Fishing for Miracles

I went to the park on Sunday to relax, have a peaceful view of the lake, and perhaps to peruse my book. With its binding falling apart, my worn out copy of A Course in Miracles is water stained, flagged, and tagged but still the trusted companion it has been for more than 18 years now. I continue to find passages that provide for me again and again the precise answers to the questions my mind and heart pose. Never does it fail to enlighten and guide me through my journey.

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The girl in the photo above was being taught by her father how to fish for the first time. I watched as her dad showed her how to bate the hook, cast the line and then just wait. It was a pink fishing pole, and she focused so intensely on that bobber, waiting for a sign that something might be nibbling. She would then “yank real hard” on occasion, but the hook would always come up empty.

I so enjoyed watching that scene of her dad teaching her and her wrapped attention on learning something she was unfamiliar with, and a just a little bit scared of. The lessons she was learning were probably creating more memories for her than she was aware of, memories she’d likely think fondly of for the rest of her life.

I was thinking about my own dad, who is now in his final days. I had just spoken to my sisters on the phone who were at his bedside, assisting where possible, but mostly challenged by their own frustrations that my dad's body was hanging on even though his attitude for some weeks now has been that he was ready to go.

I thought, ‘he must be hanging on for some reason, perhaps he is afraid.’ I checked into the energy, but as usually happens when you try to do energy work with people you are close to, it can be clouded, murky with your own emotions or projections.

I knew there were people out there who actually assisted others with the process of death. They had the special gift of being able to help people transition over to the other side when they had fear or trepidation of the unknown.

Why wouldn’t there be people who facilitated this? We have midwives to help us be born into this world, why not a similar type of assistance when needed to transition our way out?

Could I be of any help here?

I opened my Course.

The miracle of the holy instant lies in your willingness to let it be what it is. And in your willingness for this lies also your acceptance of yourself as you were meant to be.

Throughout the Course we are asked to see that we are capable of facilitating miracles, and that all that is required is our willingness to do so. We are instructed that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. All are the same. That miracles are as natural as breathing.

The holy instant does not come from your little willingness alone. It is always the result of your small willingness combined with the unlimited power of God’s Will.

I didn’t know if I could act as a facilitator in my father’s passing. I’d never done that type of energy work before, nor had I tried. But if I followed the promptings I was receiving, right here, in this moment, I could perhaps do what I was here to do as the Course has continually reiterated. Be a facilitator. It wasn’t up to me to decide what outcome would be best, only to decide to offer up 'a little willingness' for 'a holy instant'.

“I caught a fish! I caught a fish!” The girl squealed so loud, it jolted me out of my thoughts and into the excitement of her surprised success.

She ran over to her dad and jumped up and down, screaming with excitement. It was the first fish she had ever caught and dad, taken by her joy, helped her gather up the line and pose nicely for mom’s camera. He shot me a glance and we exchanged smiles and a knowingness – his little girl had learned she could do something she had never done before.

A memory was surely anchored now, fortified with that lasting photo. She, her dad, the fish, and her pink pole.

I remember moments with my own dad. The day he bought me a glove and brought it to the park where I was playing softball is still so vivid to me even now. I had had this old thing, and now that I was playing more regularly, as a 12 year old, he could see I needed something new. He tossed me grounders long passed sunset, until it got so dark I couldn't see the ball anymore - just to ensure I'd be a better shortstop. Teaching all of us kids how to make a garden, handing us packets of potato, cucumber and bell pepper seeds so that we would plant them in measured rows. That the corn should be 'foot high by the fourth of July'; and harvesting all had to happen before the first frosts in rural New Hampshire.

Later that afternoon when I got home, I took the time to attempt to facilitate a holy instant. Never quite sure that I'm doing things exactly right, I simply offered up a little willingness during a deep meditation. I saw his image, and massive amounts of energy were quite visually clear to me then. I felt compelled to move as much coagulation and congestion in parts of his body out, where darkness was stuck and called to be drawn out. I just did what my intuition guided me to do.

When it was over, I knew that I was not in charge of outcomes and accepted that highest and best for the good of all would come. How could it otherwise be? After all, present in those moments was the “the unlimited power of God’s Will.”

In thinking of your own life, in any of your own endeavors, bear in mind that you always have the option to allow a higher Will, a higher power to govern your actions and create greater outcomes. All it takes is a little willingness, and a lot of letting go.