That night, as Lydia waited for her computer to warm up she contemplated the exchange she had overheard between Jake and the girls. Something had changed. Jake’s attitude for one thing. His teasing was playful, not as menacing as it had been. Maybe getting him involved with the boys and their clues, making him a part of the party rather than just the caretaker of the grounds, had improved his mood.
Another change was Robin’s concern about spooks on the school grounds, which seemed the usual child’s desire to be delightfully frightened, in contrast to Jennifer’s concern about the gym. Lydia wished she had never mentioned the Mesquakie Indians that time when the girls were peering over the fence as she pulled down vines covering the shed. She’d been feeling intruded upon that day. They were so eager to find some dead children. It had made her angry, she had to admit, to think they were making her mother a ghost, even though she herself was doing just that. But it was her private illusion. They had no right to it. So she’d just wanted to suggest some other ghost possibilities. Childish, wasn’t it? Of course there wouldn’t be any Indian ghosts. She hoped.
The computer screen showed her programs and she tapped the email icon, waited to connect to her provider, waited again for the emails to download. She pondered on. Jennifer had started to say something about the gym. Hadn’t Mike and Charlette made it clear that what her uncle Dale had done was not her worry? Or had she taken on Mike’s guilt for her own? Those words from the Old Testament...about the guilt of the fathers being visited upon their children and their children’s children, flooded into her mind. But what did that mean? That something was disturbing Jennifer, but how could it be put to rest? Maybe Jennifer had some unanswered questions about her own mother, about why she had left her, abandoned her. Maybe she feared her own mother was dead. But hadn’t Charlette said Jennifer talked of angels now? Maybe Jennifer really did believe she, Lydia, had the power to make ghosts appear and disappear, or, in other words, to bring the lost back home. Maybe Jennifer was just wanting to talk to her mother, wherever she was. Lydia felt that prickly sensation again, on her head, her arms, that so often accompanied a bit of truth.
Another change, Lydia realized, was that she hadn’t had a dream of her mother for some time. So, what was happening in the Other world? Were there some changes there, too? Had her mother made another contact with Dale? Had she been able to forgive? Had they reconciled? Was her mother finding peace? She really hoped so. But, she chuckled, if everything was peaceful over there, this whole treasure hunt night might be so mild and uneventful, the gym cleansed of ghostly activities, noises and such that the children would have nothing to get excited about.
Lydia scanned her emails and noticed one from the Ranch. It was asking about progress on her course. Actually, her notebook on Truth in Interpersonal Relationships was filling. She had started an outline. “Communication” was the first item. Her thinking was that to relate one had to communicate, and she had begun a list of steps that might be taken to better communicate with others. She left the emails and pulled up her Outline. She had listed the following items: listening, interpreting body language, noticing one’s own points of tension, being aware of one’s likes and dislikes, about ourselves, about others. What irritates us about those we know and love? How do these likes and dislikes influence our communications?
Lydia took a moment to apply this to her own communication with people in New Hope. She thought she did okay with listening, but she acknowledged tension points when Jake sneaked up on them in the gym, and when the girls stared at her from over the fence. She definitely didn’t like being spied upon. However, she noted, as she listened to their stories, or about their stories from others, from Pearl and Sherrie, for example, the more understandable people became, the more accepting she was of them. That didn’t necessarily make them more likeable. She questioned whether she could ever like Jake, but she could tolerate him probably.
Her second outline topic was Expectations in Relationships, i.e. one’s expectations of oneself and one’s expectations of others. She had jotted down what she would expect of herself: politeness, respectfulness, responsiveness, appreciativeness. Of others she would expect: acceptance of the way she looked and talked, that they speak the same language, literally or metaphorically, and that they be able to hear and understand her. She would like others to be agreeable, not necessarily agreeing with her, but not argumentative. Lydia examined a moment how this might apply in relating to Margie. Margie could be very cool when she disagreed with her. She didn’t argue, she just left the scene. And that left a kind of wall between them. Lydia wasn’t sure how to break it down. Or maybe it was better to just tolerate it. Agree to disagree.
Lydia visualized a kind of check list, somewhat like a grocery list, items one could check off in a one to ten point system. Like “I was patient” say six percent of the time. Or “I listened well” perhaps five percent successfully.
I was
patient _______
listened _______
respectful _____
responsive _____
appreciative____
Would that begin to show oneself how well your communication skills were? How truthful could one be in this self-evaluation? Wouldn’t it change from day to day, depending on other things happening in one’s life? She could see she would have to think about this some more.
And then, attitudes are important in interpersonal relationships. How to evaluate that? Some people are very private, not wanting others to know them. Others talk a lot about themselves but do they really reveal their deepest feelings? Lydia suspected a lot of people don’t want their deep dark secrets to be exposed, don’t want the truth to come out. And what if “the truth” kept changing? What if “the truth” couldn’t be known? What if “the truth” would destroy rather than bring freedom?
Lydia let out a deep, long, breath. Truth in Interpersonal Relationships was getting more complicated by the minute. One thing she knew, truth had to start with oneself, from the world one saw from one’s own eyes, own body. Know thyself, said the ancient philosophers and the contemporary psychologists. Then, if you want to know others, put aside your world and enter the world of someone else. Perhaps that is what some psychics come close to doing. And those who are Masters, who know the workings of spiritual laws as well as physical laws, like Jesus, like Krishna, like the Buddha, surely do it easily. But for someone less perceptive, like herself, walking in someone else’s shoes could be scary. You might lose yourself, lose your own identity. You’d need to be certain who you were. Still, it was tantalizing to consider whether one could let your basic personality stay in place, like a tree with roots in the ground, and simply extend your consciousness into that of someone else. Just temporarily, to understand them. Thus you could take their walk and be aware of their thoughts, feel what it’s like to be in their body. If they were tall and heavy, you could see what’s it’s like to look over other people’s heads. If they were limited physically, you could feel what a handicap would be like. But then, what if you saw them getting into a dangerous situation? What could you do? Go along for the ride? Feel their pain? Or jump out quick and get back to the real you. Lydia was getting dizzy with these thoughts, these imagined possibilities, but now couldn’t stop them. Did parents experience that helplessness when they saw their children do outrageous things? Or teachers when their students didn’t heed their advice? Like her mother might have felt when Dale went off to the army and learned how to kill? Lydia felt those chills again, like she was closing in on some truth. A truth that in relating to others, there must be a balance between expecting some behavior that you think is right, but not being disappointed if that doesn’t happen.
Wouldn’t that be the same as unconditional love? that love that is given without expecting anything in return? Jesus gave unconditional love. He gave people instructions on how to live, and what did they do? Turned their back
s on him. Got angry with him. Crucified him.
Psychologists like Maslow and Jung said unconditional love is the requisite for a truly harmonious and peaceful world. So should this enter into her course? And what if she could just put aside herself for awhile, and enter the personality of Jake, say, or Mike, or Stanley, or any of the others and see through their eyes. Would she then know how they all felt That Night?
Now the words ‘letting go,’ ‘stop clinging,’ and ‘detachment’ came to her mind, as if prompted by some unseen being. At the Ranch these concepts were certainly encouraged when going into meditation and something she practiced at night when she sat on her bed in the dark, with closed eyes letting go of the day, the world, and relaxing into a state of peace. Was someone from the Ranch picking up on her thoughts? Or some force in the universe advising her? Lydia looked up from the computer, gazed around the room, saw only the darkness outside the open window, the still solid furniture, the cold corner fireplace, and Sid snoozing away on the rocking chair. Her world, perfectly calm and quiet. She turned back to the computer.
Okay, so in relationships one also needed to let go of the other person. Parents had to let go of their children so they could grow up. But what about children whose parents died, or left before they were grown? Like herself and Margie. Like Jennifer. Again, the similarity popped out, their similar loss.
But maybe children needed to let go of their parents, too. Maybe she needed to let go of her mother? Stop clinging to memories of her? Detach herself from the probing questions of why her mother was murdered? Lydia sighed; this was getting too personal.
I give you permission to look from my eyes.
Oh, right. Who are you?
The other half of your conversation. To have a conversation you must have two.
Oh, yeah, well. So, you’re really butting in here, Mother. I wondered where you’d been lately.
Well, my daughter, it seems you’re managing to cross over a bit with your trying to understand, with your getting into the mind and space of those who, well, you know who I mean. Unconditional love and forgiveness. That’s rehabilitation you know. A re-learning. But you don’t know what it’s like not to be able to speak! To argue, to persuade, to teach! There’s so much to learn that takes a physical body with those senses you’ve got. Well, I’ve been presented an option. I can go back. But I’ll have to start over with a new body, with a baby body, being dependent on new parents, having to learn how to talk and walk and all that. And I’ll be in a new situation and not remember a thing of the last life, but I’ll keep some of the same characteristics and interests of before. I have some choice, they say. I’ll be able to choose my parents, and they’re helping me decide what goals I want to work toward in the new lifetime. So I’m making plans, making decisions.
I’m looking for parents who like books and learning and good schools and who want daughters to be assertive and smart and, and sensible. Maybe I’ll have a brother this time. Maybe I won’t get married. Maybe I’ll teach in college, open up young minds to whatever is beautiful in the earth world. There’ll be art, and sports, and the outdoors, and microscopes to see little things, and far away things, and teachers for music and math and chemistry—so many things, so many possibilities. So, I’m looking for parents who are wanting a baby. I’m looking to get back.
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