Category: The Healing Journey

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Rock ‘N’ Roll With Me

David Bowie has been playing on life’s jukebox since the Labyrinth’s Fire Gang gave my eight-year-old self nightmares.

By high school I was hanging out with the drama kids, singing “Magic Dance.” I was also in Poetry Club writing my own versions of Nine Inch Nails’ songs, so when Bowie toured with NIN in ’95, I was there. “The Hearts Filthy Lesson,” had just hit MTV and it was intensely dark. I put on some sort of black t-shirt and made my way to a muddy hill in a Camden, NJ, amphitheater.

At 16, I had no appreciation for the moment or the performances. The hill had turned into a slip ‘n slide and I was goofing with the goths. Fortunately, I had my head in the right place for NIN and Bowie playing “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” together. That, I will never forget (nor the dirt-covered goth girl who pinned me down for a kiss at the bottom of a wicked slide).

I went on to see him at the Roseland in NYC (a show just for BowieNet subscribers), Moby’s Area2 festival (there was a cosplay Jared, but still no Labyrinth tunes performed), and the Tower Theater in Philly (the closing lyric, “Ziggy played guitar…” still holds on to my auditory nerve center).

Bowie had virtually quit touring when I met Mary. We were at Lollapalooza in Chicago when The Raconteurs revived a lackluster set by playing “It Ain’t Easy.”

I was mostly hands-off when it came to wedding plans, but I had a couple requests. One, that her dress show off her “shoulders and boobs” (direct quote). Two, that “Rock ‘N’ Roll With Me” be our song.

—

“Oh, when you rock and roll with me

There’s no one else I’d rather be

Nobody here can do it for me

When you rock and roll with me

When you rock and roll, when you rock and roll with me

No one else I’d rather, I’d rather be

Nobody here can do it for me

I’m in tears, I’m in tears

When you rock and roll with me”

—

For a marriage that involved so few tears, yet lead to so many, this song has come to mean almost too much.

Today I reflect on “Nobody here can do it for me.” I’ve learned the truth that self-love is a connection with the internal divine. There is an infinite engine of Love. I call it God. You can glimpse it in others, feel the radiance of it, but direct access is found only inside one’s own soul. Only once you’ve done that can you really share in the warmth of another’s love.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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I Had To Let Her Go Again

My late wife visited me the other morning.

I was writing her a letter. I was feeling guilty about opening my heart. I felt the sadness that lies underneath every blessing. I turned into the pain and opened myself to it. Then is stopped. Mary was there behind me, enveloping me in a protective cover. She was keeping the sadness out.

I wrote this.

The shield dissolved and I was left alone with my pain.

Mary was a nurturer and a protector. I crave that attention at times, but I had to let her go. I had to surrender to those feelings because that was my present.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Homeschooling Without Rewards

I rarely bribe my sons and I rarely reward them for compliance or expected achievements. A learning lifestyle doesn’t work with external rewards. Learning only becomes its own motivator when the rewards are intrinsic, when one can see the fruits of one’s efforts ripen.

Home education, marriage, and community service have taught me a lot about unexpected and long-awaited rewards. I can’t think of any of the miraculous moments I’ve been blessed with as being expected. The surprises at surprising times are the best.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Dreams Out of Nightmares

Kids without a dad, kids without a mom. Those are nightmares. The kind of nightmares that almost no one wants to get close to. The kind of nightmares that will crawl into your bed and poison all the comfortable parts of your life.

When you’re living one of those nightmares you don’t get to keep your distance. There’s hardly a moment of your life that doesn’t remind you what you’ve lost.

The only way out is to own the nightmare and use words, thoughts, and actions to transform it into a dream. Creating the right words can slowly turn the horror into a source of hope and love. Not just for yourself, but for those around you.

It is constant work. Even the most mundane taste of sadness (or happiness) can unleash the beast of grief. I have come to look for these moments, sense the sadness and dive in, looking to make something beautiful.

It means seeking out the uncomfortable and finding its power. You take the power by putting it into your own words. The uncomfortable doesn’t just become bearable. You master it and add it to your dream-making toolset.

Tragedy has blessed me with the power to turn nightmares into dreams, to face the dark with the knowledge that therein lies the power to create Heaven on Earth.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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You Only Get So Many Days

Today’s plan dissolved. I refreshed with some yoga and took the day into my own hands.

I found my flow. I moved from moment to moment. I hiked, sat, talked, hiked some more, talked a lot more, and ate ice cream covered in espresso.

The day dissolved into beautiful moments. I was myself, I was present.

It was the perfect close to a year that has seen me increasingly becoming my authentic self.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Duality and Divinity

John 1:1-5 (ESV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Reverend Karen Covey shared this verse during a casual service in a wooded park this morning. The sun was bright and unseasonably warm and we were invited to spend quiet time among the trees in thoughtful meditation.

I was drawn to the edge of the woods, to the uninterrupted sunlight pouring in from the east. Still amidst the trees, the shadows pointed me toward the sun.

We can’t find the light without orienting against the dark.

The power of creation is our divine gift. Our word is the expression of our divinity. There’s no choice in that. To speak or write is to create. We can use this power to build a world of love, truth, compassion, and understanding, or a world of lies, deceit, fear, and assumptions.

It’s not easy to speak the truth. It’s not comfortable. It feels so much easier to swallow the assumptions and go along to get along. But it can’t be sustained. That world of lies will fall apart around you, bringing down those you love, yet not enough to tell the truth.

What will you create with your word today?

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Love and Respect Yourself

Hi,

I just read your post about hating your body. My life changed when I realized it wasn’t my body, or habits, or temper that I hated, but my actual Self. “Hate” may be too strong of a word for me, but I was lacking in self-love to a destructive degree.

I read Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life early this year. I can’t recommend it enough. Diet, exercise, and “healthy” routines won’t fix your soul. Getting on a daily (as many times a day as you can stand) regimen of self-care and self-love will bring all the changes you want for yourself.

I can tell you, it was disturbing to discover how much I disliked myself. It’s not fun to listen to my self-critical voices (there are many), but engaging with that in myself has helped me find forgiveness for my Self.

The good habits come. When you really love yourself, you’ll treat yourself like someone you love! How ‘bout that!

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Grief and Comic Books

My sons used Christmas money to explore our favorite comic shop today. I remembered how I discovered the Hero’s Journey in a similar place, feeding my imagination for what one person could accomplish with the proper will.

We came home with piles of adventures and closed the day with a viewing of Avengers: Endgame.

The heroes who had survived cataclysmic defeat are the archetypes of grief. Captain America remains the eternal optimist, the unshakable hero who can only believe that good will come. Hawkeye gives in to darkest resentment, taking out his pain on the reality that has betrayed him. Black Widow works and works and works, she works herself to death fighting against the tragedy. Iron Man escapes from the past into his new reality, he discovers what he had before he lost so much. Thor escapes into self medication and pity, drinking himself into solitude.

Each of these archetypes has lived in me at times, but there is one character that I most aspire to personify. Bruce Banner turned inward, he stopped fighting the monster inside. He spent time with the Hulk. He learned about it. He learned about his darkest parts. In doing so he integrated his most destructive power with a mind focused on the good.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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The Best Christmas

Holidays are where I notice the biggest changes in our lives.

The house isn’t as colorful as it has been in the past and it isn’t filled with wonderful smells of food made with loving care.

But it is so peaceful. Christmas music plays while my boys quietly build their Lego sets and I lay back in bed, taking time for myself. They were excited for the most modest gifts. I feel like I know them better than ever, that our loss and struggles have brought us closer together.

All our fortunes bloom out of the unfortunate.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Embrace Your Freedom

In the weeks after Mary’s death I wrote about how music had lost its power over me.

I was living a robotic existence. It was too too risky to feel anything at all. I had intuitions about the importance of love, but I wasn’t ready to experience it.

The road trip we embarked on started with a weekend of music that would break me out of the armor I had built.

As Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band tore through “Lay Your Burden Down,” I had my son on my shoulders, my feet in the mud, and tears framing the smile on my face. Mary and I had danced in front of them on a special date weekend. All the emotions I hadn’t let myself feel poured forth. I let myself be free to feel.

Music touches me even deeper now. Everything does. Freedom means being able to explore further, especially within.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason