Removing Obstacles

This month a friend invited me onto a Facebook debate group - Christians vs Atheists. It was interesting, but tiresome. far too many people simply wanting to argue for the sake of using up words. 

I knew a lovely Jewish man from Morocco. His grandfather told him that God numbers our words, that we only get so many to use in one lifetime, in order to make his overly talkative grandson quieter. The man became a mime! And a healer - a psychologist using dance, masks and mime. :) The people on the debate group kept reminding me of that Moroccan guy's grandfather. Too many words to say very little. :P

So why am I here using up precious words? ;) To share something that felt important. I watched a video and cried today. Good tears. It seemed important to share that, but it needs some explaining.

The debate group brought back a lot of memories of being in my twenties and various religious types trying to convert me to their forms of Christianity. Each time I politely refused they'd ask me to pray on it and since they were friends I cared about... I'd pray on it. And God always replied - that I was perfect as I was. No need to change. But every single time I shared my answers, my friends would be shocked or angry and say I was wrong. It was incredibly stressful.

So... from age 30, I stopped talking to people about spiritual things. It took the internet (in my 40s) to coax me back out and even then I was selective. I avoided the "missionaries". Not sure why I leaped back in this month, but I'm glad I did. Remembering the past sometimes helps. And last night,leaving that debate group, I remembered something I'd forgotten.

I remembered when I painted Ganesha. :)

And I wake up this morning to find it is Ganesha's day. Ha! This was above the link to Ganesha's day...

And this was below it...

 

Once again, the answers to my prayers laid out before me. So overwhelmed by the beauty of it all; the small miracles, like candles laid out along the path.

My whole life I have felt that the greatest, most important, thing we can do for God/Creator is to be true to who we were meant to be. All my life, I have strived to support and encourage every person I meet who is trying to follow their true path.

I was 18 when I first met Ganesha. I was at Art college and we were out on a sketching trip to various places of worship. Churches, a Synagogue and finally the local Hindu temple. And there he was... literally brand new, out the box as he'd just been unpacked. Shipped from India. That day was a turning point, a moment of transformation, but it would take looking back over 40 years to see the pattern left by my footprints behind me.

So, when I was 18, I painted Ganesha at Art college, but never finished the painting. I wanted to paint him holding all the symbols of the world's great religions, to show how (for me) he felt like the one who was able to hold them all, with love and compassion. Remover of obstacles. All the distrust, misunderstandings, between different faiths and cultures. My lecturer would not allow it. So I never finished the painting.

And today, I found this video on a link to Ganesha day on Facebook:

I watched it in tears this morning. My heart so full of joy there was no more room and it had to overflow.

I am who I am meant to be. We all are.

I am out of words.