Читать книгу The Lyndi Tree - JA Ginn Fourie - Страница 6

My journey in this autobiography has often begged the question of why write it? Many people have asked me “how could you forgive your daughter’s killers?" Sometimes the emphasis is on could, implying that it may not be a good thing, almost an accusation. Maybe it’s because the killers were perceived as terrorists. While others were amazed to think forgiveness on such a scale is possible when they are unable to forgive the neighbour for allowing their dog to bark all night!

It has been exciting and challenging to go back into my history in an attempt to capture the struggle that leads me to act graciously in this. Motives are often elusive and when I try to catch them they escape – much like the Irish writer John O’Donahue says about the soul in his prose Anam Cara - Soul Friend, “The soul is shy, if it sees you coming after, it will do a runner and be gone in a crevice…”

So, I piece together what may have been the contributing factors in writing this book; I find no absolutes, just possible nudges in the direction my journey has taken. I include my family not because they are the most significant part of my life – that is natural, but because my greatest struggle has been with myself in these close relationships. Your experience dear reader is no doubt very different from mine, yet, you may resonate with, even applaud, some of what I have learnt and the conclusions I have come to on this my journey.

I am about eight years old when I have a dream; I am burning on a stake, my parents are there watching, and theylaugh softly; they seem to be anxious, talking to each other as I feel the flames lick around my ankles. The next morning after fitful sleep I recall the dream with shame and bewilderment. I don’t tell anybody about that dream until I am over sixty; it is as vivid as if yesterday, but now my parents are no more – I wonder why it remained hidden for so long?

My journey from a conservative dogma-based religious and professional understanding of life and its requirements, to a more open and eclectic view of the importance of spiritual connection with the Divine, the Universe and each other has been a gradual one. I think my transformation started with the challenging of conventional Physiotherapy by the inclusion of Acupuncture. As physiotherapists, we were impressed with the importance of ‘clinical outcomes-based practise’, which involves research to demonstrate that the modality used is, in fact, valid and not just having a placebo or worse, a nocebo (harmful) effect. I did quantitative research for a Master’s degree using Interferential Currents (IFT) for bone healing of the tibia. The literature indicated that in Russia where IFT had been used for bone healing there was anecdotal evidence of improved healing time. However, my research using randomisation of participants and the application of suction electrodes without any current on some clients, demonstrated no appreciable effect of healing. There were many variables to consider as well as unreported variables, so I remain unconvinced of the veracity of my research!

After Lyndi died, I started a qualitative doctorate on ‘forgiveness and reconciliation in South Africa’. During that time, I met the man who orchestrated the attack; the practical application of what I had learned about forgiveness and conciliation through the Literature Survey, as well as the establishment of the Lyndi Fourie Foundation, seemed of more value than a tome on a dusty shelf. I also no longer needed the academic backing, as I was planning to take early retirement in June 2003. In retrospect, I am not sure that it was the best decision to give up on all that hard-earned research, as the write up was all that needed doing. However, my passion for implementation of the learning, outweighed my need for a doctorate at the time.

Acupuncture, an ancient Chinese modality using dry needling on acupressure points for pain relief and healing came into use by physiotherapists in the 1980s. There was much debate at the time about the use of Chinese Medicine in the West as it was considered to be potentially evil by conservative mindsets, including my own. However, when I realised that the acupressure points often coincided with what we called ‘motor stimulation points’ for specific muscles, I started to wonder if this attitude was just an attempted argument in favour of the arrogant need to be right about Western Medicine!

In 2004 I attended a direction-changing course called Capacitar, which was facilitated by Patricia Mathes Cane, a Clinical Psychologist who had been a Catholic Nun in the USA. In 1988, Pat Cane was invited to Nicaragua during the time of the Contra war where the people suffered much trauma. For two weeks, Pat painted large banners alongside grassroots leaders who were intent on celebrating their culture and history for the first time. To survive personally Pat practised Tai Chi, energy balancing exercises using the chakras^₁ and acupressure on herself. Her Nicaraguan friends became interested in her activities because they wanted more than artwork; they wanted to learn ways to care for themselves in the violence in their lives. They expressed their desire to learn more of the means that other cultures had used for themselves to heal and transform their lives. During this chaos, Pat learned the meaning and the spirit of the Spanish verb Capacitar: to empower; to encourage; to bring forth. Capacitar was to become the title of the organisation which she founded and continues to direct. Since its inception, Capacitar has spread all over the world, and its trainers are working in over 40 countries including Ireland and South Africa.

Participating in this course opened my mind to a means of connecting the mind, body and spirit with the healing process in a fundamentally new way; by accessible education using multicultural wisdom and practices as a benchmark of preventative health care. In the Health Science faculty at the University of Cape Town (UCT), just two years earlier, a group of us across the divisions of Medicine, Physio, Occupational therapy, Speech therapy, Nursing and Primary Health Care (PHC) lecturers had struggled with how to promote preventative medicine in the curriculum. The vexing problem was how to integrate it into a conventional medically curative model. Now I had a glimmer of hope, but the moment to influence the Health Science Curriculum had passed!

The mind-body-spirit connection was not new to me since I had been brought up with the health teachings of Ellen White², a prophetess for the Adventist Church in the mid-1800s. She emphasised the importance of treating the whole person and not separating the mind, body and spirit, as Rene Descartes the French philosopher had propounded: Mind (as the important); body (lifeless inert matter, a well-oiled machine) and soul (an entity on its own) which was adopted and implemented philosophically in the West almost two hundred years earlier. Ellen also warned against the use of drugs because of their toxic inclusion of mercury at the time, as well as the addictive qualities of opium, alcohol and tobacco, which were in everyday use. That was over a hundred years before warning signs appeared on tobacco cartons and adverts for alcohol. Addictions have proved a real challenge to society and heavy metal poisoning is now a severe environmental challenge especially in the oceans, and therefore the fish that we eat.

Now my dilemma was how to bring the new understanding of the Eastern Healer as the gardener who prunes, waters and cares for the plants convincingly to the mechanic of Western Medicine who repairs what is wrong. This conundrum applied to both my professional life and spiritual home in the Adventist church, where there are general fear and anxiety of anything seen to be potentially ‘New Age’.

My interest in Quantum Physics aroused by a video called ‘The Secret’; exploring the ‘law of attraction’ which states that whatever you focus on, is what you invite into your life. The more positive you are, the higher will be the chances of positive experiences in your life, perhaps in another era this concept was called a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’. Why add another conundrum to the complexity of balancing all the new learning with old beliefs in the form of quantum energy? Because I resonate with Lynne McTaggert³ who relates the historical context to these new scientific discoveries called Quantum Physics; we watched as the scientific foundation we all believed, and on which we based our place in the world, disintegrate in front of us.

How could I marry the concepts of Quantum Physics with my love and awe of the Gospel which gave me my understanding that Christ came to planet earth to model ‘unconditional love’, how to live in the best way possible.

Timothy Jennings⁴, in his book, The Seven Levels of Moral Development, explains how, for centuries humans have misunderstood the Divine as a God who makes demands, and takes offence when we disobey. He then responds with angry vengeance to execute the disobedient to satisfy his outrage (Old Testament); until Jesus steps between God and man to become humanity’s substitute. Thus, instead of killing man, God kills his Son in our place and is now satisfied that his honour and justice are preserved (New Testament). The concept of an angry vengeful God leads to an understanding of how many have thrown God out with the bathwater of religion. I prefer to understand the Divine as the role-model of unconditional love, who when the chips were down, and the planet was about to be lost to evil; Christ stepped in, taking human form yet as part of the Divine demonstrated that love. Knowing it would lead to his death; this is what moves me with awe and grace to accept that I can consciously participate in this unconditional universal loving.

My profession also seemed challenged by this new understanding of Physics and Energy, where healing is as much a creative art as a science. Newtonian physics added to the Cartesian understanding by influencing our world view with specific laws of separateness; he described a material world in which individual particles of matter followed specific laws of motion through space and time – the universe as machine. As Lynne McTaggert³ suggests - with a few deft moves, Newton and Descartes plucked God and life from the world of matter, and us and our consciousness from the centre of our world. Our self-image grew even bleaker in her assessment, with the work of Charles Darwin whose theory of evolution – tweaked slightly now by the neo-Darwinists, is that of a life that is random, predatory, purposeless and solitary. Be the best or don’t survive! You are no more than an evolutionary accident. The variations of the biological heritage of our ancestors are stripped down to one central facet, that of survival. As in our current business, education and justice systems; the essence of your humanity is a genetic terrorist, efficiently disposing of weaker links. Life is not about sharing and interdependence. Life is about winning, getting there first. And if you do manage to survive, you are on your own at the top of the evolutionary tree.

These paradigms – the world as a machine, man as a survival machine; have led to some technological mastery of the universe, but little real knowledge of any central importance to us. On a spiritual and metaphysical level, they have led to the most desperate and brutal sense of isolation.

Adding to this isolation, according to Charles Eisenstein⁵, is separation from each other and nature, which is evidenced in every aspect of our civilisation. It is not sustainable and generates a crisis that, if we choose, will move us into a new era; hopefully one of Reunion.

The mechanistic view of human existence has got us no closer to understanding the most fundamental mysteries of our being: how we think; how life begins; why we get ill; how a single cell turns into a fully formed person, and even what happens to human consciousness when we die. Religion seems to offer for many of us a community of purpose, a refuge from what we see as the harsh and nihilistic fact of our existence, but, through a view of the world that contradicts the view espoused by science. In seeking a spiritual life, like many others, I have had to confront these opposing world views and attempt to reconcile the two.

I have wrestled long and hard to make practical sense of this dichotomy for myself. As well as in my search for meaning, fulfilment and possible ways to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for ex-combatants, I completed courses in Non-Violent Communication; Matrix Re-imprinting; Be Free (a health-promoting lifestyle) and Quantum Energy Coaching. Each brought more light and energy to my thinking and experience. One of the most challenging aspects has been to reconcile my work with the Lyndi Fourie Foundation and my husband’s view that I am playing God and trying to fix the world. Time and again he asked me to give up the Foundation and stop meeting with our daughter’s killers and return to a ‘normal’ life. In response I have asked for the understanding that I need to ‘follow my heart’, explaining I cannot be hedged into life before ‘my awareness’ of the possible cause and effect, or meaning of Lyndi’s death.

So, what does ‘follow your heart’ mean?

As the conviction dawned that my belief in God and Quantum Physics were not mutually exclusive; as I explored and verified to my satisfaction the principles of each, I was able to marry them into a meaningful whole which I will try to document, particularly for my grandchildren’s sake. The father of Quantum Physics, Max Planck⁶, shocked the scientific world in 1944, a year before I was born, by saying,

“There is a Matrix of energy that provides the blueprint for our physical world”. He named it the Universal Energy field or Divine Matrix. In this place of pure energy, everything begins, from the birth of stars and DNA to our most profound relationships - peace between nations to personal healing.

In contrast, is Stephen Hawkings’⁷ ‘big bang theory’. Hawkings’ opinion about God is purely scientific,

“Since the laws of physics can explain the creation of the universe, there is no need to have a Supreme Being to create it. We do not need a God who is outside space-time and whom Himself was created from nothing, to create the universe. God is superfluous.”

Maybe the Creator is the Master of Physics? I found I had to choose one or the other of these great physicists; I could not hold both views at once. Much like Albert Einstein⁸ and Niels Bohr who could not agree on the theory of ‘reality’. Yet Einstein was able to say to Bohr,

“…not often in life has a human being caused me such joy by his mere presence as you did”.

I accept that there are different paradigms in science and spirituality and it is my choice as to which makes sense from my experience and knowledge base. A reminder of six blind men feeling different parts of an elephant and disagreeing on how it appears as a whole!

Gregg Bradon⁹ maintains that this Universal energy field plays the role of container and mirror for our beliefs, it is holographic; every part intrinsically connected to every other part,

“Ultimately, our survival as a species may be directly linked to our understanding of the unified quantum field!” He understands that by observing, we change reality and become participants in our universe; the artists as well as the art. Also, the cell biologist Bruce Lipton¹⁰ discovered that each cell has an antenna-like projection which picks up the surrounding environmental energy and transmits it to receptors in the cell which communicate with the rest of the body. In this way our energy field and human physiology are interconnected.

* * *

The Heart Math Institute in California¹¹ in exploring energy fields of separate organs has confirmed that the heart (fourth Chakra¹) has the most significant energy field of all our organs, in fact it is measurable in metres and may extend out to infinity. The human brain has an energy field of half a metre! So, following my heart is putting trust in the connection between my heart and mind (seventh Chakra is the connection with the Divine), my energy field and the Universal Energy field (Zero-point field, also known as the Divine Matrix / God). I believe that the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit being our guide and mentor is through inviting Holy Spirit or Great Spirit (Indigenous peoples’ understanding of the divine) to influence our sixth chakra which is intuition. Great Spirit needs an invitation, to honour our power of choice and avoid even a smattering of the use of force or coercion. Our freedom of choice is a fundamental value in unconditional love. This inviting may be the role of prayer and meditation in that connection.

The words ‘omniscient’, ‘omnipresent’ and ‘omnipotent’ concerning God, were concepts we learned in secondary school scripture classes with no idea how that could be possible! The Universal Energy Field/ Divine Matrix connects all beings in space including Planet Earth and the creatures on it. Now we are told there is no vacuum in Space, as we learned in secondary school Physics. Furthermore, matter is energy vibrating at a different frequency. The Creator of All can then surely change their frequency to materialise or dematerialise for our benefit and understanding, as did Christ in the scriptural account.

One of the most bizarre discoveries of the 21^st century was that the universe is expanding at an accelerating speed. The culprit behind this ramp-up, called dark energy¹² for lack of a better term, is an unknown force that’s pushing the universal expansion so that as cosmic time goes on, galaxies fly faster and faster apart. Yet despite its implications for the fate of our world, astronomers have no idea what dark energy is.

There are many theories about dark energy, one of which is ‘quintessence’ in which dark energy varies with time and location and its energy density increases over time. According to this theory, the universe would meet a violent fate that physicists call a “Big Rip” (again, with the very literal naming), in which the universe would explode; atoms cannot keep up with how fast they are being pulled apart and stretched. Everything in and out of sight would be obliterated. The universe would go out with a bang.

Does this perceived dark energy threaten our world? Do we need rescuing from it? In my understanding, God invites our participation in a plan of unconditional love to save this planet and its people from the corruption of evil, darkness and despair – maybe it is dark energy that separates us from God and each other. Quantum Physics demonstrates that everyone has an energy field connected to the Universal Energy field or Divine matrix. According to Greg Braden, scientific experiments show that observation changes not only the outcome of the trial but also our beliefs, which have the power to change the flow of events in the universe – literally to interrupt and redirect time, matter, and space, and the activities that occur within them! Wow! I resonate fully with Braden that it is love, rather than fear that has the potential to change our reality and that of our planet. The positive energy which we can tune into through prayer, gratitude for grace or meditation, and so transmit positive vibrations back into the Universal Energy field, could be universe changing. The scriptures reinforce this concept of interconnection and are clear about the nature and principles of a loving God in the ‘ten commandments’ given to Moses at Mount Sinai. Although, phrased in the negative; thou shalt not; they are trustworthy guides in the user manual of moral behaviour. The first two commandments are about how to love the Creator God; the next eight are about how to love oneself and others. For me this is a failsafe user manual for respecting ourselves, others and the Divine.

Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase of the New Testaments, 1 Corinthians 13 called - The way of love, expresses the value of love in an efficient and beautifully poetic way,

“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate…We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, Hope unswervingly, Love extravagantly. And the best of the three is Love.”

Peterson’s words expand my understanding of Love; with positive energy and gratitude, for another’s view of the scriptures. The idea of extravagant loving blows my hair back! (as our son Ant would say).

Ken Wilbur¹³, cutting edge philosopher, exploring spirituality, refers to Paul Tillich who suggests that spiritual refers to that which indicates a person’s ‘ultimate concern’. Wilbur asks ‘in what level of God do you believe? What is your ultimate concern? Is it food - the stuff of your ultimate reality; is it real food, emotional food, mental food, transpersonal food? What is the altitude of your reality? How high is your God? In short what do you worship? Because it is something…’

My answer would be: the altitude of my God connects with me through a loving universal energy field and receives my gratitude through mindfulness, human intimacy, creativity and work; playing tennis, cycling, song and dance; all the gifts of prayer, meditation, sharing and extending Grace - sending positive vibrations (Love) into the Universal energy field / the zero-point field / the Divine Matrix!

All religions honour part or all of these connections to the Divine, but sadly tend to distort them to manipulate and control their members; I long to be free of such distortions and to live in the essence of Love.

My most vexing dilemma in this quagmire of reasoning has been how to understand a God of Love who permits dreadful suffering in the world. The Old Testament story of Abraham, being asked by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah, as a test of faith, was a real stumbling block for me. Does God test our loyalty in this way by asking us to do what he commands us not to do? “Thou shalt not kill”. God then provides a scapegoat as the sacrifice. Does God test our faith at all? Is it moral to do so? Did God allow/permit or cause Lyndi’s death to test my faith? If so I would consider that capricious and immoral – there must be another interpretation for what happened at Mount Moriah.

Where to from here? I hope that my journey chronicled here goes some way toward answering these questions…