New Global Family:
Cheryl and Zoe’s Stories
By Cheryl Paley
Posting on the Bulletin Board of Faith…
had only recently begun to write for IF in December of 2006 when the theme was “Spirituality.” I had no idea what I’d write, what “my take” on this would be. Suddenly my thoughts turned to my adoption experience, and the many twists and turns that process took. I still don’t know how I got through it all, but “something” kept me going, kept me on track, even in the midst of the most challenging moments of uncertainty and doubt. I am including that article below and will let it speak for itself.
More than ever, with so many out of work for the first time in their adult lives, or dealing with unforeseen medical issues, even contemplating their own mortality or watching their parents age, spirituality is a life raft. We grab on, say a prayer and, in the midst of it all, somehow we find our way. I like to think of it as a walking down a path that becomes a maze. And then a tunnel. Suddenly there we are, in the midst of a strange and often uncomfortable impasse and our walk becomes a crawl, but still we move, we move on through it. Just as all seems lost and forsaken, something eases the way. We make it.
Our neighbor is leaving New York. A brilliant writer, thinker, a caring and devoted friend, he has been facing many of the challenges I spoke of above, all at the same time. I asked him what “spirituality” means to him during this time and his answer, as usual, was helpful and illuminating, much as he has been to Zoe and I all these many years:
“Hmmm, well, this is something that has been very much on my mind. I could go into a tangent about how particle physics makes a strong statement for the existence of God (and I think it does) but that doesn’t seem to be the focus of your piece.
For what it’s worth, here are a few musings:
The best way to start is to say that I believe in the existence of God, but by and large I believe we have him/her/it all wrong. My own belief is that God is benevolent, but not an ATM. This God wants good things for me and sends them my way, but these I don’t always recognize as being the best for me. It try to pray – “God help me,” not “God get me that job” or “how about getting me those winning lotto numbers cause I’ve been so good!” Instead, I say, “help me to see why I need to go thru this; help me to find the good in this situation; don’t let me give in to bitterness or despair.
I believe that, as humans, we benefit from being in contact with, or even responsible to, something outside our own need of the moment. Even if God were nothing more than a bulletin board on which we post the best hopes for ourselves, it would be worth our best intentions.”
Thank you my friend. Thank you for your wise words, thank you for your support and friendship. And may the God of your understanding bless your new path.
Here’s my take on Spirituality, as first published in IF Magazine in December of 2006
Brick by Brick... One Step at a Time...
A single mother finds God in a pudgy little hand.
By Cheryl Paley
pirituality.
I think I first became acquainted with the term in the late
70s as past lives, auras, soul mates and astrology readings
were finding their way into magazines, bookstores and water
cooler office chatter. Spirituality – an inner relationship
with the unexplained, the cosmos, the universe, even… God.
Many felt the need to take a side – “atheist,” “agnostic,” “non-believer,” “believer,” or
even “just not sure… check back with me later.” Those
of my generation, baby boomers, were breaking new ground,
bumping into the consequences of the sexual freedom we found
in the 60s and 70s, questioning the religion and values of
our parents and their parents and searching. Searching for
something else. Searching for “it.”
We had no really good, scientifically proven methods for finding this “it” but it was discussed at great length. Pondered. For my parents and their generation there was little of this. God was something one went to a place of worship to find, to a congregation. One was born into it – a group, an affiliation, and outside of some very artistic and intellectual circles, it was rarely discussed. It was just “the way it is.” Coming from strict religious homes, both of my parents struggled with the organized religion of their youth, and wanted something different for my brother and I, something better. At the same time, there was never any question as to what or who we “were.” We belonged, albeit loosely, to a group. A religious group with a name, a recognizable place of worship and holidays. We got our presents at holiday time and we knew all the ceremonial songs and customs. Even in the midst of all the mixed signals, that affiliation was clear. What was never very clear for me was a sense of what I have come to regard as spirituality. God.
The ambivalence of my parents was both a challenge and a gift. They left me to find “it” for myself, and having been afforded the option to “not believe” left me with my own desire to. To believe, to understand, to find something authentically spiritual for myself, beyond the dogma, beyond the traditions. I was left to my own devices here, mostly because the God concept was so fraught for my parents, caught between engrained and rejected and I’m not sure they knew where to go with it. While they might have wanted very much to lead me to “it” they couldn’t. Because they didn’t have “it” themselves.
Then came the 80s. I drifted. For a very long time. I found my way into a 12-Step program for a stretch where it was suggested to me that there was actually such a thing as a “God of my understanding.” Step One of Twelve. It kind of fit. I had been left to figure it out, and here I was told I could actually do that. Feel my way to “it,” find an “it” I could understand. So I searched. Went to seminars and meetings, did past life regression sessions, read the spiritual literature, even did a couple of Native American sweat lodges. I looked and looked and looked. It was exhausting.
Then came the new millennium. I adopted a child and something quite unexpected happened. Suddenly there was a “something” that seemed to pull me along through a newfound state of exhaustion wrought by sleep deprivation, midnight feedings and single motherhood. Lots of weird “stuff” happened. I was steered away, at the very last minute, from an adoption agency that ended up being shut down. I left my job to find something more “baby friendly” and the program I left lost it’s funding. It was gone. And then a moment later, I was safely employed.
It was crazy. Unpredictable. Terrifying and dizzying because I never knew where I was going or what came next. I just kept walking. Somehow, every step of the way, something appeared at my feet, guiding me on the bumpy road. Magic? Coincidence? Good luck? God? The best I could have said at the time was, “well, it certainly is something!”
The adoption journey took me halfway around the world to pick up a tiny, raven-haired creature, a little person only previously know to me through a small, grainy picture sent over the Internet. Another human being I had no reference point for. We didn’t look alike and we shared no religious or cultural identity. We were anything but from the same “group.” It was disconcerting, I must admit. And it left a gap to fill for both of us, I imagine, although she has little recollection of that now. But there we were, 2 total strangers, inextricably bound by… something. Led down a shaky path to each other, brick by brick, by… something.
I did what I had to, put that one shaky foot forward once again and took care of business. I fed her, bathed her, cuddled her, there was even a 3am trip to the emergency room, complete with my daughter projectile vomiting in the middle of a thunderstorm in the back of a cab. And somehow, something got us through it. We took the journey, filling the gap that separated us by weathering the process of day to day living. And we began to love each other.
Today we are 5 years into it and the gap is barely discernable. We have become a “we.” Our own “group”. And every day we create reference points for this newfound “us.” The “us” of our understanding, my daughter and I. We don’t look alike, except when she gestures and gets this little crinkle at the top of her nose that I have. She is naturally artsy and impatient, just like me. She hates restriction and needs security, just like me. We are exactly alike in a million of these bizarre, uncanny ways that only something greater than myself could have orchestrated. And at the same time we are total opposites in all the ways we both need to grow. It’s remarkable. Awe-inspiring. And spiritual.
Today, as we walked hand in hand to school, I looked down at the pudgy little fingers holding mine, brick by brick down the street, one step at a time, and that was enough for me. That was “it.”
