Family Reunion

5.29.10 Hale Missouri

We were running through the deep Missouri countryside. Dark chocolate earth from the Grand River. Earth so rich that you want to immerse your hands into it knowing that you are getting some kind of life force put into your soul that will keep you connected to the Earth for all of your time here.

We were trying to make it to the Variety Store in downtown Hale, Missouri by five o'clock. We needed to pick up the key to the town Community building so that we could open up it up in the morning for the bi-annual Norris Family reunion. We had left Memphis promptly at 8 AM and felt that we could make it there, but we needed to push ourselves. We were doing good. The GPS said that we would get there by 4:30, so we were flying. We were listening to an audiobook, a action packed Clive Clesser novel with four different scenarios all coming together in a boat chase with guns and a CIA spy boat coming in to save the day.

The GPS voice activation had gone off and we had not had a chance to turn it back on. I was watching the countryside, listening to the book, semi watching the road and had forgotten all about the GPS. All of a sudden I look up and I see that we are coming to big turn in our almost paved road. I say, “Ted here comes a turn.” He also is engaged in the book. He slams on the brakes and makes the turn and the rough paved road crashes into a barely gravel road. In fact, it seems like the road has really ended with no warning as we came around that curve.

We are now dumbstruck. Our thoughts, our attention, our guidance system were all placed elsewhere. We were on a schedule, a game plan, a “have to be there” type of plan and all of sudden, the road, the game plan and our reality were all pulled out from under us. Where were we? What happened to the road? What happened to our plan?

Reset the GPS. Ask it what way to go? Keep on the barely a road through the endless fields of Missouri river bottoms. It looks like we are going back the way that we came. We can''t be doing this. We can't be running all over these fields when we have got to be at that store before five. Panic, confusion and a little bit of anger flood over me. It was my responsibility to keep up with the GPS. Did it really steer us here or did I just forget to look at it and miss the turn. Keep going, follow what it is saying, we really have no choice. We know that if we go back we will end up on a road to no where...

Now we are coming up on the rail road tracks that we had passed a few miles before, but now they are like a mountain of gravel in front of us. I start yelling in my anxiety voice, “Ted do you think we are going to be able to make it?” Ted, in his usually calm voice says, “Yes.” The car climbs the gravel and we proceed up a 45 degree angle mound to cross the tracks and bump down into the grooves of the tracks. Nothing around us for miles and we proceed down more gravel roads. The GPS now says that we will get to the store at 4:45PM. I begin to wail, “Ted, we have done the best we can. We gave it our best shot. We don't even know if the store stays open to five. Let's just keep going.”

All of sudden we do find ourselves back on County Road M, where we wanted to be all along. We are cruising fast and now I hold the GPS in my hand and call out all that I see. “3.4 miles till we turn left onto 187. It is now saying we will get there at 4:52.” Neither one of us know now if we can believe the GPS. But we have no choice we have to keep going. We have come this far and we know that the final destination is not that far away.

We pull into the Variety Store on Main Street at exactly 4:52PM and get the key for the Community Building, no problem.

I see this as a metaphor for my life and possibly for yours. You think that you have a game plan.You think that you have it all covered. You believe that you have your guidance system activated and with you. You have set your goal and need to be there at a certain time to “make it happen.” Then all of a sudden you turn around a corner and everything is different than what you thought it would be. There is no longer a road. The scenery has completely changed. The terrain of your plan is gone. What are you going do? Where does your voice go in pitch? Do you feel betrayed? Do you take time to ask yourself for guidance? Do you believe that you can't do this, by God there is no time, you have an appointment. Where do you turn at this point? What is the most important lesson to be learned at this moment when the bend in the road turns out to lead to a road to nowhere?

Meditation Message for May Newsletter

You believe that if you express a certain emotion it is bad. The acknowledgement and the expression of the emotion is not wrong or bad. These are man made projections. What hurts is when you do not take responsibility and you direct or project these emotions onto someone else. You tell them that they made you feel this way or that. They become your anger and your fears. This is another barrier to the truth.

When you shift your perspective and you say that you want to experience all of the emotions, you do this with a clean heart. You do this because you are allowing the God force to flow through you. God created all of the emotions, not to cause harm to others, but to actually be able to create a pathway to God. Emotion, energy in motion means quite literally that you cannot sit and ask that all of your emotions be taken away from you. If it is your practice to sit and meditate, then begin to see it as a flow of feelings that come through you and you may cry, scream, laugh or rage at any moment. Do you begin to see that it is actually quite a different process for you than what you have been doing?

The expression of your emotions does actually lead you closer to God. When they are not expressed it is like a barrier is formed with every emotion that is denied. It becomes a place within your cells that screams out but cannot create the voice, or laughs out and cannot find the bubbling laughter's way to the surface. It then becomes a pattern that keeps perpetuating itself. It is struggling to be free, but then the wall keeps getting bigger and bigger. A perception of whom you are begins to be created. This is not a true statement. This is not the truth of who you really are, yet the expression of the truth has been buried. This is not irrevocable, but it is something that can keep you from your overall health and well being because of your unwillingness to express the truth. So, this is a very different paradigm than the one where we thought this meant that we were to yell and scream at other people, or that crying or laughing within a few seconds of each other means that you are crazy.

Allow yourself the deep knowledge that emotions are one of your pathways to Oneness with God and that they are your ally not your enemy. What does an ally look like? What does someone who really stands with you look like? These are good questions to ask yourself. Now is the time to really know what it means to have an ally. You have many allies seen and unseen in your life. God is with you. You see and know this everyday.

Children of Haiti Project

Subject: Children of Haiti from Kregg Wilhite - (I started this letter while I was still in Haiti...) News from Haiti. There is a sense of calm this afternoon that is unusually pleasant. I have been living in love and trust. I feel so grateful about what has been accomplished thanks to all of the loving support from so many of my friends and family. The experience of being here has confirmed that helping one another is one of the greatest joys in life. Among some who are in Haiti, there is a belief that some people take advantage of volunteers and their willingness to help. However, I recently heard my attitude expressed best, "People do not take advantage of me. I came here to give my (our) advantage away freely." Our advantage in life has touched the lives of many. We (you and I) have provided enough food for 20-plus orphans to eat for four to six weeks. We have built two small wooden buildings so that these children now have a dry place to sleep at night and a school to study in during the day. A volunteer teacher now has books, paper, and pencils for her class. Many beautiful children have new, clean clothes and shoes to wear – very proudly I might add. We have helped Manoonoo, an adorable three-year-old little girl with malaria get the medical attention and medication she needed. She is now fine. We have helped two homeless young men, Raphael and James, 17 and 22 years old, acquire birth certificates and the documentation necessary to have a legal identity – an obvious requirement to having any hope of finding decent employment. We have provided the guys with at least one month of work as translators and assistants for volunteers, which will give them dry living quarters, food, and, hopefully, enough time to help them work out some sort of long-term solution. James never knew his father and his mother died when he was five years old. He has been alone since he was a child.I cannot begin to understand nor comprehend how he has survived. He has been living with a large mass or cyst in his groin since he was twelve. You and I have helped him see a doctor and have the necessary tests for a diagnosis, a huge and unaffordable task for most of the people here in Haiti. He is scheduled to have surgery next Tuesday, the day before I leave Haiti. (This did not happen, but will hopefully happen on my next trip to Haiti or before). This is monumental help to James, as I feel certain it would not be happening without our support and encouragement. Raphael was abandoned by his parents. They left the country without telling him. We have helped him to aquire his birth certificate and application for a passport – which will help him to come to the United States. He lived here with his parents as a young child and has residential status – he just didn’t have a clue what to do or the funds to make it happen. There is still a dream of being able to help both of them complete their education. All together, close to $3,500 was raised for this effort. About $3,000 was spent at the orphanage – the buildings ended up costing over $1,000 each; the rest was spent on food, clothes, and school supplies for 20 children. The remaining money was spent helping James and Raphael with their needs. I was fortunate enough to be present to witness their joy and gratitude for all they received. On behalf of them - and from my own heart – I express my deepest thanks to all of you for sharing financial contributions, prayers and love. These are just the highlights of some of the physical accomplishments. However, I am convinced that it is simple love and respect that makes the largest difference. I hope to return to Haiti in the next several weeks. There is still much to be done there and many children who need loving support. Sadly, the children at the orphanage where I lived for two weeks are still sleeping without mattresses or bedding and have neither chairs nor tables for school and meals. An estimated $250 could supply them with mattresses and bedding. Approximately $200 would provide chairs, benches and tables. I spoke with them yesterday on the phone and a two-month-old little baby had just arrived. His name is Samuel and like many of the children in Haiti, he had no one to care for him. The caretakers of the orphanage were very excited and full of joy to have him come to live with them. Just before I left I came in contact with another orphanage that was out of food and in need of help. It was a very small concrete building that had 30 children before the earthquake; 40 more had arrived after the quake. Now with 70 children, they were overwhelmed on every level. They need immediate help, but have hopes for long-term help in finding more adequate care for all of the children. A week's supply of food was organized by a few volunteer friends the week I left. I also heard that another orphanage has just been started on several acres of land in a rural area outside of Port-au-Prince. It is run by a husband-and-wife team who are currently caring for five children. They have plans to raise animals and create gardens for sustainability and educational/fun opportunities for the children. One plan is that some or all of the 70 children from the over-crowded, urban orphanage could be moved to the country. This would require temporary housing, possibly army size tents and then a plan for permanent housing plus bedding, food and other basic necessities. This is a wonderful dream that is shared by both of the orphanages but it would require a large and sustained effort on those willing to help make it happen. This project would require a minimum of several thousand dollars just to relocate the children and provide temporary shelter. An organization called RU4CHILDREN has offered to help and I know several other volunteers in Haiti who are eager to help. It is appealing because it would so obviously make a huge difference in the lives of these children. It would allow them to be able to grow up in an environment that is not only caring and loving, but also provides a future for them, whereas in Port-au-Prince, no such future is discernible. One of my goals is to become involved in this project when I return to Haiti. Fortunately, right now, an effort by one or two people in trying to organize projects like this can actually make a huge difference in seeing them come to fruition. If anyone is interested in being a part of this project via the internet, a person is needed to research and organize a network of groups and organizations that say they are willing to help children in Haiti. A collection of information has already been started but at this point it is still in a notebook. There is much sadness in Haiti right now but there are also many opportunities to experience joy simply by helping other people in need, one person reaching out to help another. I have added many new people to this email list. Many of you have already made contributions and many of you have asked that I include you to the list so that you would know how and where to send one-time and recurring donations and receive news from Haiti. If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit www.heartwoodsanctuary.com/donate.html or mail a check to: Heartwood, 341 County Road 633, Mentone, AL 35984. Checks should be made payable to Heartwood with "Children of Haiti" in the memo line. This is a 501c3 tax-deductible organization - all money will be administered by me (and hopefully help from others) and will go directly to this effort. If the tax-deductible status is not an issue to you, you may mail it directly to: Kregg Wilhite c/o Tammy Guthery, 494 County Road 1381, Falkville, AL 35622. Add "Children of Haiti" in the memo line. If you would like to recieve updates on this project, please include your email address. Please, please forward this email on to anyone who might be interested. I had a dream where I saw some of you going to Haiti for a week or so at a time and living with the children we are helping. The joy of living, loving and sharing with them face-to-face is heart-warming beyond my ability to express in words. However, this comes with a warning: Once you get to know and love these children, you will most likely want to help them for the rest of your life. I know I and other volunteers have been affected in this way. If you are interested let me know. Many Many Thanks Kregg PS My friends Kelly and Steve are making plans to accompany me to Haiti. They have posted photos of the orphanage where I stayed at www.eggonalimb.net/haiti_kola.html