I am writing today to get at what I’m feeling, and to hopefully transform it into something more productive. I had another good night of sleep last night for which I am thankful. But when I woke this morning, the best word I can use to describe the way I’m feeling is fragile. Yesterday was a big day on a number of levels. Good and bad. As a human, I think one of our primary motivations is to be known, and hopefully to be loved. The feeling of being known and loved is one of validation, belonging. It’s a fruit of the spirit. It is life-giving. When, however, we are known and questioned, when there is disagreement, that’s part of life too. If we stay true to ourselves, it’s bound to happen. Throughout this recent illness, so much has shown itself to me. The…

It’s been a month now since my spiritual crisis began, and I believe I’m moving into ‘phase four.’ I hesitate to say that I am through it, because of all of the phases and because, in life does anything really end? Our life journey — the experience of aliveness — is certainly marked by mini-deaths but the span of it seems to me to be on a continuum that never truly ends. I wonder if the same is true of our passing from this plane of existence to the next at the event we call physical death here on earth. For posterity’s sake I’d like to outline phases two and three here, for my own benefit and for anyone else who might go through such a thing. I recognize now that phase one started with an inner knowing, a ‘seeing through the matrix’ of…