Humbled Obedience

With each day I get a little more obedient to the urgings and nudgings of the universe. I was to go to a Borders bookstore about twenty minutes away. I'd taken the time to talk a while on the phone before leaving and was considering a change in clothes to dress a little warmer for the evening.

Destiny, fate--"You'll be going there. No, not that other Borders. Yes, that far. No you can't go later, you should have left already." Still in my summer dress, I reached for my keys and headed out the door.

I get to the mall and entertainment complex and have the nerve to dilly-dally. Maybe I'll buy a jacket first. I go through a couple sale racks of jackets. There was nothing there for me. Back on the path of obedience, I finally head down to the bookstore.

I picked up a copy of the latest issue of Caribbean magazine; a copy of "A New Earth.." by Tolle; and a Creative Visualization workbook I didn't plan on, but which was part of the reason I was there. What was in it for me at the bookstore revealed itself within ten minutes of my being there.

There was a comfortable seating area near the front of store with six comfy chairs spaced in irregular intervals about a large bay-style window. I'd noticed them when I walked and took myself to one of the chairs with my reading material. There was a guy two chairs over who kept making this weird near-giggle sound as he read. I noted he must be reading something funny.

What turned out to be funny was the way his sounds were spaced in regular intervals. I've never known a book to rhythmically place the funny parts so that they're spread every minute or so. What was funnier still, was that as different people came and went in the seating area he would manage to contain his outbursts. It took a long time, till I was nearly done with my reading, before I realized that he was specifically doing it to either annoy me or get my attention. When someone was between us, he hardly made a peep. When a guy was on the other side of him, same thing. Thanks to the distraction he created, I took a moment to look up from my reading and pay attention to my surroundings. In particular, I took a few moments to notice the people in the immediate area. It's almost sad the way I can go through life and not pay the people around me any greater attention that I do the walls. I rarely go a day without thanking and blessing the sun or marveling at a tree. I'm not nearly so good about acknowledging the God in people, let alone making it a practice to see it.

What I saw upon glancing around:
A group of loud teenagers.
A pair of young lovers where the guys shows his devotion by pretending to enjoy sitting around while she reads.
An older woman unable to decide what to do--pick up the book she was glancing at or move along or sit down.

And then it hit me to anchor light into everyone in the store. It's not exactly practicing Reiki. I've been moving toward healing with light in place of the Reiki symbols. It's more intuitive and the energy feels cleaner, lighter. In this instance it was basically visualizing an increase in the white light coming through their crown chakras. I don't force the healing energy on the unsuspecting. Free will means everyone has the right to grow, progress and heal at their own pace. My role is simply to be a vehicle inviting the light down to each person. The light reaches down and is made readily available to any whose souls choose not to refuse.

As I focused my intention on visualing white light descending into each person, I had a wondrous experience. Energetically, I could sense the location and presence of every person in the store. Whether in adjoining rooms, behind rows and rows of shelves. After a few moments, I noticed my vision shifting and I was no longer looking at physical things. My perception shifted from my phyical eyes to, I'm guessing here, to my third eye. The density of people and things in the store shifted to something more akin to clouds. Instead of physical matter, everything thing looked like thick, heavy white clouds--the ones that move really really slow across the sky. There is shape, but no substance.

The funnels of white light that poured into these floating beings, formerly people, became overwhelming. I feared I might slip into a trance and look weird to anyone glancing my way. Talk about a new experience. Basically, it was a bit surreal, even for me.

In that moment, I suddenly understood why I had to go there, to that bookstore, at that time. I have no idea how the universe assembled that particular collection of individuals in the store at that moment. No idea who needed healing energy, who may have needed a blessing, or who may have even received some "miracle" of insight or inspiration by my going there to anchor in a little light for that brief interval. I did know with certainty afterwards, that I'd been of service.

Following an urge and being the means to someone else's blessing is something all of us do all the time. We don't always know it. It isn't always something that stands out to us while it is happening. As more than a handful of cutesy emails have suggested, something as simply as taking a moment to smile at someone and wish them a good day has the power to reverse a mood, change a day, perhaps a future.

After the experience with the light, I congratulated myself on my obedience and felt pretty fulfilled. I returned to my book. Anolder woman that sat between myself and the noisy gentleman for a while had come and gone, so he was back to making his periodic grunting chuckles.

Then a woman spoke above a whisper to ask another young lady if she could use her cell phone. That's a rarity. I can honestly say I've never seen a stranger ask someone to use their cell phone. She explained in tones that alteranted between frustration and agitation that she'd been waiting for her husband for a while now, didn't have her own phone, and wanted to check his status.

I'm fairly certain she was Persian and spoke Farsi into the phone. I don't speak Farsi, but I translated the conversation. "Where are you. You were supposed to be here already. I can't believe you had me waiting all this time." What I'd guess was unspoken but understood by her husband was, "you do this all the time, and though I have no way to get back at you this moment, you should expect to pay for this at sometime in the near future as soon as I can figure a way to stick it to you without jeopardizing the little power I currently have over my day, my self and my life." A loose translation.

She paced back and forth after she hung up and returned the phone to her benefactor. We are all saints and angels in the course of a day. Sometimes little demons, too.

She was so distracting, I couldn't read. I kept getting this image in my head of inviting her to sit in the vacant chair next to me and asking if I could hold her hand with the intention of sending Reiki in this way. Not surreptitiously mind you. Straight out ask, "Excuse me. Would you mind sitting here and letting me hold your hand a while? I practice Reiki and energy healing and would really like the opportunity to anchor some positive energy, some light into your being."

Having just finished being so self-satisfied with my obedience at anonymous healing, I was confronted by the limits of my obedience. Leave it to the universe to keep me from getting big-headed about my willingness to serve. When given an opportunity to step out of the shadows and into the light, to put my pride aside and open myself to a sideways glance or reasonable rejection, I cower and hide and send a little energy anonymously.

Oh, how I agonized. At one point, I thought I'd do it. I'd risk sounding and looking ridiculous. Funny thing, too. At the moment I thought seriously of breaking all social norms, she paced toward me, stood six inches just to the right of me and paused a long while. Long enough for me to have invited once, twice, three times...I wasn't going to do it. And she walked away. As if God, the angels said, "Here you go. Afraid to walk over, we'll make it even easier."

My email signature is a line that I hope becomes part of my current project: "In Heaven, we have a motto: It's no one's job to save the world. If everyone would do the job they're assigned, live their best life, the world wouldn't need saving."

If that was my job in that moment, to just step out of my comfort level and do what I do in the shadows in the light of day...I can see why God has to send saviors.