Monday, September 20, 2010

One Time

I remember this one time when I was a teenager growing up on an Indian Reservation in Salamanca, New York. I was shopping at the local mall which at the time consisted of maybe two stores and a snack counter.

Anyway, one of the stores was called McCrory's which was a popular five and dime chain. Inside were bins and bins full of different odds and ends. I came across this bin full of giant butterflies. They looked like the Monarchs I see flying around the back yard all summer, but they were fake of course and huge like the size of a basketball.

I walked up to that bin and thought, "What are these for?"

I picked one up and saw that underneath it had a metal ring on it, and so, I slipped it on my finger. The idea of wearing this huge thing as an actual ring for your finger was so ridiculous that it cracked me right up. I laughed my freakin' head off.

My laughter became uncontrollable. I couldn't seem to stop no matter how hard I tried, and I hadn't even been drinking or anything. I started to get embarrassed and ended up having to leave the store because there was just no stopping this laughter. Tears were streaming down my face. I think I was truly hysterical.

When I think about that day now, I am reminded of J's counsel for us to learn to ask the question, "What is it for?" in conjunction with everything. I am also reminded of that section in the Course called The Hero of the Dream where J says, "No one believes there really was a time when he knew nothing of a body, and could never have conceived this world as real. He would have seen at once that these ideas are one illusion, too ridiculous for anything but to be laughed away."

LOL!

4 comments:

  1. Your mention of a butterfly reminded me of this quote from Your Immortal Reality:
    The truth is not in the dream, but it can be heard in the dream. And when you start to know the truth, which will be communicated to you by the Holy Spirit in many different ways, you start to relax. You awaken slowly and gently through a cocoon process called forgiveness. Just as a caterpillar goes through a cocoon process to be prepared for a higher and less restricted form of life, you become prepared for a higher form of life by changing your perception of the world. As a result of this, your dream becomes happier. But that happiness is not dependent on what appears to happen in the dream. It's an inner peace that can be there for you regardless of what appears to be happening in the dream. And then, when you finally wake up, you see that you never really left home, which is your perfect oneness with God. You were actually home all the while, but it was out of your awareness.

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  3. I remember having a similar experience you had with the laughing. It was Thanksgiving day in 2008. I won't the say the name of the people's who's house I was at but they had the litter box for their cat in the kitchen in plain site from the kitchen table. While we were eating the cat jumped in, took this massive dump, couldn't believe how much came out of him. We laughed. The cat left the litter box. Less than two minutes later, the cat jumped back in the litter box, and took another wicked long dump. We couldn't believe it, we were like, "AGAIN?!" We couldn't stop laughing. It felt like a dream. When you laugh as hard and as long as we did, lying in the floor type laughing, it felt so surreal. We still laugh about the incident to this day. We nicknamed the cat that day, "two shits." The nickname has stuck.

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  4. Butterfly rings and cat poo. You two are true teachers of God because you can use the ordinary to teach the extraordinary.

    Enough said. *beep*

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