Faithkeeper

Recently I submitted this letter to the editor of our local newspaper:

1. Dear Editor,

Let me begin by giving you the name and number of a business everyone will want to put on speed dial: PuroClean Certified Fire and Water Services (269) 463-8370.

This is not an ad, but it should be. This is about a hidden health crisis. Mold happens. Mold makes people very ill. Some die.

My sister moved her massage therapy practice into an office here in Saint Joseph. Two years later, she was so ill she had to leave her practice. The massage therapist who moved in to that office and took over my sister’s practice, in less than one year, too was ill. We still did not think about mold.

Thankfully, Abby Black of AB Nutrition Solutions, who also worked in our office, recognized she was having an allergy to something at work. After confirming there was mold in the space, we were so fortunate to find Dennis Forrester and his team at PuroClean.

Dennis, Josh, Kenny, and Brandon did an impeccable job of remediating and making our space safe!

When a friend ripped up carpet in a home she had just purchased, she uncovered black mold. We are so grateful Dennis got Kenny and Brandon out there to remediate the problem immediately!

Please tell everyone you know about the health risks, and PLEASE put Dennis Forrester and PuroClean Certified Fire and Water Services (269) 463-8370 on speed dial. Water needs to be dried up within 24 hours. PuroClean knows how to do safe mold remediation, and they are also the ones to call for fire damage. Call immediately for water clean up.

Toxic mycotoxins come from water-damaged buildings. You owe it to yourself to learn from others’ experience. The previous owner had just died from lung cancer, and she had never been a smoker….

We each have general tendencies. In NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming), these are called common Metaprograms.

The following are the commonly identified Metaprograms that apply to everyone:

• Action: Initiate or Respond
• Direction: Toward or Away From
• Source: Internal or External
• Conduct: Rule Follower or Breaker
• Response: Match or Mismatch
• Scope: Global or Specific
• Attention: Self or Other
• Cognitive Style: Thinking or Feeling
• Confirmation: Representational System and Number of Times

(See p. 63 Healing with Language: Your Key to Effective Mind-Body Communication by Joel P. Bowman and Debra Basham.)

Not everyone is in the habit of feeling grateful in the midst of difficulties.

Only good can come from this has become a sort of mantra.

From my journal:

More and more you are seeing the way only good can come from this. The phrase, ‘All things work together for good for those who love the Lord,’ really is about your seeing that truth. Others miss it. You’ve seen so much…. Be aware you are only seeing the tip of the iceberg even now…. You can either see difficulties as something ‘in the way’ or you can live the sweet surrender of ‘what is in the way, is the way.’

You have to love what Thomas Moore wrote about your carrying out the most ordinary activities with mindfulness and art having an effect far beyond their apparent insignificance. Bringing outer order can help you experience inner order.

I will clean or organize to help myself release stress.

I have spent many hours late into the night easing tangles out of the fringe on a chenille throw. The fringe became tangled when I laundered the throw during the mold remediation at our office.

When I started the project, EVERY single tassle was a massive twisted knot like the last few pictured on the right:

After the mold at the office, and the mold at my friend’s, we discovered extensive mold in our kitchen! For those who want the details, please see: Liberation), and here is a lovely photo of the finished remediation with our brand new dishwasher installed!

Even if that had not been your general tendency, now you can see gifts in even the most challenging of circumstances.

As I patiently worked out the tangles, I could feel the stuck spots loosen, often opening the way for other strands to hang freely. Each motion had to be tended to without force.

As each tangled piece was released, it represented EVERYTHING else.

Freedom and beauty emerges naturally from loving attention.

One of the hazards of identifying Meta-programs — whether yours or someone else’s — is that it can lead to what is known as the Isness of Identity. When we say, “I am X” or “Joe is Y,” we may tend to forget that I am more than X and that Joe is more than Y. Metaprograms are behavioral tendencies rather than fixed aspects of character.

My sister, Janis, shared the following writing with me earlier in the week, with the note, “This is you, Doodie.” (Doodie is our mutual nickname. She is Doodie, too.)

1. Faithkeeper

In the Native American tradition, one member of the tribe assumes the role of ‘Faithkeeper.’ This person’s role is to remain at peace, centered in spiritual vision, no matter what events befall the tribe. Even if everyone else in the tribe slips into pain, fear, or dissention, the Faithkeeper is the one person the tribe can rely on as a lifeline to the Presence. This is our role now.

In the face of the strange and shocking events that have recently occurred, it would be almost humanly impossible not to be moved and challenged. Who could look upon such inhumanity and not be shaken?

Yet there is a place within all of us that is always connected to our higher being. That is the place to go to now. Your greatest contribution is your clarity, sense of purpose, and vision. If you go into fear or terror, the terrorists have won. They have succeeded in terrorizing you. Is that the role you would play? Would you not rather overcome hatred with love? Doubt with trust? Sorrow with comfort?

Perhaps an uncommon yet universal metaprogram is ours of the Faithkeeper, because there is a place within all of us that is always connected to our higher being….