A Quick Thought: In Pursuit of One’s Highest Self
As the holiday season approaches, and another year draws to a close, it is hard not to take stock of all that has happened in the last few years. Life has taken many turns for me, especially over the last decade or so. It has always been a series of lessons, where Spirit has guided, and many companions arrived to help me along the way. Ministers, priests, therapists, confidants, physicians, spouse, close friends, all joined together –or so it seemed -- to provide me with a valuable support network. On more than one occasion, this team of companions has saved my life. In more than one instance, these companions have supported me as I have sought -- and ultimately found -- meaning in my life. Finding and living one’s highest self is the road to growing up and waking up. This is a small part of that tale of my life’s journey.
As I approached law school in the early 1980s, afraid for my very being because I saw AIDS begin to take the lives of so many young Gay men like myself, I rejected my own true self to some degree for a time. I pursued instead an image of myself that I was taught would mean I would be “successful”: the archetype of the serious, bottom-line oriented, straight, and legal minded Attorney-At-Law. I had, to some degree, abandoned my true self. But it did not last for long. By my second year of law school I realized I was Gay and there was no going back. By my first foray into the legal profession, it was not long before I ran into the legal problems faced by HIV Positive Gay men, and in response, I started a project at my law firm to serve their needs. By doing so, I outed myself. It was around this time I found Spirit again, and joined Dignity Washington, a large Gay Roman Catholic organization in the heart of Washington, DC. On Sunday nights, at 7 PM, we would fill a large local Episcopal Church with 1,200 LGBTQ+ folks worshiping together.
At about this time, in the early 1990’s, I went into psychotherapy for the first time. Joe, my first therapist, taught me all about bio-feedback, guided meditations, and self-hypnosis. Here, guided visualizations helped me cope with difficult law firm partners, toxic bosses, and demanding corporate clients of big law firm life. “Imagine her made of sand, the waves gently washing her out to sea….” went a popular one. I made a cassette tape (remember those?) every week, and I listened to Joe’s soothing voice, set to a background of ocean waves and seagulls, every morning before work.
“Have you ever heard of shamans?” Joe asked me one afternoon at the start of our session. He then launched into a brief explanation. Straight himself, but aware of my orientation, he said to my delight, “Like you, they were often Gay and gifted.” He turned off the lights and lit a candle, something he had not done before. “Lie back and imagine this,” he said. Putting me in a deep trance, Joe spun out a shamanic voyage set to the music of Brian Eno that took me to a place deep inside me, deeper than I had ever gone before. Here, the tree of knowledge was tended by a team of spirit guides waiting to help me. Prophets and sages arrived to share their wisdom. Afterwards, in real time, life accelerated. Practicing this Spirit Guide meditation almost daily, along with other changes in my life, I soon fell in love, left the law firm, and became a full-time gay activist as part of a big gay policy organization based in the nation’s capital.
Today I visualize a different kind of service. As an interfaith and interspiritual minister, I serve Spirit by companioning all those seeking to live their most authentic selves in various ways. I am still an attorney, but I have learned to minister to others even in my role as attorney-at-law. When I speak to groups of law students about self-care, I always emphasize the importance of being true to one’s self, and how building a strong support network is key to us doing that. Always seek to be your highest self. Find those who can support you in doing that and surround yourself with them.
I encounter many seekers along the way. Some briefly on the road of life, others as a companion on their journey. There has been the highly successful middle-aged man seeking a new career after losing his job during the Covid pandemic, the young Lesbian harmed by her religion of origin but seeking to journey deeper to find Spirit in her life again, the elderly grandfather who recently came out as Gay to his family and contemplating whether Spirit is calling him to serve as a minister to God’s LGBTQ+ people, and so many others, too numerous to mention. What each had in common was this: a strong desire to live one’s most authentic life, to seek and find one’s highest self, and in so doing, to serve our sister and brother human beings in the best way we could. In this way, we seek to forge new relationships with the Divine.
We are all the shamans of today. We will all rise. I can see it.