Boats

A few nights ago I dreamed I was in a greasy spoon-style diner in Afghanistan, ordering food at a counter. Where the counter met the wall there was a painted-over vent, and a sign above it said, “The Voice of God Speaks Through Here.” I asked the man taking my order what that meant and he looked at me like I was a moron, so I just ordered my food and went to wait at a table.

I tried to ask some people around me what it was about, whether it was really God, or just some joke that I wasn’t in on, and I was told, casually and with a little impatience that yes, God really speaks through there; no, the place hasn’t been turned into a shrine or temple; now leave us alone you strange American menace.

When I woke up, I couldn’t stop pondering what it meant. The Voice of God speaks through a damn hole in the wall of a greasy spoon diner in Afghanistan. But it wasn’t a holy place, and no one was making any effort to turn it into one. It was a diner. And nobody seemed to think it was anything other than completely normal. “Don’t your diners have the Voice of God in them? No? How strange.”

I began to realize that something else had been bugging me for a long time, and my dream was trying to help me out.

We talk this game about God/Goddess/Source/Spirit being everywhere and in everyone, but we don’t live it. We don’t acknowledge the sacred in the ordinary. We don’t look for God in the homeless guy begging for change. We don’t look for Goddess in the waitress at our local greasy spoon. We tend to want to make everything spiffy and perfect for God/Goddess, because we want to impress them with our respect and worthiness.

But that’s not how it works. Sidhartha figured this shit out 2600 years ago. Everybody needs access to healing, to good food, to shelter, to warmth and love and to the Divine. When we lock God in a building, we do everybody a disservice. Nature is my church, but it’s also downtown, and the county dump, and the parking lot at the shopping mall. If we can’t see Spirit in those places, and in those faces, we’re blind.

There are a ton of privileged White women becoming Yoga instructors, Reiki masters, health and life coaches, and yes, even sound healers, and while it feels like the happiest, bestest thing I have ever done, it also causes me some unease. I don’t see very many people who are not either White or women taking this path right now. And I don’t see us reaching out to communities that need healing that can’t afford to pay for it. Veterans, homeless, addicts, runaways, you know, all the folks Jesus used to hang with. He got it.

But we have to make a living. Of course we do. Living indoors is good and I certainly want to keep doing that. But there has got to be a way, got to be a way, got to be a way to offer these beautiful services to people who can’t pay for them, because they need them so desperately.

We’ve been told by so many teachers, you have to charge for what you do, there has to be an exchange or it won’t work. The client won’t take it seriously if they don’t pay for it, and the more they have to pay, the more seriously they’ll take it. You don’t want to work with people who can’t pay for it because they’ll never follow through and they’ll dilute your practice.

Okay, yes, for sure – if people can afford to pay, they should pay. If people can’t afford to pay, we need to do it anyway. We have to find a way to make it work. Maybe there’s a way to create a pool of funds that several practitioners contribute a little bit to that we can draw from when somebody really needs the help. If we truly believe in what we do, we know it can change lives. And frequently the very lives that need our help the most are the ones that can least afford it.

I’ve made a commitment in my own practice that Veterans always get 50% off – and if that’s more than they can honestly afford we’ll work something out, because these folks have given us the very best of themselves and often have nothing but leftovers to draw on when it comes to living the rest of their lives. I’m going to offer what healing and comfort I can, because they fucking deserve it.

And I’m just one person, just one healer out of thousands. Who else is with me? How do you want to help? Let’s talk seriously about this. The Voice of God has to speak to everybody, not just the privileged few. Healing and transformation need to be available to everyone who is ready for it. When my boat rises, your boat rises, and so on and so on. We win best when we work together.

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