There are some people who
offer you an experience which changes your life forever – and most of them will
never know it.
The other day, I was
getting ready for bed and my deceased maternal grandmother came for a visit. God
I love her. She was singing “Danny Boy” in my head, and as I started singing
along, the messages started coming. One of things she told me was that my next
blog should be how I got into social work…. So today I sit down to write it and
was dumbfounded by what actually presented…
This is what I was going
to write: If it weren’t for divine intervention, I am not sure that I would
have ever figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had so many
interests, and only two passions – animals, and horseback riding – neither of
which would offer me a career. (Trust me.) What to do, what to do? I went into
University without a clue. I took a bunch of random classes and found myself in
a religious studies class, taught by a very inspiring professor.
Now, the interesting
thing about this class, was that it happened to hold the when and where of such
a clear clairaudient command that my career path became solidified. “Social
Work”. That’s all my guides said, but I applied immediately, got selected and
now have two degrees in it. Can’t lie, I had a bit of a moment when it was time
to select my classes and realised exactly what it is that I had signed up for…
I had, ironically, vowed previously to never work with people. Never say never
(which could be a whole other blog post!)
In all honesty, I was
going to drag this story out a bit; add some suspense, a few more details… but then
I was dumbfounded. I didn’t take just one of her classes, I took 3, and my
command to be a social worker came, incidentally, in the very last one.
In the first of these classes,
we welcomed a guest presenter, who was speaking to Chan Buddhism. Turns out the
UofC had been talking with Chinese officials for a while and they were now
offering a religious studies trip to China to learn about Buddhism, which I
immediately signed up for. I was introduced to Buddhism, a new way of thinking
about ascension and enlightenment, given tools to get there and learned to
mediate.
In the second class, she
opened my eyes to a whole new world – not in religion, but in how faith makes
the impossible possible. We were talking about ceremony and tradition,
levitation and ritual vegetarianism in Phuket. (Google it.) When I watched a master
enter into trance, cut off his tongue, and reattach it perfectly, I knew wholeheartedly
that there was more to be had of my own experience. I knew that we as bodies,
as people, as participants, were capable of so much more. In that moment, I started
a personal quest to find it.
