THIS IS MY LIFE
Wednesday, 5/22/2002
Copyright (c) 2002, Michael (Dickerson) Deluno. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction or quotation is strictly prohibited without permission.

Hi, you who (yoo hoo?) are reading this ~

It�s been a long time since I�ve written much of anything. Have you been wondering what happened to me? Well, here�s the story.

HOME: I�ve been in Santa Fe for nearly half a year, and I love it. It�s home. I�m clear that I'm in my right place. And things are beginning to roll for me here.

One major difference here from Seattle: We�re having a serious drought. (Could any of you Pacific NW folks send some of your excess rain down here, please?) As I'm writing this paragraph, it�s raining for the first time in weeks. I LOVE it. I keep going out to see the rain, to feel the rain, to hear the rain, to smell the rain. Can you imagine my having said that in Seattle? [Several days later, as I'm editing this, preparing it for sending and posting, it hasn�t rained any more.]

I'm even getting tired of all the sunny days.

Yes, I'm serious. But only partly.

WORK: I don�t recall what I�ve already told you. An off-hand comment to Brendalyn Batchelor, the minister of Unity Santa Fe, led to my serendipitously being hired for a couple of weeks of fill-in work in the church office. By the third day they were asking me to stay on permanently. I eventually agreed, provided I could work part-time (so I'll have the time to build my own projects). So the job evolved into full-time contract work for a while and has just evolved again into my being a permanent part-time staff member. They just hired another person the week before last to fill the other half of my job.

Over the past 8 weeks (could that be all?) I�ve taken over more and more responsibility. I'm now doing most of the P.R. for Unity Santa Fe, the Sunday bulletin and inserts, some desktop publishing, the e-mail newsletter (we don�t publish a print newsletter), taking care of all the membership records and process, etc. (as well as whatever else needs to be done � the nature of working in a church). Then about 4 weeks ago I was hired for a job independent of my other work (another part-time job) as development coordinator, beginning with managing the church auction. It isn�t my �real� work, and I can�t imagine a much better job if I have to work for someone else (except financially, that is).

The job has some great benefits; I spent this past weekend at the Board and staff retreat with Leslie Temple-Thurston and Brad Laughlin of CoreLight (Friday evening and Saturday) and David McArthur of HeartMath (Sunday), and I get educational benefits (I'm not sure exactly what they�ll pay for yet). It�s been part of my job to staff workshops with Edwene Gaines, Michael Ryce, Peter Russell, and a Buddhist monk named Cealo (a Dalai Lama look-alike with the same kind of humor and laugh). I'll be staff for one with Maria Nemeth in a few weeks. (�Oh, yes, I suppose I can force myself to staff that event and get in for free.�)

I also just got my first pet and home care job since I�ve moved here (for this coming weekend - Memorial Day weekend).

And I'm making progress on preparing to begin my real work in Santa Fe. I'm about to set the date for my first Sunday morning church talk.

OTHER ACTIVITIES: I�ve become a member of the Sound of Spirit choir at Unity Santa Fe. I�ve learned some important things about myself and singing � for example, that I don�t sing particularly well until I know the song and have rehearsed it some. I suppose that isn�t a huge surprise to most people, but there was someone not too long ago who almost convinced me that I couldn�t sing because I didn�t hit all the right notes the first time I tried singing a song.

I�ve joined the P.R. team for the Labyrinth Resource Group (a Santa Fe-wide group). We�re bringing 2 internationally known authorities � Lauren Artress and Jeff Saward � to town in August for a conference.

Kristelle Bach MacQueen and I have begun co-facilitating a Living Enrichment Circle (based on Mary Manin Morrissey�s ministry). I met Kristelle a couple of years ago via the LEC web board and then via e-mail. Then, synchronistically, she was the second person I met at Unity Santa Fe in October. Also synchronistically, I met her brother Jonathan several years ago at a workshop in Kirkland, WA. She�s a wonderfully enthusiastic woman. She�s recently gotten Mary�s videotapes on TV in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, and Los Alamos.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to trade for an improvisational theater workshop with Susan Jayne Weiss, a well-known performer here. She�s also a Religious Science person. Consequently, she�s now a resource for the Santa Fe version of God Only Knows What and will do workshops for us (when we�ve formed). It was a blast doing improv again.

BUSY: Unfortunately, I've been absurdly busy (as you might guess) and tired and haven�t had time to keep up with friends, online groups, or much of anything else. Now that I'm cutting back some on my work hours (full-time has meant 50 or 60-hour work weeks � they joke about having to tell me to go home), I hope I'll have time for some of the things I�ve been neglecting. (Just today Brendalyn told me that they really appreciate me and don�t want me to burn myself out overworking.)

MONEY: My job has relieved the worst of the financial crisis I was in a few months ago. However, churches don�t pay much (at least, this one doesn�t), so I still don�t have enough for all I need to pay for. It will change for the better, and right now that�s what is. I'm reminded of the difference between being poor and being broke. As someone once said (does anyone remember who?), I�ve been broke quite a few times, but I�ve never been poor.

HEALTH: I haven�t had any recurrence of my symptoms, and I'm feeling nearly back to normal. (Imagine a chorus of �Hallelujah� here. In fact, go right on ahead and join in.) Thank you again to everyone who contributed loving thoughts, prayers, Reiki, or anything else. I never did get a biopsy or get my prescriptions refilled and choose not to now. I have faith that my spiritual, alternative healing, and nutritional approaches are more than adequately handling the problem. I still welcome prayer and healing support, though.

DENTAL: I lost another crown. (That makes 3 now.) I need dental work soon, and I still don�t have insurance or the many hundreds of dollars that it will cost. I'm open to and inviting a miracle. (Remember that difference between broke and poor.)

RELATIONSHIP: I�ve been meeting women who I�m very attracted to. Unfortunately, I'm continuing my pattern of finding ones who aren�t available to me in some way or another. Of the four women I'm speaking about, two are married, one lives far away, one is only temporarily in this country (and usually lives halfway across the world), and one is a well-known singer (I hear about her on the radio a lot) and feels remote for that reason.

However, I keep reminding myself that I could meet someone appropriate at any moment. In the meantime I'm staying open to healing whatever it is that I hold in my consciousness that keeps me away from loving relationships.

INITIATION: During a meditation with Leslie Temple-Thurston this past Friday, I had an important realization. It became clear to me that I'm in the midst of a spiritual initiation � a spiritual preparation to move into the work I'm really here to do.

In the past I�ve done some impressive things. One problem was that too much of my motivation was self-importance � to impress people (so that, I believed, they�d like me, value me, love me, or whatever). Synchronistically, the next day (Saturday) we talked about how the ego may swing back and forth between self-deprecation and self-importance. The spiritual alternative, Leslie pointed out, is coming from love, the heart (and I add: the intention to contribute).

I actually talked with Heather Ash (one of don Miguel Ruiz�s former apprentices) about this issue last August at Crystal Mountain. She also had experienced a struggle with self-importance and talked about how Miguel had busted her on that in one retreat by only giving her the most menial tasks to do instead of giving her the leadership roles she thought she deserved.

So, the initiation I�ve been experiencing is about having everything impressive stripped away and being in a position in which I�ve had to humble myself enough to ask for people�s help and in which I'm doing a job that feels very unimpressive to me and in which I do some pretty menial tasks. I'm making peace with not being recognized as a leader or as intelligent or as a spiritual facilitator or as anything other than just another human being on this planet. The same thing has happened with Leap of Faith, by the way. Instead of being the facilitator and the one who gets the recognition, I�ve just been a staff member, doing whatever needed to be done � some of it being quite unimpressive. Yet I�ve chosen to approach every task as if it�s the most important work on the planet.

And that�s the end point of the initiation: to reach a point where everything I do is equally important to me as long as I'm doing it from a place of love and intention to contribute. For a long time in my life I was unwilling to do a lot of things (including lots of jobs) because I didn�t want to be perceived as someone who was only worthy of doing those �lowly� things. My initiation is taking me to the place where I'll do anything that needs to be done and will honor it all (as I do at the Leaps). I'm reminded of Gandhi�s statement that everyone in his movement cleaned the toilets.

Another way of describing the issue is �releasing spiritual and intellectual arrogance.� Swinging between self-deprecation and arrogance has been something I�ve experienced since I was very young. I'm sure that anyone who knew me as a child would verify that.

When I get to the place that every activity and every person is equally valuable to me, then I believe I'll be ready to do whatever is really mine to do without the overlay of self-importance about it.

I know that I'm nearly there. My spiritual guides are cheering. It�s time for us all to walk through our doorways and to get on with the work that�s ours to do.

GRATITUDE: Thank you again to all of you who�ve helped with prayers, positive thoughts, inspiring stories, encouraging words, challenges to my consciousness, healing energy, financial assistance, etc. You�ve made a huge difference to me. I hope that I can somehow make a difference to you, too.

Life is wonderful, no matter how it�s appearing, because I trust that everything is unfolding for the highest benefit of all beings. May we all step through the doorways that are appearing in our paths. What will appear on the other side will be magnificence.

Hey, what�s going on with you? What are your doorways?

Namaste,
Michael

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ABOUT THIS IS MY LIFE
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This Is My Life is my letters to my family, friends, and whoever else may be interested about whatever is meaningful to me in my life. I don't guarantee anything about content or frequency. The letters will be whatever they turn out to be. If you want the best option available for keeping up with what�s happening with me, though, this is it.

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