by Priscilla Berggren-Thomas

By now, I thought I’d be enlightened, or at least listing towards wise. I’d settle for slightly less irritated. But I’d also expected world peace, the protection of the environment, the end of racism, and women’s rights to sort of be a given. So obviously, nothing is going to plan.  

A cape is to blame for my search for enlightenment. As a child attending St. Andrew’s Missouri Synod Lutheran Church I coveted the black cape the minister wore. He stood up in the center of the round sanctuary under the spotlights pontificating every Sunday, while the congregation sat in the dark in the circle of pews. Whether it was that I didn’t want to spend my life in the dark, or because he also wore that cool, swirling, wizardly cape, I’m not sure, but I announced to my mother after church one day that I was going to be a minister when I grew up.

“Girls aren’t allowed to be ministers,” she said.

“Well, they’ll have to change that,” I said, “because I’m going to be one.” In retrospect, I was already way more enlightened than the church, but also considerably more naïve. Because I still believed if you pointed out to people the injustices they were causing they would hop to and say, “oh, you’re right, let’s fix it.” Not what they actually invariable replied, “life’s not fair.”

My parents, confusing belief with enlightenment, sent me off to parochial school, where the teacher explained how Jesus died on the cross to pay for people’s sins. The lack of logic in a god who expected people to forgive but couldn’t manage to do it himself sent me seeking enlightenment elsewhere.

Yet, despite a circuitous spiritual journey over the last sixty years I realized the other day that the universe might be offering me lessons that I just keep ignoring.

My brother-in-law had called to complain about all his siblings thoughts about what needed to be done for his ninety-five year old mother. “She deserves to be at home, if that’s what she wants,” he told me for the fifth time is as many minutes. The thought that he believed he alone was right rasped against my last nerve like a hair shirt. Which is when it dawned on me that spiritual lessons apparently have to be offered by the most annoying people in the most irritating ways imaginable.

“It sounds like someone else I know,” my husband said, after I told him that his brother seemed to think he was right and everyone else just needed to agree with him.

“Yeah, you,” I answered.

Bruce just smiled.

“Well, it can’t be me,” I said, “because I actually am right, I’m not just thinking I am.”

In my more lucid moments, I actually have the niggling thought that I might not be as committed to the whole spiritual awakening thing as I think I am.  

After college and walking away from the religion of my childhood, I became a Quaker, thinking the religion of the founding mothers of feminism might be a good fit. Unfortunately, I found in Quakerism that people can actually believe the same thing I do and still irritate me.

But I really did want to make the world a better place – as long as that involved fixing what was wrong with other people. So, I became a nurse practitioner, or as my husband liked to say “the most unsympathetic health care provider on the planet.”

“My heart feels weird,” Bruce said to me one day, a few years into my NP career. In my defense, it was my day off from work.

“Is it hurting?” I asked, a heart attack being my first worry, as my father had died of one at the age of 47.

“No, it’s doesn’t hurt.”

“Pressure, shortness of breath, like an elephant is sitting on your chest,” I rattled off all the descriptions I’d heard in nursing school and graduate school, looking for the one expression he’d recognize.

“No,” he shook his head, “it’s just weird.”

An inability to describe symptoms runs in his family. His mother always says she “doesn’t feel up to par,” whether it’s a UTI, pneumonia, or a heart attack.

Any good nurse practitioner would have pulled out her stethoscope and listened, but no one had accused me of being good at being a health care provider – I was good at the book knowledge, not the person actually standing before me. (The inability to deal with people turned out to be a running theme throughout my checkered career and spiritual path.) And this was my husband after all, the man who thought he was dying every time he got a cold. No pain in his chest meant he’d live as far as I was concerned.

But the next day he was still complaining and the day after that, so I finally pulled out the stethoscope and listened. Only to discover his heart was doing back flips, somersaults, flying over the vault, and spinning around the uneven parallel bars. I sighed and told him to get into the car and drove him to work so I could run an EKG, which showed what I already knew. He had the most erratic heartbeat I’d ever heard, but he wasn’t having a heart attack.

Bruce turned out to be fine. Some palpitations that were straightened out with a short course of a beta blocker. But I was terminal – terminally unsympathetic. And crap at being a nurse practitioner.

 I enrolled in seminary thinking maybe I could be a hospital chaplain because surely that wouldn’t require figuring out whether someone was having a heart attack or just being an annoying complainer.

While taking a class called Discernment of Calls and Gifts, we had to determine our personality types, Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram. I already knew I was an INTJ on the MBTI, but the Enneagram was new to me.

We were required to read three books on the Enneagram to figure out our type. After the first book, I thought I was probably a Four, the Individualist – because well… obviously I had a mind of my own. The second book made me think I could be a Five – the Investigator, because I had four science degrees after all. The fact I hadn’t actually been good at the work of science was just a little blip. Book three made me wonder if I was possibly a Seven – the enthusiast. No one had ever actually accused me of being enthusiastic, but I did like to avoid pain and move on any time a job or boss got too damn infuriating.

I purchased two more books to read, determined to get this type thing right. The one thing, I knew for sure was I wasn’t was a One – the Perfectionist, because obviously I’d never managed to be perfect in my whole life. It was while reading the fifth book, which called a One a Reformer, not a perfectionist that I read the line that was a blow to my gut. A One thinks there is one right way to do things, and they want it done that way. I cried for days afterwards realizing I was one of the most unappealing personality types there was.

In class one day as we discussed the Enneagram, the teacher, in an effort to illustrate to non-Ones how a One’s mind works, asked me what my pet peeve was.

“People who don’t put their shopping carts back in the corral after they are done with them.” It’s an obvious answer – because really, those people, what are they thinking? Leaving a cart loose where it could get hit by a car or run off and get lost forever!

“And what would be a legitimate reason for not putting your cart away after shopping?” the instructor asked me.

I knew it was a trick question, but I’m a One, so I also knew I knew the right answer.

“Dropping dead of a heart attack as they were taking it back,” I answered.

Everyone laughed.

The teacher’s quirky expression should have been a dead giveaway. “Really?” she said, “is that the only one.”

I shrugged, “could be an aneurysm, or pulmonary embolism, I suppose, but it would have to be something quick, because if you were dying slowly you’d have time to put the damn cart away.”

It turns out that for most people, failing to put your cart in the corral after shopping is apparently a forgivable offense. Who knew?

A couple semester’s later I took the Pastoral Care class. I was still hanging onto the hope that even if I am a One on the Enneagram and an INTJ on the MBTI, I might be able to learn by doing. A kind of fake it till you make it sort of empathy.

I discovered, in the first couple days of the two-week intensive that among a group of would-be pastors, counselors, chaplains, all determined to love the world, you probably shouldn’t introduce yourself by saying you prefer animals to people. A hush that fell over the room. I decided not to add that I thought the world would probably be better off without people.  

As the conversation rolled around and others introduced themselves and talked about why they were there, one woman spoke about how she longed to help people, cared for them greatly, and knew, for a fact, that people were more important than animals. Her lingering stare at me as she said the words even made me, with my limited people skills, realize she was directing her comments to me.

At the time Bruce and I lived on a small twenty-five-acre farm in upstate NY with four dogs, a Golden, Dexter, a border collie, Piper, a Great Pyr, Bear, and a Newfie, named JJ. Every evening we’d walk them through the pasture and up the hill behind our house. We’d sit on the top of the slope and throw the frisbee down the hill, letting the dogs run up and down as the caught and retrieved the frisbee. A breeze would blow through the grass, and the sun would slowly set.

One evening, walking up the hill, JJ and I were ahead, while Bruce came up behind with the other three. Although J.J., Dexter, and Piper, were all went off leash, Bear, the Great Pyr was always on the leash. That dog knew the second he could escape, and would take off faster than anyone could catch him. He’d come to live with us after all when he arrived at the dog pound after escaping his previous owner a few too many times.

JJ ran ahead, and as I crested the hill, I saw her standing nose to nose with a coyote.

“Hold the dogs,” I yelled back down to Bruce. “JJ’s found a coyote.”

Bruce, already holding Bear’s leash, called Dexter and Piper by the collar.

“Dead?” he asked.

“No, alive,” I called, watching JJ and coyote both give a play bow.

The coyote caught sight of me and stood, taking a few steps away. I called JJ, trying to sound firm, but not harsh. “Come on girl, come JJ.”

The coyote turned to run. JJ took a few steps after him.

“J., Come,” I said. She looked at me, looked at the coyote, who was watching, as if in invitation. “Come, J.,” I said, “Now.”

With one last glance back at the coyote, she turned and trotted back to me, her tail wagging.

It was always obvious, eventually even to me, that my dogs had a much better chance of providing pastoral care to a human, or any species actually, than I ever did.  

They were better suited to enlightenment, too, if mindfulness had anything to do with how to get there. At dinner time, as Bruce and I sat eating, JJ and Dexter would sit beside, watching. Dexter sat upright like a Palace Guard at attention, while JJ sprawled across the cool tile floor. Not a muscle moved, except JJ’s brows which flicked up and down as her eyes followed the fork moving from the plate to my mouth and back again.

After managing in get through Pastoral Care, my next hurdle in seminary was the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory which was required for everyone to take.

I had to meet with the psychologist who administered the test to go over the results. He pulled out his folder and withdrew a couple sheets of paper. The top one was a graph, which apparently drew out my results.

“Most people,” he said, already implying I wasn’t most people, “have a line with peaks and valleys.” He pointed at the plotted line on the paper which undulated gently across the page like waves on a lake on a windless day. “Yours is relatively flat,” he looked at me with a look of professional concern. “It’s like you were giving me the answers you thought I wanted. Not what you actually think or feel.”

Well, of course, I was giving him the answers I thought he wanted. That’s what you do on tests, I wanted to say. And really, doesn’t everyone know that the answer to the question “I hear voices in my head telling me to do bad things,” was no? Even people who do hear voices in their head, know to say they aren’t hearing them.

“You are compressing yourself,” he said. “You should listen to your body more.”

I wanted to tell him that if I had listened to my body I would have slugged a lot more people. If I hadn’t compressed myself this whole time there’d be a lot more shopping cart abandoners having heart attacks caused by fear from my deadly looks. Not to mention all the bosses who might be nursing unexplained wounds. But I was still hoping for enlightenment or at least to get out of seminary without being labeled a psychopath, so I didn’t say anything at all.

Seminary pretty much cured me of any religious tendencies. Yet, I knew if I was going to godless, and instruction manual-less, and maybe not compress my totally irritated One – INTJ self, the world was going to need a little protection. I decided to take up meditation.

I bought a couple of guided meditation CDs, a meditation cushion, and set up a meditation area in my home office. Everyday, for probably a whole week or two, I sat for ten minutes a day listening to Sharon Salzberg or Jack Kornfield remind me to follow my breath. In and Out – In and Out, counting 1 on the inbreath and 2 on the outbreath, 3 and 4.

“One,” I’d repeated, breathing in. “Tw…” God, my knees ached! Who invented this position? I shifted my butt. JJ came over and backed up like a beeping truck, and sat on my lap. I scratched her butt, thinking about my to do list. I thought about a conversation I’d had with a co-worker, feeling my chest tighten as the annoyance grew in by body.  

“If your mind wanders,” Sharon’s voice cut into the thoughts, “that’s okay, just begin again”

Crap, I thought, and then “One” as I inhaled, “two,” as I exhaled.

“When you get to 10,” Sharon said, “begin again at one.”

I’ve been meditating off and on for years now and have never actually gotten past five.

I moved onto Paganism. Maybe a spirituality that actually believed in a feminine divine would bring me closer to a real spiritual experience. Maybe a little bit of awakening. I’d settle for an occasional warm and fuzzy feeling.

I bought a book and flipping through the rituals, decided to try one on calming and centering. It required yellow candles, but all I had was a cranberry scented red one. Sage was needed, plus tons of other herbs I didn’t have. A cauldron was called for, and of course, I needed to get my husband out of the house so he wouldn’t be going around asking “is something burning?”

What, I wondered would happen if I substituted a red candle for yellow, an old pot for a cauldron, oregano and basil for alder and angelica? I stared at the recipe and realized this was why I dropped organic chemistry lab. Following recipes or rules exactly, had never been my strong suit. I cook by the” throw whatever you have into a pot, let it simmer, see how it tastes” method.

Bruce was always asking, what’s for supper. “It’s an experiment,” I’d answer. But would experimenting with rituals designed to bring my soul to a higher plane end up sending me down some deep dark holes?  I obviously needed a fast and easy spirituality. Not one that required following the rules exactly.

The one thing I didn’t try – totally refused to try – was a gratitude journal. Call me stubborn and thick-headed, but what was the point of writing over and over, 1-5, thank you (who was I thanking anyway?) for dogs. Dogs, Dogs, Dogs, dogs, dogs. And really, the thought of thanking the universe for the bad bosses, annoying co-workers, crazy family members, difficult situations, “because they’ll help me grow,” made me want to vomit.  In the end, I pretty much just settled with taking the dogs for a walk.

It was only in my fifties while attempting to write a children’s fantasy about a girl with a pet rat ghost that enlightenment came. I pulled out my old Myers-Briggs books, thinking I’d personality type my characters. With a better handle on how they behaved, plot and story would just fall right into place, I thought. Falling down the rabbit hole of Myer-Briggs information on the internet, I discovered whole sites dedicated to personality typing fictional characters.

Looking for what characters had my own type, INTJ, I scrolled through lists that included Hannibal Lector, Dracula, Morarity, Palpatine. Sure, there was also Mr. Darcy, Lisbeth Salander, and Rowena Ravenclaw, but let’s face it, even they had their dark sides – especially Lisbeth.

In my forties, learning I was a One on the Enneagram, the person who always was finding fault and pointing out how to fix things, made me cry for about three days. In my late fifties, realizing I had the personality of the villain of the story brought enlightenment.  And just a modicum of joy. Baba Yaga had a cape, didn’t she?  

Priscilla Berggren-Thomas is a retired librarian who lives in Homer, NY. She writes a monthly column in the Cortland Standard called Raised by Wolves, which recounts the antics of a string of her four-legged companions. She also lives with her long-suffering husband of forty-five years, who chooses to remain anonymous. Among her many “just for fun” degrees is an MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University.