“Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona” with “My Life” by Amaya Engleking

Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona. Flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father in heaven. Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. ©Alfred Eaker, 2018

(reprinted with permission *) MY LIFE by Amaya Engleking

In 1984 I had colic but through 1993 the years were idyllic, running with wolves and kissing Jesus on the cheek. Watching the stars dance for me outside my bedroom window. When we moved from the sunshine when I was ten my hair slowly turned dark, and soon did everything else. I dreamt of the Colorado mountain skyline like dulcimer notation through the drugs and divorce and would hum the tune like it was family. I hit a grand slam in an all-star game the same year I was hit by a car. My little brother was scared to look at my demolished face for weeks. I didn’t get a permanent implant on my front tooth for a couple years. Then high school and college were all about making the grade. I didn’t get that wasn’t the point and still don’t really. But I never got a calling. Everything I tried to grasp dissipated as if in a dream — friendships, talents, what I thought was my identity. Faulty foundations. I escaped back and forth to China, like the proverbial backyard hole. It’s pointless learning a language if you have nothing to say. 2005-2009 were the darkest years of my life. I was just a shadow of myself.

Only when the Holy Spirit brought me to death when I was 24, did I glimpse true life in the risen Christ. And it was in me! My essence. Because, “For God so loved the world…” And I was part of that love. I discovered the mystical pilgrim church on earth and it far transcended the barbed institutional Churches or man-made religions of the world. Worshipping with anyone who seeks a life for God, I don’t need to defer to dogma of Catholic or any other authorities, as if the resurrection of our Lord, of myself, means nothing. I was again born, but not by unnecesarean section into the world but through the divine birth canal into the spirit, and I’d be forever free from the burden of doubt. I met my husband in 2009 as we were paired as wilderness co-instructors of adjudicated teenagers. Eight days on, six days off and we were learning every day and night out in the Capitan Mountains of southern New Mexico how to surrender to God. Still, for the next several years we battled desperate demons who were imminently losing us to Love.

We married in 2013 and parenthood began right away as I’ve been pregnant and/or nursing non-stop since a month after our wedding. So I will live the gospel like a mother nurses a child. This makes sense, though my story is far from complete. Every so often I miss those stars and their sky pirouettes, but I’ve learned it’s not worth it to be paralyzed by the world’s twirly wonders and then blind-sided and struck down. Abused by something that, while gorgeous and enchanting, never loved me at all. I may still be in infancy in my wisdom, but I do know true Love. And being beloved will sustain me for the rest of my life, and into what comes after.

2017, Amaya Engleking