Welcome to the Project Me podcast,
Episode 3.
Yep,
I totally shot my eye out.
I'm Teresa Hubbard and I appreciate you being here.
So being back here in my new old hometown,
I decided to focus my attention on healing some of the division and hurt that has embedded itself within my family.
It took a global pandemic for me to realize,
All over again,
How very different I am from my family in many ways.
Being an advocate for social distancing,
Mask wearing,
And immunizations,
I kind of projected my beliefs onto my family.
They are,
After all,
Very reasonable and kind people.
But it didn't take long to see that was not at all how they saw things.
These differences in perception soon became evident all over again,
In other areas as well,
Such as religion,
Politics,
Education,
Even the environment.
It's kind of humorous now looking back because within my family,
We made an agreement a long time ago to refrain from talking about religion and politics,
Hoping for a more peaceful environment when we were all together.
But the events of the past several years kind of opened up that scab again.
And here's the humorous part.
From my individual perspective,
Both the pandemic and the political environment were life-and-death situations,
And I assume the rest of my family saw it that way as well.
I mean,
How could they see it any other way?
Funny,
Right?
Well,
No.
I found out really fast that this life-and- death perception I was having was not at all what others in my family were having.
Their perceptions,
And I'm paraphrasing here,
Seemed to be more focused on freedom of choice and not believing everything you were told or even believing everything you see because people lie.
And besides,
Some prickly people don't always mean literally what they say.
Deep breath.
Our family again became silent,
Deciding not to talk about certain topics.
In total honesty,
The last few years of silence within my family around topics that were bombarding me every time I turned on the radio,
TV,
Or Internet was difficult.
I felt the desire to look to my family for comfort,
And my inability to do so left me cold,
Even judgmental against them.
How could they be so naive,
So siloed in their chosen sources of information was my thinking.
So being the loving,
Open- minded family member I am,
I invited my sister for lunch.
This was to be our first real outing together since all of this mess we've lived through in the last few years.
I just wanted to set aside our differences,
Love each other,
And enjoy each other's company.
So I don't recall exactly what my sister said in that moment of chicken fajita and queso delight,
But to me it was such a dangerous and naive stance on all the things wrong in our current world that I lost complete sight of my original goal to be loved,
Enjoy each other's company,
And all that kind of stuff.
My poor sister,
She didn't even see it coming.
Me pointing my metaphorical Red Ryder carbon-action 200-shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time right at her.
But as it were,
It was my eye that got shot out.
I stopped talking only after hearing my sister quietly say over my ranting,
Can't we just be together and enjoy each other without worrying about what you believe or what I believe?
Can we just let it go?
Ouch.
Back to reality.
And wishing I could erase the past half-hour of our time together.
From this experience,
I'm reminded of a little something I learned in section 8 of chapter 12 of A Course in Miracles.
We who cannot even control ourselves should hardly aspire to control the universe.
So I guess you could say that there is the funny part.
I'm further reminded when I make visible what is not true,
What is true becomes invisible to me.
Yet it is not invisible to the Holy Spirit who sees it with total clarity,
But it is invisible to me because I am looking at something else.
Bottom line,
In those moments Christ is invisible to me because what I have made visible to myself.
The good news here is that what God did not give me has no power over me.
The real world was given to me by God in loving exchange for the world I made and the world I see.
When I seek love in order to attack,
I will never find it,
For love is sharing.
Yet when I offer love,
It will come to me because it is drawn to itself.
What a wonderful reminder of what's real and what's not real and thank goodness my sister remained in truth that day as I shot my eye out focusing on what was not real and what doesn't even matter.
As the Course teaches us,
Nothing real can be threatened,
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
Thanks for tuning in today.
Until next time,
Stay curious and follow that yearning within.
It will lead you back to where your power lies.
