Monday, February 1, 2010

Here I Come Again!


When I came to Colorado Springs 25 years ago, I didn’t know a soul. I just knew if I stayed in Wisconsin much longer, I’d become a hippo from eating to stay warm. I’d wait for the furnace to kick in and sit next to my heat register, hoping to get the frost off my caboose.

In the three years before I escaped Wisconsin, I researched several United States cities, examining info on weather, culture, environment, education, and economic climate, and decided to move here.

I immediately took a couple sales positions, so I could meet people and simultaneously interview for jobs. Sales and networking groups were popular back then, so I joined two SWAP groups, the Chamber of Commerce’s membership committee, a School District 11 board, and Win-Win. SWAP isn’t as fun and risqué it sounds—it’s an acronym for Salesmen with a Purpose, but they let me join anyway.

Within a couple months of attending Win-Win, I started managing the group, inviting speakers to talk, writing the newsletters and thank yous, and helping to maintain our 200-member list. Each Friday we listened to a speaker share how he or she conducted their work in a win-win way.

We’d learn from judges, educators, preachers (even Ted Haggard), psychologists (two now relatively well known), trainers, political leaders, business owners, criminals (one gal kidnapped a child, was detained, and missed her speaking engagement)—a wide range of professionals and at least one amateur. Enlightenment was continual, even newsworthy.

One thread I felt throughout our membership was deep spirituality. There was a closeness and connectedness among people, no matter what their beliefs. An atmosphere of acceptance wrapped warm arms around those in the room with only occasional dissonance and coffee breath. Unconditional love flowed through our meetings.

One recurrent belief many in this group held was that they had lived before—like parents before having children. They experienced another lifetime. They would tell me about their former lives as males or females, Nazis, victims of murder, Egyptian princesses, you name it. Each person had somehow remembered former experiences through past-life regression or simply through living. They just knew it.

Believing things I cannot see or prove is rather difficult for me. I lived in Eau Claire with two Christian girls who prayed in tongues, while I only ate and spoke with mine. Being instantly healed outside of gradual skin repair seemed a bit far-fetched for my little cerebrum…until 1982 when I attended a Christian concert at our church.

The Celebrant Singers were wonderful and full of spirit. After the music ended, the lead singer prayed to conclude our time together. He prayed and he prayed and he prayed, and I thought, I want to go home and sleep. And with that thought, he beseeched, “And Lord, may all those with throat afflictions be healed.”

Whoosh! A warm energy shot from above my head, through my body, hit the soles of my shoes, and returned up through my body with a chill. And poof! my tonsillitis was gone. Little white dots plagued me on and off for years. They were gone!

So I had proof. Healing is real. Sold.

But this past lives thing…I can’t seem to wrap my presence around it. But I shall be open and receptive to the concept, as well as the healing that purportedly accompanies the process.

So after I croak and you’re at a concert, and you see a confident, hot mama in a skimpy red dress belting out “Here I Come Again!” That’ll be me.

But I won’t be singing about reincarnation.

1 comment:

  1. Wow! Who would have guessed that in such an overwhelmingly Christian dominated city like Colorado Springs that there would be so many reincarnation believers?

    You're already a hot mama that occasionally wears a skimpy red dress - what makes you think you would come back as the same person? Maybe you would come back an be an obese hillbilly redneck. Do we get to choose and if so, who would choose to be anything less than great?

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