THE CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION: JUST AROUND THE CORNER



Just a few days ago, Gina suggested going to the church around the block for their Sunday program.

When I first arrived in Munich and the taxi driver stalled at the church to find the mysterious Althener Platz, I noted it with unusual curiousity. The kind of curiousity that comes from beneath all thinking.

I passed it again and again on my way to places, and I was curious, curious..each time. Mattison Grey is a great teacher around curiousity. (find Mattison at www.greystoneguides.com)
Curiousity is a tool that totally unfolded in me from being almost dead. Formal education kills curiousity most of the time. Those that let themselves be curious and follow their curiousity, don't always follow the same beat as you would expect. They may surprise you and suddenly cut out of a planned activity or take a different road.

Here's my words of wisdom. Let someone..a child..an adult, yourself! be curious and follow it. If they change plans at the last minute or suddenly this or that, don't be alarmed. It's a GOOD THING. That's why I love project based learning, the way I used to teach it. From one day to the next my kindergarten class never knew how our project would unfold or what direction it would take, especially since we had 25 ingenious little wizards and 1 large wizard participating. We had the most amazing learning. It was learning that the children generated and will never forget.

Curiousity requires letting go of pre-judgement. In the past, I would have immediately discounted going to visit a church, based on childhood memories. I got hints that it was time to let go of all that judgement. Just before I leapt to Europe, I volunteered to go to my parent's Methodist Church with them, and magical things happened. We sang a song, newly written that was about following the dream and literally brought me to tears of gratitude. In another church, a gay and lesbian church, there was ecstatic dancing which brought me to a flood of tears. ( I used to NOT be moved to tears, no matter what)

So, even though I may find there are certain practices in organizations which are wrong teaching, wrong education..basically anything that cuts humans off from following their own inner guidance, there is still a heart.

So I went to the Anglican/Episcopal Church of Ascension just a block away from Gina's and the tree of gratitude, to their English service. As I enter I meet another visitor, Celeste, who says that she is attending this church, because she chooses a church that empowers her to follow her own inner guidance! The service began with a reading:

"so now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe,so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you."

and for me the statutes and ordinances are my own inner guidance. and my inner guidance is saying...stay here in Munich for a while!

"so that I may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancenstors, is giving you"...is the land of The Jewel. I have lived there in that region many lifetimes. I actually lived on the deserts of northern Africa and the middle east as a bedoin princess. So The Jewel is the closest I can be to that area..it is just 15 miles across the water to Africa. And yet, its not only because of the past that I'm supposed to be there, it is the future, too. There is work to do there to help mother earth move through, transition , the way she is wanting. And part of it, is creating a new type of community.