By Bill Harley
It’s counter-intuitive to see forces of disruption and resistance in our lives as something beneficial. We commonly wish each other such things as “smooth sailing”, “fun times” and “a good day”. But Jean’s and my first book, Now That I’m Here, What Should I Be Doing?, makes a strong case for the fact that the Creator’s archetypal method of getting our attention and guiding us to what’s best for us is to send resistance forces into our pathway. Granted, sometimes these guiding forces are supportive, but usually they are disruptive.
Jean and I have been monitoring these forces for decades in our own lives and those of others; and one thing we have learned is that if you can recognize the resistance/disruption forces emerging early on, you can avoid fighting with them and instead use them as guides to expedite the spiritual, social, intellectual, and material growth opportunities they are pointing you toward. Sometimes these forces are subtle; sometimes blatant. Here is a blatant example that just happened to us.
I am writing this blog from Florida because each year Jean and I come here for 3-weeks in November (just the two of us) and 3-weeks in February (with our kids and grandkids) to a timeshare resort we love and have been returning to for twenty years. By coming here, we knock two big holes in the Minnesota winter, recharge our batteries and do a lot of writing (Bill) and painting (Jean).
Because we come here so often, getting here, being here, and returning home is usually smooth sailing; but this trip was anything but. Despite getting our flu shots, both Jean and I came down with influenza about a week before we left home; and were still feeling poorly the day of departure.
We got to the airport at 7:00 AM for our 9:00 AM flight and were both selected for random bag and body searches. When we got to the gate, the gate agent promptly announced that the flight would be delayed two hours. Once airborne, we had children in front of us, behind us, and across from us that were alternately yelling and crying most of the way.
It was at this point that we looked at each other and smiled. We realized we were immersed in disruption and resistance forces that were signaling us to grow in some way; but in what way? It wasn’t yet clear to us and we acknowledged that the growth needed might be different for each of us.
Once we landed in Florida, the disruption and resistance patterns continued as follows:
Due to late arrival, our rental car was unavailable and we had to pay a higher rate;
When we reached the resort, check-in took forever because they had us staying for one week instead of three and our usual condo was unavailable (this was unprecedented);
Once into a condo, we had a plumbing problem in the bathroom that needed repair.
Over the next 24 hours, we needed six other repairs (this was also unprecedented). [Note: even though these repairs were made promptly and effectively, they kept us off balance.]
It was 7:30 PM when we went out for groceries the day of arrival; we put our resort entry/parking permit on the car dashboard in clear view for returning through the resort security gate.
Returning to the resort with groceries, we approached the gate, saw the security guard read our entry/parking permit through the windshield (the usual procedure), began moving forward, but then he yelled “Stop!” He said, “That’s only a parking permit; I need to know what unit you are in!” We told him and, without another word, he opened the gate.
As we drove off, I said to Jean, “He already saw our reservation number and the check-out date on the entry/parking permit—why did he need to know our unit number? Do you think they have a new policy or is this just a continuation of these resistance forces? [Note: In the approximately 60 entries we made during the following 3 weeks, no guard ever asked for our unit number again.]
It was now dark as we drove the three block route to our condo. Suddenly, we came upon a group of 15 people slowly walking abreast in the direction we were going and filling the road from curb to curb despite the empty sidewalks on both sides of the road. We slowed to a crawl and, when none of them noticed us, I tapped the horn. The people promptly cleared the roadway, but one turned around and defiantly held her position in the middle of the road. I drove toward the right curb and, as we slowly passed her, she pounded her fist down on the trunk of our car. I said to Jean, “She may have been drinking, but it doesn’t make this string of resistance forces any less amazing”!
Once we had unloaded our groceries in the condo, we agreed to wait until we were rested to identify the growth these forces were guiding us toward; and fell into bed exhausted from the day’s events and the effects of our waning influenza.
An hour later, we startled awake to the sounds of the ultra-modern, over-under washer/dryer in the kitchen buzzing incessantly to indicate the completion of a wash cycle that we had never started. We pushed the pause/cancel button, the buzzing stopped; but it restarted at 60 minute intervals through the night. We closed doors and muffled our ears until we got a repair the following day.
We were nearly comatose the next day, but on the second morning after breakfast, we decided to use Compassionate Consultation together (this process is the subject of our second book, TRANSFORMED: How to Make the Decisions That Change Your Life) to identify what growth this remarkable string of resistance and disruption forces was calling us toward. Step 1 of this decision-making process is to pray for divine assistance. Jean recited a prayer and then I recited the well-known one that I say every morning:
“O LORD! Unto Thee I repair for refuge, and toward all Thy signs I set my heart. O Lord! Whether traveling or at home, and in my occupation or in my work, I place my whole trust in Thee. Grant me then Thy sufficing help so as to make me independent of all things, O Thou Who art unsurpassed in Thy mercy! Bestow upon me my portion, O Lord, as Thou pleasest, and cause me to be satisfied with whatsoever Thou hast ordained for me. Thine is the absolute authority to command.”
We were quiet for a few minutes after the prayers. Then I said to Jean, “This prayer that is so familiar to me has just now sunk much deeper into my heart than ever before. It seems like we are being called to a much greater degree of reliance on God and detachment from worldly forces even as we engage with the world around us. Jean said, “Yes, I agree. And the fact that we have been weakened by illness shows us the path. We stayed calm and peaceful through it all; we haven’t had the energy to get hooked and reactive to all of these disruption and resistance forces; we just accepted them and kept moving forward.” I said: “Yes, you’re right! We’ve been given a vision of how we need to move through the world even when we are healthy and full of energy. We need to be unconditionally detached and constructive as we experience these forces and engage with the world.”
As a result of this Compassionate Consultation interaction, we both felt confident that we understood the growth threshold we were being called to cross over in response to these highly compressed and insistent disruption forces. We both committed to putting this new awareness into practice as we recovered our health and regained our normal energy. In the days that followed, everything started going smoothly again, which we took as a confirmation that we had correctly identified our mandate from the Creator.
Dynamics like these—often more subtle, but sometimes blatant—are happening in all our lives most of the time. To accelerate your growth in response to them, read our two books; and please share your progress with us.
