Seeker Magazine

AVANT SOUL

Rhapsodies in Words

to reawaken our fascination with the ever-original SOUL

Overwhelm

(Tuna Fish Sandwich)

I suppose you might say that the situation happened with my friend Bettina. She's someone
you don't know and likely will never meet. But her mother was dying and there was nothing I could do.

Bettina and I were the sort of friends that come along once in a lifetime.
But it was an unsatisfying friendship for me, and in a way, it mirrored the overwhelm
going on in the world, and with almost everyone I do know.

I was always the odd man out, the man she broke promises to. And she didn't mean to,
not really. You see, she was raising a two-year-old son. With her lover – let's call her Bess.
Bettina wouldn't give me Bess's number, and it made sense, don't you think, that her
lifelong partner and her mother would come first before me, don'tcha think?

What a crazy world and what a challenging time to be alive.

Things aren't always what they seem. If Bettina knew how much she was hurting me by
breaking her promises, she might reconsider. But her plate was full of overwhelm.
With life-and-death choices.
With poignancy and a certain heartbreaking beauty.

After years of pushing her daughter away, Bettina's mother had finally accepted that her daughter
was living with another woman. It shouldn't matter when love and commitment are concerned,
but this world thinks that it has its standards. In fact, Bettina is one of the
more brilliant people I have ever met. And her mother needs her now.

There are certain people in this world who possess rare and magical gifts. We're all gifted,
of course, yet some of us have worked with more relentless honesty by honing certain
gifts, at the expense of not buying into some of the lies. You might even say that life itself
is a magnificent gift to unwrap those shining pieces of ourselves — to discover those shining,
fun-filled treasures which ask only to be set free from the constraints we brought with them.

My friend Candace is a shining person with one of those gifts. She helps people to see
themselves with humor, and a ferocious clarity that's as gentle and as skillful as almost
anyone I've met. And even Candace came up against her gift recently
when one of her employees was possibly dying.

It doesn't matter who it is, or what the outcome is. There are times when we all come
up against something that won't necessarily respond to our personal energies!

All I could share with Candace that night was that the only power she possessed
was to keep her sense of humor. But when I hung up the phone,
Candace still felt sad, and my advising her to stay funny and to remember
not to take her role too seriously was highly ironic!

She has a great sense of humor. Until it came up against something she absolutely could not change.

I guess I'm on a kind of on overwhelm, myself.
I arose at 4 in the morning and meditated.
I see clearest when there is the stillness around me, and within me.

I see that situations exist where no matter how powerful we are (and how much we love others)
there's nothing we can truly do. At first,
This initially appears to be an overwhelming thought.

"Hey — wait a minute — how could I be so unimportant as
not to be able to manipulate the outcome that I want (and deserve)!

Where's the guy writing this script, I demand to speak with him right now!"

What would you do if a very large angel appeared with an enormous eraser, and,
settling down next to you, said, "OK, Go To It. Clearly Your Life Needs Work -- ?"

The fact remains that many times you might forgot
that one of the strange and irrefutable gifts this Universe gives to itself
is to allow others to be unreachable. I can't reach Bettina. I love her,
. . . . And it doesn't matter that this is a long cycle of her breaking promises with me.

I've already called, twice, offering to help her process with her Mother's illness.
Or just to listen. Without giving any advice!
To call further seems invasive and insensitive on my part.

The normal human reaction is to say, "Harrupmh. Who needs her!
Boy, is SHE going to miss out from not being with me. That silly girl Bettina!

The preceding attitude ignores one salient fact.

Each of us tend to base our viewfinder from the periscope of "all about me."
And the more pressing fact is, Bettina is overwhelmed.

Could I help her process what's going on? Of course.

Yet situations occur in life where we're not allowed to help.

Call it the other person's choice, call it the fate of the gods (or goddesses),
call it the Big Guy having a Bad Scrabble Day.

If God was having trouble dealing with our reality,
Do you think He would admit it to us?

The tough lesson to realize is,
that even when we've done our homework,
even when WE are being clear,
even when we've removed the caked mud from our baggage . . .
. . . . Doesn't mean that the other guy is on the same nature trail,
. . . . Or in the same ball park,
. . . . Or even reading the same map.

We might possibly have an opportunity to say,
"My map shows me that this situation is HERE!" —
and we may be correct, and we might have done everything
within our human and spiritual power to clean our windshields
and get that karmic car of free choice tuned, and ready to rip.

. . . . But if the other person or situation isn't reading their map?
. . . . Or if they – as a matter of fact – forgot their map and left it locked in their locker?
. . . . What good does it do to stand there, shouting, "Hey -- Bimbus! Aren't these your locker keys?"

We all live at a time when literally at any moment, people we love,
people we work with,
and people that we genuinely care about can be on OVERWHELM.

. . . . And if we need to make an impact in their lives, and they happen to orbiting on a Frisbee
at some out-of-space park beyond our reach, spiritual maturity is to accept that even we —
we who have been clear, we who have been loving, we who have cleaned our own dirty dishes —
may not be able to have the slightest effect at all.

Yes, dear mumsy and pumsy, it's true. We don't always get to
be that important, even when we're right. (I hate that!)

EPILOGUE

It's hard for me NOT to take this personally. I want to let Bettina know how much it hurts
that she promises over and over to come by, or call, or follow-through on our friendship,
and then I conjure little lectures in my mind about HOW MUCH BETTER it would be
if she wouldn't make promises she doesn't keep, and yadda yadda yadda.

But the fact is, when someone we love is on overwhelm, it doesn't mean that they have
ceased loving us. Nor does it mean that they won't return to us when they remember
their own map that they left locked in their own locker.

And sometimes they die
. . . . Or leave us, and it's terribly poignant, because we want to think,
. . . ."There must have been SOMETHING I could have done."

It isn't about us.

It's always a shock to remember that this Universe did very well before we were in it.

And when these people do return to us, we might want to resist the tendency to say,

. . . ."Well, you could have come back that much sooner!" –or–
. . . ."It's about time you remembered me, me, me."

Because — and this is the even Very Sad Lesson — there are times when another person's overwhelm
is so great, that even if we WERE a licensed arbitrator, even if we were like a Buddha,
. . . . Or an angel with purple roller skates, sometimes, there is NOTHING we can do.

Because it isn't our map and it isn't our locker.

Does this mean that we are ineffective?

No. It does mean that, at times, we are just one soul in a very big Universe.

Not even our own mothers could always get our attention, even when they were right.

As shocking as the realization is, if Christ Jesus couldn't get twelve disciples to listen,
. . . . Or follow basic instructions, why might you be that much different?
Because you have a better video camera than Jesus did?

I DON'T THINK SO ---

So what do we do? I'll tell you a secret.

We go out and remember the people who still need us, and those we love,
and those who lift our spirits up, and we READ MAPS with

The people who have already shown up!

There they are!

( there YOU are )

I got my map out of my locker, want to read it with me?

Yes, beloved.
Yes, I do.

Do you feel like having a tuna fish sandwich first?

(Copyright 2001 by Darius Gottlieb - No reproduction without express permission from the author)

Letter to the Author at SoulGnosis@aol.com
Table of Contents