Busyness, guilt, and finding understanding in unexpected places...

I feel guilty. I haven't practiced meditation at all this week. At least, not formally. This is part of my big hang up with any sort of spiritual thing I try to take on... I don't get around to it, for whatever reason, and then I feel guilty. I have joked (lovingly) for years that I should have been born either Catholic or Jewish, for the amount of guilt I place on myself for a host on reasons, both real and imagined.

It's not that I don't want to. I am just struggling right now. I just started this new job. I'm engaged in yet another mental, financial, and emotional battle with my ex-husband over parenting and child support issues. I left my home church about a year ago when they started teaching my son things that I could not allow (i.e. intolerance toward homosexuals, etc.), and I've felt lost and disconnected ever since, missing that community. I've been battling some health issues as well, which are getting better, and yet it's tiresome. I get tired of being a single mom. I get tired of struggling to give my autistic son everything he needs to be successful, all the while arguing with my ex-husband who doesn't believe the doctors about our son's diagnosis. I get tired of choosing homework over time with my baby (okay, he's not really a baby anymore), and I get tired of choosing between eating and showering, sleeping and cleaning. Some days I just want to give up on school all together and just go back to the way things were.

But I know that's not the solution. I know that my son needs to see me finish my education. I know that he needs to see me setting a real-life example of working hard to accomplish a goal and a dream, no matter how long it takes. I know that I need this for myself - that after taking eleven years to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and that I actually did want to get an education, that it's too late to look back now. That waiting another 10 or 14 years until my son finishes school is only detrimental to me, and gains nothing for either of us. So I keep pushing forward, even when I don't feel like it.

Do you suppose a night with one's girlfriends could be seen as a form of meditation? I can see it as stress relief, sure. Or how about a couple of hours spent with a mentor of sorts? I'm still sorting out what the definition of meditation is for me. In a very rare instance, I had the time this weekend to both visit my grandfather and get together with my best girlfriends for a few hours. Being busy with kids and jobs, my girlfriends (who all live about 35 minutes away) and I only have the chance to get together a few times a year, so last night was nice. But the two hours prior spent with my grandfather touched a very special place in my heart.

I grew up in the American Episcopal church. It's where my grandparents went, where my mother was raised. My family went there until my parents divorced when I was 15, and I continued attending until I was in my 20's. I got away from it somewhat, finding a different church that had more kid's programming and a more modern worship service, but the traditional liturgy still touches a deep spiritual place in me. I knew that my grandfather had, years ago, studied for the deaconate, and later decided it wasn't right for him. Yesterday, when I stopped by to help him with a computer issue, I mentioned my world religions class, and my planned trip with a Buddhist friend to the local Tibetan Buddhist monastery. He seemed surprisingly pleased. This opened the door to a conversation I never expected to have with him. He told me about his belief in God - though he sees what we call "God" as the "Architect of the Universe" - a force, a spirit, that's too big for us to understand, that spreads across all time and space and religions. He told me all about his lifelong religious studies, his time as a chaplain, the languages he has learned... it was truly fascinating. I have always admired and respected my grandfather - at 85, he has lived a truly incredible life, having run away from his Canadian home as a teenager, served in both the US Army and Royal Canadian Air Force - first as an MP and later as intelligence, survived the Great Depression and two wars, suffered the loss of his parents and most of his siblings, raised a family, buried a wife. But all this time that I've been lost, seeking spiritual truth beyond our Anglican traditions, feeling somewhat existentially trapped in the "White Christian Midwest", wondering if I was the only one out there to identify as someone whose beliefs don't jive with any one specific faith... I found a kindred spirit in this man who, all along, has been spiritually progressive and open-minded well before his time. He seemed somewhat surprised and proud of me for being open-minded to other beliefs and philosophies. It would seem that both of us discovered something about the other yesterday in that short visit: he had no idea of my spiritual journey of the last few years, and I found a peace and comfort in knowing that the man I would probably consider the spiritual patriarch of my family understood me in a way I never would have imagined.

I may not have meditated this week. And I may not get to it yet tonight, as I still have homework to finish up before midnight. But I gained a wealth of peace - and memories - instead. And that's pretty priceless.