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Years ago I was in the middle of a startup that consulted with companies on how to make their cultures more customer-driven. We had a great USP -- we were offering the branded programs created by Tom Peters -- but the business wasn't taking off as well as my partners (2) and I had planned. (Basic rule for entrepreneurs: Plan for the Unplanned)
But we were getting to the point of no return: should we hunker down (even more), borrow more money and hang on, or should we cut our losses and hang it up? I was so committed to the ideal of our work (we had seen some pretty amazing turnarounds in Fortune 500 companies) that I just couldn't envision stopping...I thought we just might be at the breakthrough point! But my two partners, who were probably more pragmatic, weren't so sure. Over a period of several weeks we hadn't come to any decisions. I do remember, however, that many meetings to discuss what to do included at some point my statement, "I have this vision...." Looking back, it sounds like I thought I was the only one who had a vision. Aaargh.
During this period of time, I got afflicted with that weird eye disease -- conjunctivitus -- that gets progressively worse and hangs around for a long time and for which there isn't a medical cure (this was about 12 years ago). What a DRAG! It is the kind of thing where you begin to think, "I'm never gonna get better!"
The eye doctor (which is where I evidently caught the thing when I went in to have my contact lenses checked) prescribed some medicine but said it wasn't going to cure it (he said you gotta let the disease run its course, which could be 3 weeks or more -- ick!), but it would relieve some of the annoying symptoms.
Well, humph. If the medication was actually going to do something I would have used it. But since it wasn't really getting RID of it for a long while, I decided to treat it with spiritual prayer. I have had good results in healing diseases through specific prayer treatments -- I was sure this was going to be better than "letting the disease run its course".
So over the next few days I prayed to understand better who Spirit is and my identity and relationship vis a vis Spirit. See, to me, we are all really spiritual beings, created by the Creator of all living things to be the reflected image of goodness and purity. Which means, there is no separation between the Creator and the creation (me!). Now, most of the time I either forget this or don't understand what this really means in a particular situation. Which is why praying works to get me lined up with what is spiritually true.
Soooo, if my true and only self is actually the reflected image of the Creator then either the Creator has conjunctivitus or I DON'T have conjunctivitus....one or the other can only be true. One morning, I was pondering this and many other thoughts about my spiritual identity when I went to church and the sermon was on the BIble story about Jacob who is wrestling with an angel . At one point, the angel says "Let me go..." and Jacob says, "Nope, not until you bless me..."
Boy, did I want to be blessed right then, too. This eye thing had been going on for about a week and I wanted it GONE.
Then, right at that moment, something flitted across my consciousness. It is hard to describe actually because it was just a fragment of an idea about true VISION. And I mentally struggled to hang on to the idea, to get a fuller picture of it -- and it hit me it was like Jacob and the angel!
The idea that came to me was this: the only vision that mattered was the vision of the Creator. Since I was the reflected image, I reflected Spirit's vision, but I wasn't the creator of it. Talk about a big bull's-eye on my business "vision" that I was clinging to.
I hung on to this idea, and it became stronger and clearer in my consciousness...until I truly felt I was blessed with it. And when I felt truly blessed, the weight of the business decision lifted from me. I still wasn't sure what we should do, but I wasn't hanging on to "my" vision of the way it should work.
And that's not all. Within a few hours the conjunctivitus cleared up. Went away. DIsappeared. I could see clearly again. When I visited the eye doctor later in the week he was pretty surprised and said, "Gee, your eyes have cleared up a lot faster than anyone else's."
True vision about the spiritual creation is what I needed to get a clearer picture about.
My partners and I came to a good resolution not too long after that. I continued with the consulting work, incorporating it into the value set of another business that I was running. Everyone was pleased...and blessed. Read more blogs from Grits.
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