We Don’t Know All

Well, this morning (Sunday – Angel of Sun morning, on a cloudy day) I tried something new. This past week I took an action on something I’ve been wanting to do for months: I contacted a Jewish community near me to see if I could initiate some learning in their tradition. I was not raised in the Jewish faith – yet, not coincidentally I’m sure, in the years I lived in New York City my two best girlfriends were Jewish, I dated a Jewish man, and considered another Jewish man in the office where I worked a good friend. To top that off, I completed a 2-year program in Interfaith ministry taught by a Rabbi!

Those who have followed my blog know that in the past several years I have been studying and practicing the Essene Gospels. It’s noted in one of the Essene books I have that Kabbalah could be an outgrowth of the Essene teachings. What I have not mentioned yet on this blog (I don’t think) is that I’ve also been reading about Kabbalah – and resonating with it. And despite the fact that Kabbalah is the teachings of Jewish mysticism, apparently those teachings are not supported by many mainstream Jewish synagogues and Rabbis. For a long time I was trying to find a way to study Kabbalah with others through Meet Ups without success.

I emailed this local group and was promptly placed on their email list. (Of course, no direct response to my inquiry about studying Kabbalah – ha, ha! I figured I probably need to become more known to the community and then they can decide whether I’m worthy, or ready, or…  Mildly annoying, but I get it.)

One of the upcoming events was a teaching/discussion today in commemoration of the 11 Jewish people recently murdered in their place of worship in Pittsburgh. The topic was Finding Comfort: Seeing G-d through the Pain. There had also been a series of Holocaust survivor speakers recently here in Spokane that unfortunately I missed attending. So great – I get to go pay respects to a community that, in the least (in my beliefs), does not deserve such persecution. (Of course the point can be made – who does???)

One of the points the Rabbi teaching this topic made is that we humans perceive things as tragedies, yet we have no knowing the possible higher purpose of such incidents. At the very least, our painful life experiences provide us opportunity to grow – grow in awareness of our physical endurance, our emotional capacity, and our ability to help others who may later go through similar experiences. What he said brought to mind that old Chinese story of a man whose son breaks a leg, and he thinks that’s horrible – till the national army comes to take the young man to serve in war, and he’s unable to go because of his broken leg. There’s a series of similar other things that happen, each originally seen as terrible – till the next event follows and what was seen as horrendous and such a cause for suffering and grieving suddenly turns into a blessing.

Several months back I had an interesting dream. During the days leading up to it, I’d been bumping up against the concept of things happening in the spiritual realms -- or perhaps parallel universes if you want to look at it that way – that have direct impact on physical events. However, we are unaware of the connection because we can’t see with our human eyes what’s happening in other dimensions. 

In my dream, an other-worldly being was standing behind the driver’s seat of a car funneling M & Ms through the tight opening in the seat where the seat bottom meets the back of the seat. This was resulting in a pile of M & Ms accumulating on the seat. I realized in the dream that I was being given an insight on the cause of the appearance of the M & Ms, which were visible to us in our ordinary physical existence. I knew the being behind the seat was not visible to our physical eyes, yet the M & Ms were amassing because of it. And I “got” that, for all things that appear in our physical universe, if the cause is not one we are able to apprehend physically, it means there is something occurring on a non-physical level.

M & Ms?  I know – funny symbolism! I suppose one could use the goofiness of what was being used to illustrate the point as a reason to discredit it. To me, the point is not what was used. What if it were gold coins accumulating on the seat? The message, for me, would be the same: There was a direct cause for the appearance of those M & Ms – but the vast majority of humans, myself included, would not see it.

Is it possible that tragedies we experience are blessings in a way we don't comprehend?

We do not know All.