Inner Urges and other Hard Stuff

In October of 2002, Richard Scruggs, an ex-Navy Seal from Florida, drove to Minnesota to meet me because I’d written A Course of Love. It was a very strange idea to me: that someone would drive from Florida to Minnesota to meet me. It was a strange idea to my husband too. “This guy could be a kook,” he said.

I’d read both ACIM and the books available about Helen Schucman’s experience before my course was even a glimmer of an idea. And because my Course of Love followed Helen’s Course in Miracles, and was presented to me as a new Course in Miracles, I knew this kind of thing could happen. But I was unprepared for it.

I was helped along a bit by Richard’s down to earth attitude. He seemed almost as excited about heading into St. Paul on Highway 61 when the Bob Dylan song of the same name came on his radio, as he was about whatever had drawn him to come.

In two days, visitors from Oslo, traveling for the same purpose, will be here.

My course has not yet sold 10,000 copies (at least not in the U.S. printings), and I’ve joked that it’s about the best kept secret in the universe. But for those for whom it speaks with that certain Voice that can’t be denied, it’s a big deal. Worth traveling for. Worth enduring Donny’s scrutiny.

Donny’s a short but burley American-born Lebanese guy who does heating and air conditioning for a living and whose favorite pastime is shooting. When he met Richard he just had to walk in and out of the house, making his presence known, getting that short chance to check out this guy who might, for all he knew, be a real weirdo.

Right after the passing-through, Richard suggested that we meditate and walked right into my suburban living room with the cream carpet where no one ever sits, to make good on his idea. At the time, meditating wasn’t something I did. A little later I played him my favorite ZZ Top tune direct from the TV room with its recliner and cat hair. It was so bizarre. I just didn’t feel as if I fit the picture of who I was supposed to be. And I wasn’t terribly peaceful either. I was more than a bit concerned about why my course wasn’t reaching people, and having every bit as much conflict as Helen had with those who’d helped me manifest it.

I was, in short, a bit of a mess.

Eight years later when my Oslo visitors suggested the visit, I was nervous for other reasons. After not having worked a paying job since the course came, the housing crash and recession left Donny’s business in a slump and I had to make a little money…just to make ends meet. There was no extra for things like carpet cleaning or entertaining out-of-town guests. With Angie and Henry here, life around my house is pretty chaotic too.

I almost turned down the visit from the two lovely people I’d been corresponding with, and who are hard at work on a Norwegian translation of the Course of Love series (the first foreign translation of the entire course). Then another friend told me this. He said I had to remember how close people feel to this Course of Love – so close that they’d travel halfway across the world. Their feelings were drawing them, he said.

So I relented. I told Storker and Tone of my circumstances and that we’d likely need to meet at the hotel if we were going to get any private time. Sensible arrangements were worked out…and I’ll still have them pass through the house to meet my husband and probably even to share a meal on the stained carpet with my chaotic family. I’m feeling okay about it, and didn’t even work myself into a tizzy trying to get things looking better than they are.

It’s the second time in recent months that I had to be frank about my situation. It’s worked out great both times and I highly recommend it. If you’re asked to give a talk and can’t wait months to be reimbursed for your travel expenses, you might as well admit it. If your hosts want you to come, they’ll likely send you a check for your plane fare before your charge card bill arrives.

But being honest about where you’re at is worth a lot more to you than that.

The funny thing though, and I want to admit this somewhere, is that it’s hard. I’ve been seeing a therapist about the conflicts of life, mainly life with my daughter and Henry. When I worry that I’m too hard on myself or too hard on my daughter, the therapist says, “It’s hard to live with adult children.” It’s normalizing to hear that. “Oh yeah, it’s just plain hard.”

It’s also hard to hear, as I heard from the speaker’s agent who turned me down, that “No one is interested in channeled writing.” I could quibble over the word “channeled” here, as I’ve done so often, but it’s beside the point. He called channeled writing “controversial,” and it felt like someone being frank with me. It wasn’t something I didn’t know. I told him The Given Self isn’t channeled, and he said I could send it along, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. I’ve been typecast, and “channeled writing” has been relegated to being a trend that has passed.

So on the one hand, I’ve got visitors from Oslo, and on the other a perfectly pleasant man whose job it is to know such things, telling me “No one is interested.” It doesn’t matter how interested my visitors are, and it doesn’t matter all that much how grateful I feel to have had my part in bringing A Course of Love to the world, or how proud I am to have written The Given Self “in my own voice.” Sort of like it doesn’t matter how much joy and delight I get from Henry. It’s still hard.

When I gave my talk last month…I encouraged other people not to let their messy lives stop them, not to fear being who they are right now, and not to forget that there’s wisdom that comes with adversity…not only when you’ve moved through it. It would have been nearly impossible to be there at all if I hadn’t been honest with my host, and it would have been a lot harder to say those things if I’d said no to my visitors from Oslo because of my carpet or the cash in my wallet.

My mother and mother-in-law are both impressed by the visit from the people from Oslo. No one around here thinks of me as special. “Those people would come all this way just to see you?” They don’t have the sense of what’s really happening as did my friend who wrote with the reminder. There may not be scads of people who know about this course or who think The Given Self is the cat’s meow, but those who’ll travel great distances (literally or figuratively) for the draw of spirit, are impressive.

Oh, impressive may not be the best word for it, but shoot, we all feel our draws and take up our travels, and there’s something that feels so darn good when you follow an inner urge. No matter how goofy it may sound to the folks at home who might wonder why you do the thing you’re bound to do, you are, somehow…bound…to make that trip, or that leap, or to say yes.

And when you do it, no matter if it feels like one of those, “I must be out of my mind” things, or even just one of those, “How can I when…” things, it feels pretty damn good.