Connection

Lately I have been waking up in the middle of the night, 3 or 4am, with rushing thoughts. I am getting older, and I have been feeling the brunt of a life lived for others’ ideals. Waking up and feeling pointless is becoming a regularity. On one such soul-straining morning, I practiced a mantra given me by my friend Hunter Dockery, a literal God-send at the right time in my life.

I bear the weight of the image of God. I am made fearfully and wonderfully, with purpose and dignity. A priest in this creation temple, continuing the work of my Creator, bringing order and Shalom to the chaos around, seeing His kingdom come.

I said this to myself twice, and then breathed, concentrating on the feeling of warmth and protection that the thick covers and soft bedding provided me. My wife was beside me, but I felt alone, not necessarily in a bad way. It was me, and God. And the line of division between us melted for a moment.

I reached out to Hunter later that morning to let him know that the mantra he had shared with me had literally saved my life – that it had turned terror and anxiety into Shalom. He replied, “I pray that the Father will provide an encounter for you.”

I have had such encounters in my life, I think. One which stands out is the time I was trail running in the rain at Shelby Farms Park in Memphis, TN. I recall the moment vividly. It happened at a time of tremendous transition: I was in middle of a divorce, I had just met Jill, my wife-to-be, my medical practice had a new manager, and I had started running and working out. Everything was in chaos. As I rounded a curve several miles into the run, my breath reached a rhythm that most distance runners are familiar with. My footsteps and breathing started to develop a cadence – three steps, breath in. Three steps, breath out. Three steps, breath in. And then it happened. My breathing, my pulse, my steps, and… the raindrops around me became one rhythm. For a few seconds, it was ALL in synch. Gears in the same machine, all moving as it should be. Perfect, effortless, WONDERFUL. When I realized what was happening, I came to a full stop. I stood there for a few seconds looking around, in child-like awe. And as quickly as it came, it dissipated. My first instinct was to call Jill and try to explain. She said she understood. We were just getting started in our relationship, but I knew that I could count on her to follow what I was saying. The experience left a mark on me that has not lessened in effect in ten years.

Learning to Hope Less

Now, ten years older, I have been in a limbo, zombie-land existence for months. I go to work at a large multi-physician group, and from the minute I walk in, have difficulty breathing. The drudgery of the computer, the drip-drip-drip of random patients on my schedule, the frustrating apathy all around me, the lifeless perp-walks elderly patients take, led by gum-chewing employees down the long, music-less halls. No one smiling, and the patients sitting in the waiting room expressionless, beaten into submission by the medical system. There to take their medicine, however bad it tastes.

When it gets suffocating, I have to step outside to feel the sun and wind on my face. Eventually, and not soon enough, the day is done and I break free to walk to my car, able to breath again momentarily. I trudge through my day first at work and then at home, either anxious or intolerably bored. The weeks blend together like ticking second hand on a classroom wall clock. And each time I see my face in the mirror my dominant thought is that I am fat-faced, haggard, joy-less. I relieve the pain with compulsive internet shopping, grasping for some little bit of contentment and false-joy. No purpose, no direction, barely alive.

The Encounter

Yesterday, I found myself at the top of a mountain property for which our offer to purchase had been accepted an hour before. I had asked Jill to go back to the property with me a second time to confirm our decision. We hopped over the fence, and headed up to the the property’s highest point, a grassy knoll with endless views to the west. We decided to take a more direct path to the top this time, climbing up a steep brush-covered trail which became more inclined with each step. Excited to reach the top, I strode at a swift clip. Jill started falling behind, but my exuberance drove me onward. In recent months, I had developed an asthma-like shortness of breath, leading me to have a sensation of suffocation when I exerted myself. I hiked on, expecting the choking feeling to come on. It didn’t. I climbed higher, and my wind never left me. Jill was out of sight now behind me. I crested the hill and turned right, climbing on to the summit of the property. I stood there in awe for a moment. I was alone, and mountains were all around. I have distant memories of similar feelings from my childhood: hiking on the mountains of near Tehran, Iran, I would run ahead of my family, to be alone, encircled with blissful natural energy. Months earlier, my wife and I had looked at a nearby mountain property owned by the Hipps family; just now, on the next peak to the west, I noticed a couple of crooked trees that marked the top of the Hipps property. In a rush of memories, I recalled the moment that I was standing on that particular hilltop with Jill and our friend Randy Best, and at that moment I had looked over to a higher clearing to the east. I remember thinking wistfully, “Boy, it would be really be something to be on THAT one.”

I suddenly realized – I WAS STANDING ON THE EXACT, VERY HILLTOP THAT I HAD NOTICED FROM THE HIPPS PROPERTY. Not a hilltop like it, but the exact point that I had seen and dreamed of owning. Earlier in the week, when we were putting an offer on our property, along with several other potential buyers, I had no idea it was the one I had seen from a distant hilltop months ago.

When Jill caught up to me, I breathlessly tried to explain to her what had just happened. The main thing that stuck with me is how OUT OF REACH this particular hilltop had FELT to me the last time I saw it, upward, and in the distance, from the Hipps land. I remember thinking, “Somebody owns that land, cherishes it, and owning it is far, far beyond me.” And now, this very instant, just a few months later, I am standing on and will own the land I dreamed of.

Red arrow marks the top of the Hipps property seen from our hilltop

Encounters with God do not always involve a burning bush or a booming voice. Sometimes they come as raindrops. Sometimes signs from God are stunning, all-encompassing; but they can also be readily and easily ignored. That’s how it is. Like the sun waiting to shine behind a tightly sealed door, one can pretend that it is not there. But it can also become impossible to ignore. Maybe Synchrony is how God talks to us: moments when things inexplicably line up, a crack in the chaos where beautiful order, meaning, peace, and Oneness peek through.

Chaos All Around

That was yesterday. This morning, the chaos returned. It is 4 am, and I just woke up feeling short of breath. I removed my CPAP mask, which was ironically choking me, and lay there in bed. I recited the mantra. I had to say the first line twice, giving my groggy mind a chance to catch up and recall the rest of it.

I bear the weight of the image of God.

I bear the WEIGHT of the image of God.

Why “bear the weight”? Why not “I am one with God”? I think the words simultaneously reinforce the connection and revive the responsibility of our place here. Just like I can think of my workplace as a prison, a torturous necessity that fuels the rest of my life financially, a soul-sucking daily drudgery – or, I can sit in the gratitude and fullness of what my job has allowed for me:

1. Incredible honing of my surgical skills and knowledge: I am ten times the eye surgeon I was three years ago. I have reached a level of fluidity and mastery that I NEVER would have at my prior job.

2. The transition – selling our home in Memphis, my medical practice, and getting an ample steady paycheck for a few years allowed us to get rid of debt, start afresh.

3. My daughter Kara and my son Gavin hastened their own transitions. In the end, the tumultuous experiences they had will be a blessing. In my case, I had to get to my 50’s to start in earnest to find meaning. It was not pretty, but in the case of both my kids, they were forced to encounter their demons much earlier. Who knows, but all of the turmoil and pain they have experienced over the past few years may actually have been exactly what they needed.

4. The chaos has led me to start to let my wife Jill in, in a real way. We have always had great rapport and adventures. But I have held her at distance, determined to never feel the pain that I felt when I was separated from my loving grandmother at age three, or the darkness and hurt that I felt when my first serious girlfriend broke my heart in college. Despite how much Jill means to me, I recoil when my deep love and appreciation for her surfaces, and push it down to a safer place. All of this “stuff,” the daily anguish over work, the purposeless of it, has been a blessing in disguise… the desert through which I have to walk to find God again.

We do indeed “bear the weight,” but by Grace, the image of God is all around – all-encompassing, all-knowing. Meditation and prayer serve to melt away the illusion that we are alone, fighting chaos without a guide, showing us that God is everywhere. We are immersed in God, every second, everywhere we look.

That moment on top of the mountain of the property we had just bought was me realizing that I was a fish looking for water, and it had been everywhere, always.

Things can, and do change, even when they seem immutable. Doors open, impossibilities appear.

Limitation or the Infinite?

Limitation is drummed into our perception from the moment we are born. We learn to fear, contract, self-protect. The human experience is full of disorder and un-truth. The biggest lie of all is MONEY. When I start dreaming, the idea of funding is an immediate wet blanket. Even now, as I start to dream about what we can build, what we can create and share, on the beautiful property that is nothing other than an opportunity God opened up for us, my next thought is, “How am I going to pay for all of this?!” Really? That’s the problem? The world is awash with money, but money is a constant reminder of limitation. I think that’s what its purpose is, actually: to make us forget that we came from, and are going to – unlimited potential, connection with the divine. Worrying about money is as ridiculous as a raindrop comparing itself to other raindrops as it falls. Yet anxiety about money looms in my mind, always. I let $20 worry me about as much as a $500,000 dream property. Maybe, instead, I can trust in something other than myself; trust that the next step in the bridge will appear when it needs to. Limitation, scarcity, and suffering are all around; we all bear these burdens. But evidence of our indelible connection to an infinite, omni-present God is also here if we look.

Faramarz Hidaji

A photo I took from my observatory in Clyde, NC: a cluster of galaxies in the constellation Virgo.