A new revelation at one time...

It seems that when in time of reflection, I find myself picking up books that have a spiritual context to them. My first life-changing book was "The Celestine Prophecy" written by James Redfield which follows the journey of the main character through nine insights. A friend of mine, Cristina, suggested I read it and was practically throwing it on my lap. Granted, the book belonged to her sister and I had 1 night to read it all, basically because her sister had no knowledge of its disappearance. Surprisingly, it was also the first time I read through and entire book in 1 night without wanting to put it down. The Celestine Prophecy introduced me to a new way of looking at life.

I was raised as a Roman Catholic which meant it bestowed its fears and ideals over my young life. I always remember listening to my mom say, "Dios te va a castigar si haces eso." (God will punish you if you do such a thing.) However, "Ve a confesarte el Sabado," (Go to confession on Saturday) meant that whatever sins I'd made against God were forgiven. Hence, a clean palette to start from again and again. I became a devoted Christian and attended mass every Sunday, joined the church choir, became a Catechism teacher and assisted with church retreats.

Did all of that make me a better Christian? Not that I recall. What it did was open my eyes to the other side of being a superficial Christian. I didn't get paid to do any church activities. Everything was on a volunteer basis. Being fresh out of high school, I was looking for gratitude for volunteering my time to the church. That never happened. What did happen was that I was told I wasn't good enough to sing in the choir, demeaned at catechism meetings because the volunteers weren't doing their "job", and I got a chance to see that the priest only showed up to eat at retreats. Oh, and by the way, it's the same priest who claimed children shouldn't be welcome at mass.

Needless to say, when I was done reading The Celestine Prophecy, I embraced the idea that the Roman Catholics were merely seeking not what is best for its congregation but what's best for the sect. Embracing the idea that God is everywhere and not trapped in a facade built by a greedy, one-sided force was uplifting. Cristina and I decided to test the third insight: A matter of energy. The third insight basically states that there is no such thing as coincidence. That everything happens for a reason and we should be prepared for it. In order to test this idea, my friend and I decided to say out loud that we would like to meet someone from France within the next few hours. Living in El Paso, that little wish was a far fetch. We drove up to Scenic Drive up on the mountains and took a stroll out to gaze at the surrounding city. We quickly noticed a group of people who'd locked their keys in the car and were having trouble retrieving them. After offering our assistance, we heard an accent in response. Yup! It was a group of French travelers! So, we decided to test it again. "We would like to see someone from middle school that we haven't seen since." Sure enough, we drive to the other side of town and we bump into an old friend. Granted, it's El Paso and seeing that person could've happened at any time. However, it happened that same day. The point is, this book changed my outlook and at times I forget that it did. Sometimes, I'd like to go back to that day when I read it for the first time and I realized there was more to life and the connections we have with people. **BTW: We weren't able to help the French people retrieve their keys since we knew nothing about breaking into vehicles!**