Charlee was a good kid; everybody said so! From the earliest days, she had been a bit of a diplomat, doing her best, even to her own detriment sometimes, to keep the peace! From preventing fights on the playground, to making sure her siblings were satisfied, even if it meant her going without; Charlee was always looking for ways to smooth things over. Not that she wanted to sweep things under the rug, so to speak, but she did what she had to, both to keep the peace & to make sure that all was right, just & good!
Charlee was born into a very religious family who, though one couldn't quite call them fanatics, were zealous for their 'God'! By the way, Charlee learned fairly early in her short life, that 'God' took many forms! She would find out, before the End, that this 'God' manifested in many & various ways, none of which had ever been & never would be fully discovered by ANY religion! She came to KNOW ( NOT simply "believe" ) that ALL humanity could be identified with this 'God' concept. 'God' was therefore, by human reckoning, neither male nor female. Being More than human, Charlee knew that, as a race of human beings, we were under the oversight of those she called 'our Higher Selves'. Ones Higher Self was the Divine, or 'God' part of us. As a child, Charlee had been taught that this Christian 'God' was immutable & infinite, but reading in her 'Holy Bible' ( the Christian's holy book ); she remembered that phrases like, "And the Lord was sorry " ( Genesis 6:6a ) & " So the Lord relented" ( Exodus 32:14 ) had always confused her: "That's not an immutable, omniscient Being; THAT'S a finite HUMAN being that makes mistakes, that has human emotions, like 'regret'!"
Suffice it to say, that even though she knew that things didn't quite add up, Charlee pretty much went with the flow, growing up in that strictly religious household! Near the End, she did begin to question the Authority she had been taught ( some might say "programmed" ) to fear & so ended up alienating most of her family, but while she remained 'under her father's roof', she respected HIS decisions, HIS authority & ultimately, HIS religion. In fact, Charlee identified as a Christian for the overwhelming majority of her adult life.
Charlee was not perfect! As a Human Being, she was Aware of her Higher Self, indeed, she was even in close Communion with It, but she still fought It's Influence! Charlee's Intuition, when she was preparing to act in her human capacity, would give her clues as to how best to meet a certain situation & sometimes she would listen, sometimes not. She still found it difficult, sometimes, to differentiate between her Ego & her Intuition. As Time went by however, Charlee was able to distance herself from the raucous notes of her Programming & thus found it becoming ever easier to distinguish between the two!
Things being what & how they were, Charlee had always felt, growing up, that she was on the outside looking in! Sure, she had a pretty good relationship, both with her parents & her siblings, but the older she got & the further she opened her mind, the more strained these relationships became. Of course everybody, her siblings in particular, told her that it was all in her head! At first, she believed them, but the farther she distanced herself from them, the more veils were stripped away, exposing the fact that it wasn't "all in her head"!
Charlee had a problem; she had begun to see through the holes in the theology she had grown up with, but the rest of her family remained blind to it! "How could she make them see without pushing them even farther away?" While Charlee was definitely on the right track, at least as far as she could tell, she was still ruled by her Ego & so ended up being a bit less tactful than she could have been. So, Charlee ended up alienating the majority of her family members, specifically her siblings. This, of course, was not at all what Charlee intended, though as the distance between herself & the majority of her family, both geographically & theologically increased, her Higher Self began to slowly reveal to her that this was indeed purposeful & for the best!
Speaking of Charlee's Ego, though It no longer ruled her actions, It was still alive & well, flaring up every now & again, just to keep her on her toes, so to speak! On certain days, at random, or so it seemed, Charlee would wake up with the intention to not react to how others acted, but rather to just BE & to act according to her set intention: more often than not, she found that, the harder she tried, the more difficult it was, not only to act with intention, but to not react. After a time, she discovered that it was usually on the days when she meditated. It was like her Higher Self was telling her, "oh, really?!"! Charlee soon began to understand through all of this, that she was trying to HARD! In fact, "trying" may well have been part of the problem! "Sometimes, instead of DOing all the time, we need to practice more BEing: BEing human, BEing Who we really are, not DOing this or that to prove that we're something ( or someone ) else!"
As Charlee continued on the Path that She had been shown, She couldn't help but think of her younger days & of passages from her parent's holy book, like Proverbs 22:6; "Train up a child in the way he should go,[a]and when he is old he will not depart from it." Obviously, Her Path did not look like the One her parents had envisioned for her, but this only goes to show that we're ALL on the same Path, in Reality; the ONLY reason the Path looks different at any given time is that we are all at different stages, or levels ( you might even say "degrees"!
Obviously, Charlee no longer identified as 'Christian'; in fact, She did her level best NOT to identify anything at all, but even so, she still acted the part of 'the Christ', or 'the Buddha' ( respectively, 'the Anointed One' & the Enlightened One' ). She endeavored to live her life as Jesus did ( more or less; he was brought up in the East & she was brought up in the West ); having & showing respect for ALL Life. Now, don't get me wrong; again, "Charlee was not perfect!", she DEFINITELY had her moments, but these moments were getting shorter & shorter, according to the handle She had on her Ego ( or not )!
Charlee WAS grateful for her upbringing & for the parents who raised her! "Her siblings, now, THAT was another matter entirely!" No, No; just kidding; She saw the 'Christ Potential' in them as well! In fact, she had already noted certain ways in which they each manifested 'the Christ Within' in their own special way. Sure, they had made & still made plenty of mistakes, as did she & even though they were basically estranged, she knew that, if & when the need arose, they were there for each other, though maybe not in the way each one wanted, or envisioned!
At the Time of Her Graduation, Charlee had found Peace in the midst of Chaos! "Was it REALLY 'Chaos', though?" Or were things simply transpiring as they were?! Charlee came to realize before the End that, though things may seem chaotic at times, EVERYTHING happens for a reason & if we can find Peace in the day-to-day, the Chaos in Life becomes less of a problem, even, to whatever extent, not really an issue! In other words, Life IS often chaotic, so if we can just accept things the way they ARE ( we don't HAFTA agree with them ) & instead of trying to change them ( egoically ) into OUR image, or the mold we have envisioned for them; we can just BE ourselves!
Charlee had not passed from this Life to the Next, to the 'Afterlife' that she had been raised to believe, or hope in! No, Charlee was still very much alive & well on Planet Earth! Speaking of our Blessed Mother; as far as 'religion' went, she was doing her best to love & respect ALL her siblings, be they plant, animal or human. However one chose to interpret it, she remembered from her earliest days, that even Jesus, according to the Bible ( Luke 19:40 ) referred to stones crying out, if humans refrained their voices!
Life on this Earth, in this World, so to speak, from a merely human, or egoic perspective, is definitely NOT as it should be, but then, "Who are WE to say how things SHOULD be?!" In one sense, we want to accept things the way they are & embrace the seeming chaos, while on the other hand we want to do what we can to help implement the Peace that we KNOW is possible! Along those lines, however, our girl, Goddess that She is, had come to realize that "the Peace which surpasses all understanding" is that within our own hearts: "Indeed, it is within every human being on Planet Earth, if only they themselves would realize & acknowledge It!"
Call It 'the Universe, 'God', 'the Source', or just simply 'Energy'; It DOES have a Divine Plan! "Does that mean that every little detail is mapped out?" Are we waxing fatalistic, or deterministic here?! No; not at all, my friends, we ( Charlee & I ) simply want to remind you that "It's ALL good"; We have your back! In Essence, our Higher Selves, not just Charlee's & mine, but EVERY human being who has ever or will ever become incarnate on our gracious Mother Earth, "got this!" No, the results most likely aren't going to look the way that we, in our egoic mindset think they should, but we are most definitely covered by 'the Glory Cloud', the "cloud of witnesses" ( read"Ancestors" ) that the Christian 'Holy Bible' speaks of!
Namaste' & Blessed Be!
Sage Charles
