Two kinds of silence+content

Such a long silence from me is usually a bad sign, and indeed I let myself down into a particularly bad withdrawal/alienation dynamic, more intentionally than usual giving up on life. This lasted all of October and into November, until my parents got me to go visit them in Massachusetts, where the change of context — not least of all waking up in a brightly lit room every morning — eventually had me reaching out and responding to life again, willing to take at least some responsibility for myself. (Thanks mom & dad!) Now I'm back home, picking up some pieces and moving along.

 

Fortunately, I can never seem to shake curiosity — whenever I do seriously contemplate suicide, I can't bring myself to take a step that may mean I don't get to see as much as possible of what happens! Versus hope, faith, trust and awe, all of which I shake off more easily. :-P

 

I've done and learned many things to support myself and my learning and growth. They've been things that are primarily psychologically framed, and have helped a great deal, but have so far at least not been "enough". In my awareness that a, if not the, root of my challenges is losing basic trust, I have been interested to explore more spiritually framed things. To that end, I just attended a Quaker Friends Meeting (my second, the first was 30 years ago), and loved it! The hour-long silence in community leaves so much space for me to be where I am, while inviting deep attention to things that matter. I was surprised that I ended up being one of the very few people to say anything, but something insistent did pop out. I then took the opportunity to be with my fear ("How will a first-timer's speaking up be received?"), and had fully processed it and moved on when the next person spoke, ten+ minutes later. She had obviously been sitting with what I had said. This touched me, that I can make a difference for others.

 

I've also listened to a couple of sermons from the local Religious Science church, and may go sing kirtan tonight. Most intimately, I've been talking with my soul (!), perhaps more on that later...

 

(This is all a fairly Big Deal to me, having grown up atheist. My full spiritual background could be summed up as Jewish by birth, atheist by upbringing, Christian by culture, agnostic by reason, Hindu by marriage, Buddhist by practice.)

 

Update: biked to kirtan, but discovered they stopped doing it months ago! A housemate is interested, we may start something ourselves...