The word for today is deliverance.

I've recently experienced the phenomena, but the word can mean different things to different people. So what does it mean in FeriCyde context?

This is my definition (okay, some of it is derived from work by Scott Peck).

Several thoughts together. The Lords prayer clearly states:

".. and deliver us from evil ..."

This on the surface may seem a trivial thought, but like a lot of simple things in Christianity, I've found that there are deeper, multi-layer meanings and more powerful implications.

And then there's the whole exorcism process, which although it might sound like it has limited application, in fact can be applied to a host of ills. I applied it to my recent thought-related problems, for example, and it worked fine.

Of course, I might really have been possessed too, but who the heck knows?

More importantly -- did it matter? Seriously?

There are several stages to an exorcism -- one of the first stages is identification of the pretext, and one of the final stages is deliverance. For more on these things, if you're curious (not everyone should be curious, by the way), please read Scott Pecks The people of the Lie. If that's not enough, he has later work on exercism, which will really turn your head (okay, I couldn't resist the pun).

Deliverance...

Until the day dawn, and the shadows flee away. Songs of Solomon, 2-17

Deliverance is the end result of the process of delivery, of being carried through the rough to the point of relief. I sincerely believe that at some of the roughest points of my life, I was carried by some external force through the rough waters. I simply have had experiences that were larger than my life and experience could have tolerated.

Higher powers, in other words, do the heavy lifting. I chose the identifier of angels, but your religious paradigm may provide other names.

Rough points. In my most recent experience, I simply could not sleep. I went to bed and woke with the same thoughts (imagine an endless loop of the same thought patterns that simply would not go away). My sleep patterns were approaching less than an hour a night and showing no signs of getting better.

This had the rather drowning effect of making my waking moments even more depressing. It also makes for extreme emotional instability, but I digress.

There were other life complications, which I can't share here. I asked as many spiritual friends as I could to pray for me -- all at around the same time, and I carefully asked certain ones for a specific result: deliverance.

And for the first time in months, I awoke with something like 5-6 hours of sleep, and a clear mind.

I had been delivered.

I didn't know if it was permanent then (I think it is now, by the way). I was not totally cured of the problems, but in control of my head. This was the good part.

The bad part was that I felt like I had been spiritually run through a meat grinder. My emotions were raw, but in check. It was as if someone had found the volume button for my emotional/creative side and turned it up a few notches. This was different than what I had been experiencing, which was mostly depressive, destructive, unwelcome thoughts and pain, so it was OK. Stuff that was good was so amazingly good (feeling-wise) that it's hard to describe. Bad stuff hurt like hell, but I knew I was going to be OK.

My head hurt like crazy. This went away after a week, so it points to some sort of chemical shift. For this reason I've been cutting out as many unnecessary chemicals as I can(*).

Deliverance implies being carried. It implies external forces in your life. It points to divine powers interacting or interceding in your life -- their finest moments applied to your most dire needs. It may also imply something a bit less obvious: You need to turn the wheel over to God for a bit, because clearly it's in his hands for the duration. This "letting go" can be a bit humbling. I know it was for me.

If you are in the rough waters of your life, I pray for your deliverance.

I pray that you will be carried to that point when you emerge from the rapids into the calmness of the still waters -- when you can look back at the mayhem and the insanity of it all and breath a sigh of relief.

I pray for your delivery. Godspeed.
--FeriCyde

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Unnecessary Chemicals I've tossed out, and why... I've taken the attitude that alcohol is not my friend for a few reasons:

• On the spiritual plane, Alcohol is recognized as something that opens your soul (supposedly it lowers your "vibration" in metaphysical speak), --something I simply don't want to risk.
• Physically/Emotionally, it's supposed to lower inhibitions. Try not to laugh at this if you know me personally.
• It's a depressant. The warming effects of the moment that I might get drinking the stuff just isn't worth the higher depression I'm going to feel later.
• The situations where I drink are just the kind of events where I simply don't want to risk or feel negativity. I need all of the control I can muster.

Reading up on artificial sweeteners, it looks like things like Splenda and NutraSweet aren't so hot either. I've taken to avoiding them more.

I gave up caffeine. This has helped me sleep in some situations (not all of them good, like driving to work and meetings, for example).