposed to provide, then I will know that I have made a major shift."

The daytime school activities that Saturday ended roughly an hour before the chanting was scheduled to start, and this left an insufficient amount of time to race out to a restaurant, grab a meal, and charge back to the school. I had known this beforehand and had brought a protein shake to tide me over until after the chant was done. But I knew, after drinking the shake, that it wouldn't be enough to keep me going for the several hours that the chant normally took. (My body's pattern is that, if I don't get adequate protein, I get shaky, weak, and grumpy. And would likely have to leave the chant before it was finished in search of a cheeseburger, pepperoni pizza, or other protein source.) In other words, my plan for a test of the new insights was in jeopardy.

Then Nancy -- one of my classmates -- came over to me and said, "Randy, I brought too much food for dinner. Is there any chance you are able to eat bacon? Would you like some of this?" Now, I wouldn't have killed for bacon at that point, but I would have been tempted to rough someone up for a rasher or two. But now, Nancy was offering exactly what my body needed without recourse to violence. She handed me a paper plate and urged me to take as much as I wanted. Her plate had four hefty strips of bacon along with the rest of her dinner, and I placed all four of them on my plate.

As I sat there, looking at my strips of porcine treasure, I started to wonder if they would be enough to see me through the evening. Then Donna -- another one of my classmates -- came over to the two of us and said, "I cooked a whole chicken just before I drove here. I cut all of it up and brought most of it with me. Randy, can you eat chicken, and if so, would you like some of this?" Oh, yes!

I placed slices of chicken breast parallel to the bacon strips on my paper plate -- feeling much like a Buddhist monk with his begging bowl. (At least, I guess that's how a Buddhist monk with a begging bowl feels when the bowl is loaded with such unexpected and deeply appreciated food. It's a very good feeling!)

The bacon had a mild hickory-smoke flavor and was cooked to perfection. The chicken was moist and very easy to cut and eat. As I ate, I heard my body tell me that it was ready to chant all night long, if that's what it were asked to do. Now if only my mind would stay open to new experiences, everything should work out fine.

And my mind co-operated and I joined happily into the chant -- both vocally and spiritually. And as the program ended, I heard me ask myself, "Darn! Is it over already? Can't we do just one more?"

So that's my story. I may be able now to continue with the school for years to come, but whether or not that happens, I feel empowered with new enlightment that I hope to carry with me every day in everything that I do.

The punch line? The message? It's this: the Universe is ready to take care of you, if you let it. But in order for that to happen, you may have to let go of a bunch of stuff. Stuff that probably wasn't doing you much good anyway.

Sometimes the message is written in strips of bacon and chicken.

Trust me.