A Course in Miracles Monk

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… Wait. Check that. This is my own mess. Call it Day 8: The Faux Pas. The Celestial Left Turn. The Godless Gaffe. The Paradisal Pratfall. Or simply, The Fall. The Flub. Or, The Flop.

Profile pages are notoriously boring, and this one promises to carry on that fine tradition while I list everything under the sun. So, getting back to the above… The Billion Year Slumber. The Black Eye On My Heavenly Report Card. The Big Whoopsie. The Cosmic Gutterball. The Supreme Boo-Boo. The Muff. The Whiff. The Almighty Air Ball.

Whatever you want to call it, it’s My So Called Life.

Like any other life it’s had its share of wonderfulness, weirdness, pain, angst, ennui, synchronicity, peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, crazy idiocy, near-clinical insanity, and rare moments of sublimity.

You won’t find any of that in this profile, though. OK, maybe a little. But not so much as to frighten you. OK, maybe a little.

numerically

birthday: august 11, 1968
age: 41 (non-holographically speaking)
acim student: 18 years (that’s 126 in acim years – woof!)
successful acim student: 3.2 seconds (twice… maybe. ok once. i think.)
years saved: 100,000,000 and counting
years to go: 900,000,000 give or take 900,000,000
location: usa (385 miles from temecula, 2628 from halifax, 9612 perth)
best time to temecula: 5 hours 15 minutes
worst time to temecula: 8 hours, 48 minutes
speeding tickets on way to temecula: 0 (jinx!)
temecula miles put on monastery bus: 22,671 and counting
number of times i wish i’d never found the course: 8,739
number of times i was glad i’d found the course: 8,739
countdown to enlightenment: 37 minutes 15 seconds

randomly: grew up in canada, was adopted at two months old, started walking at seven months old, started skating at age two (hockey was childhood passion!), didn’t speak much till age three at which time I recited the alphabet backwards (ok, maybe not), started speaking to god from earliest memories, once saw jesus at bedtime (later discovered it was bathrobe on door-hook), at age four managed to get my dad’s prized 68 ford mustang into neutral and rolled backwards down the driveway into a fence (neither god nor the bathrobe could get me out of that one), have had an unreasonable aversion to anything mechanical ever since, while growing up loved my dad more than anything in life, had a very difficult relationship with my mother, often insisted on wearing a tie to kindergarten, skipped grade one (i think the ties helped), spent a lot of my childhood either: alone in my bedroom, outside throwing a ball against the side of the garage, attempting to perfect various sports techniques (mostly hockey or baseball [diving catches in particular]), or reading, had three phobias from an early age: spiders, public speaking, and throwing up (they all relate, metaphorically), wanted to be a minister from age 5-12 (until i learned it involved public speaking), learned i liked to write in grade 7, as a child and teen spent several shangri la summers with my paternal grandparents near a beach, learned to love metaphors in college (guys on my floor in my dorm sometimes called me ‘metaphor man’ — anything for me to finish their english assignments… it worked), had a summer job as a security guard in the admissions department of an old psychiatric hospital built in the early 1800s, survived that to obtain a degree in english, lived in a near-empty apartment as an (urban) monk searching for Truth for three years after graduating, meditated, prayed, read, wrote, always ended up living in high rises which allowed me to see the world from a distance, found ACIM when i was in my early 20s and instantly knew it was my path (its arrival in the mail on my birthday helped), was on an early acim mailing list known as ‘lake latrobe’ for a couple years in the mid-90s which helped my early study, eventually worked for a small magazine (writer/editor) in canada, lived downtown so only owned a mountain bike (nicknamed ‘kit’) for transportation (even in winter), i loved to throw stuff out and had few possessions outside of necessity (both still true), my one junk food weakness: lay’s all natural thick cut plain potato chips, abiding passion through my 20’s: quarterbacking my flag football team, in my late 20’s moved to perth, australia for five years, absolutely loved the country, learned a lot of ‘healing’ modalities (EFT, NLP, reiki etc.) while in perth finally owned my first car (a 22 year old corolla) at age 33 but then had to sell it within a couple months when i decided to move to the usa in 2002, in the months before moving to the usa i was actively researching and contacting monasteries in consideration of becoming a monk, once here almost died in 2004 when i lost 80 pounds due to gastritis, on the same day i started my blog in 2005 a 90-year-old course student gave me “ending our resistance to love” which soon compelled me to attend one of ken wapnick’s workshops in temecula, as when i found acim i knew right away i had found my home away from home and my spiritual teacher and father, when i write my blogs i often listen to the monastery music and hope to hear the music within.

enjoy: a course in miracles, monasticism, monks, trips to FACIM/temecula, reading, learning, teaching, writing, simplicity, inspired art or aesthetic, artistic character-driven movies, chess, football, jamming, old churches and monasteries, the color blue, cats, trees, hammock swaying, quiet music, twilight, candlelight, sunrise, waking up early, bamboo, asian minimalist decor, tibetan milieu and wooden artifacts, simple living, herbal and mountain tea, sensitive actors or musicians or writers or poets or artists, metaphor – allegory – symbolism – parables, subtext, psychology, people-watching, depth, authenticity, honesty, peace, silliness, sincerity, transformation, redemption, truth

music artists: beethoven, yo-yo ma, emm gryner, sarah harmer, adam lambert

instruments: erhu (Chinese violin) cello, acoustic guitar, didgeridoo

soundtracks: the eternal vow (crouching tiger hidden dragon), sayuri’s theme (memoirs of a geisha), lovers (house of flying daggers), castaway theme, the mission theme, finding nemo theme, a beautiful mind theme, empire state building (king kong soundtrack), paperbag (american beauty), kyrie for the magdalene (da vinci code soundtrack), schindler’s list theme

songs: black-winged bird, almighty love, serenade (emm gryner), the eternal vow, yanzi (yo-yo ma), wise up (aimee mann), good gifts (melanie doane), same mistake (james blunt), dante’s prayer (loreena mckennitt), the return to innocence (enigma), thank you, that i would be good (alanis morrissette), o’ holy night (josh groban), sea of chaos (warsaw philharmonic), apologize (timbaland remix), falling slowly (glen hansard & marketa irglova), clouds (joni mitchell), in this life (chantal kreviazuk), the flame (cheap trick), big girls don’t cry (fergie), one (u2, or the cowboy junkies), misguided angel (cowboy junkies), come away with me (norah jones), everybody hurts (R.E.M.)

films: as it is in heaven (!), magnolia, american beauty, fight club, the last samurai, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, memoirs of a geisha, house of flying daggers, vanilla sky, the others, crouching tiger hidden dragon, once, billy elliot, the pianist, american history x, august rush, good will hunting, muriel’s wedding, something about mary, fun with dick and jane, the long road home

actors: alison lohman, jennifer connelly, nicole kidman, zhang ziyi, cate blanchett, kate winslet, tea leoni, edward norton, ken watanabe, daniel day-lewis, terrence howard, jim carrey, hugh jackman, john c. reilly, ben kingsly, adrien brody

books: a course in miracles, any book written by ken wapnick, a prayer for owen meaney, the republic of nothing, my side of the mountain, zen mind beginner’s mind, writing down the bones, watchers, the wanton troopers, the last canadian, cat’s eye, the power of one, boys and girls (by alice munroe), the coming of winter