14: The Tempest Has Passed

14

The Tempest Has Passed

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Thursday, August 18, 2011

6: 30 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          The tempest has passed. I’ve calmed down somewhat. I’m still not a happy camper, but I’ beginning to adjust to my new reality. I haven’t made my appointment with the denturist recommended by my dentist. I’m not ready yet. I’m not that resolved.

          I drove Penny to Barrie yesterday morning to catch the 7 o’clock Go Train to Toronto. She flew to Thunder Bay for her niece’s wedding, and when I came home I went for a walk around our street.

          I brought my notebook with me. I felt that the tempest of my dismay had passed, and I jotted that down. As I’m walking, I find myself crossing the street to walk on the other side. I have my head down, thinking about the foul karmic wind that blew into my life and threw me out of spiritual balance when I spotted a ten-dollar bill on the ground.

          “What’s this?” I wondered, with mixed emotions. I wondered who had lost it, knowing that there was no way I could return it to the person, which gave me moral permission to keep it, and I knew it was a sign that pointed to something beyond itself (when something out of the ordinary happens, I’ve learned that it points to something else; in other words, Spirit is trying to tell us something), but what?

          I knew it was a good sign, but I was much too suspicious of “good” signs to read too much into it, so I resisted the temptation…

          Penny just called to say good morning, so I had to suspend my letter; she had some good news to share. She brought her father to the casino last night. He went on his motorized scooter and she walked because the casino is a short distance from her father’s apartment, and her two sisters joined them. Penny told me she won four hundred and fifty dollars; and then she shared the dream she had last night, and one part of her dream had to do with a phone call she got from an investment lawyer from New York!

          So, Padre; is Spirit teasing us again? We’ve gotten so many signs that my writing is going to connect that we’re both very suspicious of good signs, and we refuse to read into them what we desperately wish for; that’s why I said to Penny when she shared her dream, “I’m not going there,” meaning that I wasn’t going to tease myself again.

          See what “old whore life” has done to me? She’s made me suspicious of the language of life, and it’s going to take time to regain my confidence. Not that I doubt Spirit’s guidance, which would be foolish; but both Penny and I are tired of grasping at hope.

          Padre, you were known as “a man of hope and prayer” in your life; maybe you could shed some light on our situation. Is Spirit teasing us with these signs and symbols, or are we just teasing ourselves by wanting them to mean what we would like them to mean; or, do they really point there, to a comfortable, successful future?

          I have a little job to go to today, a few hours of taping a washroom for a contractor whom I work for now and then, and Sunday I went to see an old customer of mine (I taped the drywall of his new house before my bypass surgery) to give him a price for taping their basement, so if I get this job it will offset some of these expenses that the foul karmic wind has blown into my life—and by calling it a foul karmic wind, I mean that I didn’t see it coming and the surprise really upset me.

          I would love nothing more than to be free to write without the worry of monthly expenses; that’s why we’ve always read the signs and symbols the way we have, which upon first appearance point to where we would like to be; but we’ve grown suspicious, because life is crowding us.

I don’t want to go into detail about these signs and symbols, because there are too many; but not only do we get signs and symbols, I’ve been told outright by you and other Spiritual Masters that we’re headed where the signs and symbols point to.

          When I asked you point blank in one of my spiritual healing sessions if my writing was going to pay off you said, “He will get what he seeks.” This wasn’t clear enough for the spiritual sensitive who channeled you, so she asked if this meant financial remuneration, and you said yes. And at one of my book discussion classes recently a member of the class, who is also a spiritual sensitive who gives me information that Spiritual Masters pass on to her about my writing, said they told her to tell me to remember where I came from, who I am, and where I am going—implying that when my books connect it’s going to change my life financially and socially. So, what am I to think, Padre?

          I don’t know, and quite frankly in the mood I’m in after this last little tempest I really don’t give a damn. I’m just going to plug along as I’ve always done and hope for the best. You see, I too am a man of hope! Maybe not a man of prayer like you (you prayed the rosary dozens of times a day, calling the rosary your “weapon”), but I have to have hope to get me through the rest of this life; otherwise I’d have to resign myself to a life of angry desperation—which is a side of life that Thoreau failed to acknowledge when he said that the vast majority of mankind has resigned itself to a life of “quiet desperation.”

          I know, I know; it’s all about surrender. We have to let go and let God. I know this, but what the hell’s the point of evolving through millions of lifetimes only to realize our own individuality—a new “I” of God that we have to surrender to God? Isn’t that like saying that God has to surrender to God to become more God? It is a mystery!

          We touched on this theme of in one of my spiritual healing sessions in our discussion on the selfless self.  I guess I still have a long way to go before I experience that bliss that you experienced when you crossed over—that joyous surrender that lifted you to the heights of Ascended Spiritual Master.

You’ll have to share more of that experience with me when I start my next book project with you after I publish Healing with Padre Pio—unless, of course, you choose to tell my in a dream. I’d love that. But, as I said, Spirit does what Spirit wills, so I’m not going to hang my hat on that dream!

I remain,

Your tempered companion,

Orest