Finding Our Way Here

by Jeffrey Phillips

The dream came to Diane in March of 1998, early in her career as a spiritual counselor. We were driving down a blacktop highway surrounded with gorgeous green forests, as she was trying to convince me that we had to move to North Carolina.

At first Diane resisted the idea. After all, we had hopes of someday moving to a friend's ranch in Oregon, where we would build a spiritual retreat. So she ignored the dream, until it became a daytime vision, and she finally asked me, "What do you think of moving to North Carolina?" To both of our surprise, I just said, "O.K."

With acknowledgment of the dream's spiritual message, the synchronicities started to happen. Too many, in fact, to list here, so let me just list a few that are typical of how the path was cleared:

Diane averaged a couple customers a week, but immediately had 3 in two days who came from North Carolina.

All but one of our animals (3 dogs & 4 cats) died or found new homes before we left.

My son and stepdaughter decided to live with their "other parents" and stay closer to friends and family.

A year earlier, we had bought a 37-ft. travel trailer to put on our friend's ranch in Oregon. Now it would become our home on wheels.

I gave my employer a 3-month notice. Of course, they thought me crazy for leaving a secure job of 11 years making more than $54,000 a year. But all the same, on July 31, I had my own independence day. Less than a month later, we were on the road.

For thirty-one exciting days we traveled across the country, seeing what sights called to us spiritually. We traveled spontaneously, often dropping the trailer in a campground to go explore the area. We discovered America and rediscovered each other.

Finally, we arrived in the "Triangle" area of North Carolina (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) to find gorgeous green forests along the highways, and a state campground for our first night in our new home state. But as we arrived in the Triangle, so too did my fear, because the easy part was over, and the pressure was on to find a more permanent place to park the trailer, and to find work.

Within three days we stumbled upon the RV Park that would be our home for the next two years. Within a week, we found the herb store where Diane has her practice yet today.

A wonderful Christian lady named Pat owned the store, called Herbal Harvest III, in Durham. We walked in to check it out and Pat and Diane connected. Pat told us about how she had this space to rent to just the right person, and how she had prayed to the Lord for that person to be presented. We talked almost four hours, during which time not a single customer entered the store to interrupt this spiritually sanctioned event. Surprisingly, it turned out that Pat lived just down the road a mile past our trailer park home, and could easily drop by in the mornings to pick Diane up for work.

Despite the ease and grace with which we found Diane's niche, I wandered my own mental wilderness over the next year, as I struggled to find my calling. I eventually fell into depression as my insecurities grew and my writing, which I had hoped to support us with, was poisoned by it.

Then one day, I volunteered to work for Pat at her store, and in walked a man with whom I connected. He had seen Diane's spiritual counseling sign and thought to ask if we knew of any metaphysical churches in the area.

To make a long story short, Carl and his wife Sherry had moved all the way from southern Illinois to an apartment just three blocks from the store. This set into motion a chain of events culminating in the four of us starting our own metaphysical church called the Spiritual Chapel of Inner Light.

Carl and Sherry helped me find my calling in the church (leading me to become an ordained minister), which in turn helped me find my old self-confidence, and a secular job, which I enjoy and which pays the bills.

So life is nothing like it was 3 years ago when a burned out Radiation Safety Officer quit his job at a nuclear waste dump without a clear idea of where he would go or what he would do. Life is brighter than ever, because it is filled with the light of purpose, love and spirit. Here is the greatest reward of all from this experience: To find one's highest and best calling is truly a gift directly from heaven. Yes, I am blessed, but then so are you. So go in Peace, dear friend, down whatever path you may choose.

NAMASTE.

Diane and Jeffrey Phillips are co-founders of the Spiritual Chapel of Inner Light. Diane is a practicing Spiritual Counselor, and Jeffrey is an ordained Spiritual Science Minister at the Chapel. For more information, see the calendar listing under Worship Services for the Raleigh/Durham area.