From Mundane to Magical

I have a new PA system that I use at my Open Sessions. It’s really cool. It only weighs 24 pounds, and is super easy to set up. There’s a subwoofer that stands about a foot and a half tall. Then I insert three 5 inch wide by 2 ft long pieces into that. The three pieces are stacked on each other, creating a long tower that stands nearly 8 ft tall.. All three pieces look like they make up one long speaker, but the actual speaker is only in the piece at the top of the tower. The two pieces below that are just spacers between the main speaker and subwoofer. In other words, they have no purpose in delivering sound to the audience.

Or, do they?

Without those spacers, the main speaker would be at audience level, which causes all kinds of problems with the sound. The sound gets absorbed by the bodies of the people in the front rows, which dampens the sound for the people in the back rows. So, those spacers, seemingly dormant, are actually filled with purpose that makes the whole PA system extremely functional.

Now, if you’ve followed along with my explanation, you might already be seeing how this compares to certain moments in life. For example, I was summonsed for jury duty this past Tuesday. I had to drive from Sedona up to Flagstaff and report at the courthouse by 8am. Just the thought of having to do this caused me no end of angst. I had to cancel my sessions, assure that I woke up and left the house on time, and hope that I could manage to find the courthouse and a parking space near it. (I’m not really very good with day to day stuff that others seem to navigate with ease. Send me out of body, and I’m in my element, however.) Also, just the thought of stepping into the courthouse sent me into a full blown attack of PTSD which I periodically suffer as the result of years of spousal abuse. I don’t like courthouses. My abusive ex-husband tried to get full custody of our daughter, and took me to court. He had an attorney, and I could not afford one. They immediately targeted the fact that I am a trance medium and channel a spirit. They tried to discredit me because of what I do for living. I was on the witness stand, trembling with fear, and I said, “Your Honor, I had no idea that my spiritual beliefs were on trial here today. I am a trance medium, and I am very proud of my work. My work has helped many people transform their lives.” She was unimpressed.

So, going to the Flagstaff courthouse was not just going to be an interesting day serving my civic duty. This was massively challenging, emotionally, physically and spiritually, for Summer Bacon.

I called my friend, Jerry, and shared my anxiety.

“Sum,” he said, “God is the potter, and you are the clay. This is one of those, ‘Yo! Clay, c’mere! I need you!’ moments. Can you just trust that you wouldn’t be going to Flagstaff if God didn’t need you to be there?”

That put a totally new spin on something that I considered to be mundane, stupid, inconvenient, and a total waste of my precious time. Up until then, I was pretty mad at God for allowing me to be summonsed in the first place. After all, if I were to be picked for jury duty, I would not be able to determine someone’s fate anyway. But, as Jer pointed out, there was some reason I was being called to “duty” which might not have anything to do with being on a panel of jurists.

I pulled myself together by Tuesday morning, and made the drive to Flagstaff. I had this feeling that I was to drive in one big circle. Head North to Flagstaff on the I-17, and then drive down the switchbacks through beautiful Oak Creek Canyon when I headed home.

I’ll spare you all the details of the time spent in the courthouse, although I must mention Pat the Bailiff who showed inordinate kindness towards me when the PTSD got the best of me, and I started crying. Happily, within a couple of hours after orientation, we were all told that the trial was cancelled, and we were dismissed and sent home.

As I drove down through the canyon, I realized that the day had really gone off without a hitch, and I had actually enjoyed having the day off driving through the beautiful scenery of Northern Arizona. I thought about what Jerry said, and thought perhaps I’d completed some kind of karma with the court system. Or perhaps it was some kind of completion with the kind Bailiff. (Yup, I really do think about these kinds of things.)

And then I thought of the spacers on my PA system. Maybe I was just a spacer. Maybe I had to drive that circle up to Flag and down to Sedona for some cosmic reason that only God knew about. Maybe I’d been called to make the drive to break up some kind of energy. Maybe my car was a spacer that prevented someone from going fast enough that they would have ended up in an accident.

There are times when life seems to have no rhyme or reason. We’re called upon to do mundane tasks, or get caught up in seemingly pointless experiences, such as making a long trip to a favorite store, only to find that it is closed on Saturdays. But maybe those are the times when we are being called upon to be spacers. Maybe those are the times when God just needs our loving presence to help clear the air, or set an energetic tone for something yet to come.

Dr. Peebles often says, “Relax, release, surrender. Everything is always in right order.” Life is a dance, not a destination. Go with the flow. And, if you find yourself in one of those spacer moments, just know that perhaps, behind that which seems mundane, there is magic being created because of your willingness to hold the space for it to happen.