Janet Smith Warfield

Spirituality is an attitude, a consciousness, a way of seeing life. Religion is an attempt to put spirituality into words – an effort that can never be adequately accomplished because of the nature of words. Words divide. Spirituality is whole and integrated. Words are only reflections. While often, they can guide the seeker to Truth, they are not Truth. Using words to communicate the spiritual experience and consciousness is like trying to hammer a nail using a screwdriver.

A major reason we have war is because some people set their own words up as Truth and then fight with others who have set up different words as Truth. The fact is that neither has evolved to a consciousness where they understand that words are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. This is the huge danger of religion. Religious doctrines are created to codify the spiritual experience and guide the seeker to it, yet in the process of codifying it, they frequently destroy it. Used correctly, religious doctrines guide one’s own actions. They should never be used to control the actions of others.

The spiritual experience is pure awareness, beyond dualistic words, beyond my words, beyond the word “awareness.” And yet it can also include dualistic words. Sometimes, it needs to because they can be wonderful catalysts when used in context to shift energy. They just pop up and they’re there. 

Despite the inadequacy and imperfection of words, we have to put them out there in the best way we know how. It is through putting our words out there and engaging in dialog that we clarify, both for ourselves and others.

I can never know where my boundaries are until I go beyond them. I can never know what my values are until I break them. Perhaps that’s why we humans are called “sinners.”

I am not omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. At any moment in time, I see only a partial picture from a limited space/time moment. Yet act I must, based on the little I know and despite my human limitations.

Lots of time I make mistakes. Ouch! There was information missing from the perspective on which I acted. Good! I’ve broadened that perspective and added a new piece of information. Now maybe I understand why the Ten Commandments were written and why there are societal rules you break at your own risk.

I have also gained experiential knowledge that serves me well in making my next choice in this limitless world.

There are times when conflict has value. Not conflict in the sense of physical warfare, but conflict in the sense of standing firm in one’s own integrity and spiritual centeredness when confronted with another person’s angry, judgmental, and self-righteous denunciations. To stand firm may create conflict, but it is like the conflict of the river that thinks it can push the rock out of its way. I can actually be a catalyst to an angry person’s spiritual growth by saying ‘no’ and allowing them to realize that their anger belongs to them. It has nothing to do with me.

© 2009 Janet Smith Warfield All rights reserved

I was nine when my father cried

head cradled on mother’s shoulder

his father’s casket surrounded with flowers and hushed voices.

I did not know the old man

a stern German who shared little of himself

but my father cried.

Then when my father died,

remembered by his music and the Navy hymn

my own tears flowed – for my father, my sons, myself

so many words unspoken

so many hugs unshared

so many possibilities entombed …

© 2009 Janet Smith Warfield All rights reserved

I find it useful to think in terms of intentions, rather than goals. Goals are fixed results that allow no room for divine intervention. So often, when I’ve thought I knew where I was going and where I wanted to end up, divine intervention has taken me on a different path. When I haven’t been willing to listen thinking my goals were better than the larger plan, I’ve been gently blocked, sometimes paddled, sometimes whipped, until reluctantly, I’ve pulled back and let go of my goals in order to allow something better to manifest. Not in my way, but in Thy way.

Dear Bill,

I remember how excited I was when I discovered I was pregnant. My first child. Would you be a boy or girl?

Well, I had that one all figured out. I was going to have two boys and then two girls. You fit into my plans, as did your younger brother Steve. Your youngest brother Russ didn’t. It was time to reconsider.

You did cause me a bit of morning sickness, but after our first trimester of pregnancy, that stopped. In our ninth month, it was hard for me to bend over and move. You, on the other hand, were moving around all the time, even in the middle of the night. You’re still moving, aren’t you?

I was very careful with my diet. I did everything the doctor told me and gained only 20 pounds. I wanted to give you all the support I could.

I couldn’t wait for you to make your appearance on this planet, both for your sake and mine. You accommodated my wishes and arrived ten days early. Even though you were early, you were large – eight pounds, twelve ounces.

Your birth was not easy – on you, me, or my gynecologist. My water broke around 3 a.m. You didn’t make your appearance until around nine that evening, after eighteen hours of labor for both of us. You were born head first, but didn’t have enough room in my womb to turn around and be born in the normal position. Shortly afterwards, you had difficulty breathing. The pediatrician placed you in an isolette. I developed a kidney infection. We remained in the hospital for nine days.

I can’t tell you how mesmerized I was when the doctor placed you (this perfect little baby) on my belly. Five beautiful little fingers on each hand, five beautiful little toes on each foot. (I counted them.) Even then you were active. We looked at each other in amazement.

From the moment I brought you home, I adored you. I adored all my sons. They all seemed like such beautiful little miracles. I sang to you every night before you went to sleep. When you were old enough to understand, I read stories. After supper, the whole family sat at the dining room table and played Parcheesi, Monopoly, fish or crazy eights.

You rebelled against toilet training, but then you’ve always been a bit of a rebel.

When you were little, I can remember taking you on amusement rides in Ocean City, New Jersey. You were always more interested in how the ride worked than you were in the thrill. You raked leaves in the fall, jumped in them with your brothers, and got asthma. You were never much interested in my garden, but you did occasionally pop strawberries, raspberries, peas, and blueberries into your mouth.

You climbed trees and explored the woods near our Vineland, New Jersey home with your best friend, Mike Hemighaus. I was glad you and Mike found each other. He and his family were a positive influence in your early years.

We often spent weekends at Union Lake in Millville. Your father raced his Sunfish while I sat on the beach with you boys. Occasionally, your father would take all of us out on the lake in his largest sailboat. He taught you a lot about sailing.

We frequently spent summers at your father’s grandparents’ home on Penobscot Bay, Maine. It was easiest for your father and me to drive at night. You slept most of the way so we didn’t have to listen to “When are we going to get there?” When you were awake, we played games – finding signs with every letter of the alphabet, looking for license plates from every state in the union, playing I See Something Red, and of course, singing.

That Maine water was frigid, but you boys never seemed to mind. You jumped off the rock at the side of the house and explored the beach at low tide. Occasionally, we’d take boat trips to Spectacle Island or car trips to Bar Harbor.

You were always a good student. In high school, you joined the chorus. I got goose pimples listening to you.

When you decided to go to the Naval Academy, I was both proud and uneasy. What would the Academy do to my son? At the end of Plebe Summer, I found out. In just six weeks, you had transformed from a wet-behind-the-ears kid to a man. I remember hearing about a few escapades that were not repeated and getting stuck with a Naval Academy yacht (was it the Cinnabar?) on a sandbar in Delaware Bay.

Upon graduation, I could not understand why you chose the submarine service. Being stuck in a submarine for weeks on end seemed claustrophobic to me. “Submariners are the cream of the crop,” you explained. Even then, you valued excellence.

I remember the day you took us out on a Dependants’ Cruise from Norfolk Harbor. Because you were navigating, we got to stand with you in the conning tower. How fascinating to sail over the Bay Bridge Tunnel and out to the continental shelf, watch the dolphins through the periscope playing in the bow wave, and listen to them on the sonar.

I think you and Carol Anne had already decided to marry when you first introduced us. I remember thinking how pretty she was. A few years later, Sydney and Chan made their debuts onto the planet.

So here you are, twenty years later, two submarine commands under your belt, decorated with medals, and having visited Tokyo, Guam, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrein, Italy, Switzerland, France, and many other places you can’t talk about. You, Carol Anne, Syd and Chan have lived in Virginia Beach, Annapolis, Aiea, Hawaii, and Saint Marys, Georgia. You have navigated the North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Adriatic Sea, and many other bodies of water you can’t talk about. You have also successfully navigated a world of character-building experiences (as you would say) and developed substantial wisdom.

Now, as you, Carol Anne, Syd and Chan look forward to a new and very different life, I want you to know I love you and wish you well on your journey.

Happy 48th Birthday, Bill. I am honored to be your mother.

© 2009 Janet Smith Warfield All rights reserved

As I age, I allow my anger to surface quickly. Allowing it to surface does not mean I act out on it. It does mean I notice it.

Anger is always bringing me a message I need to decipher. Usually, it has to do with unmet expectations and sometimes, lack of accountability. The messages for me are not to expect anything from anybody, be grateful when what I ask for does happen, and learn to stay away from people who have demonstrated they can’t be trusted.

© 2009 Janet Smith Warfield All rights reserved

My mother spent her last year in a nursing home. I visited when I could. Crippled with arthritis, hard of hearing, mind moving in and out of dementia, one Sunday in a moment of sanity she blurted out, “I’m just no good to anyone anymore.”

On Tuesday the nursing home called. “Your mother aspirated on her food this morning. The doctor has placed an order in her file saying she is not to be given food or water by mouth.”

My mother had a living will. I was her medical representative. She had written me a letter years before saying she did not want artificial life support systems. All she wanted was good food and water and relief from pain.

The enormity of what was happening began sinking in. The doctor had imposed a death sentence on my mother. Euthanasia. As my mother’s personal representative, I had the power to countermand the doctor’s order and request a feeding tube.

My mother was 91. Her life had no quality. She knew it had no quality. Yet she had requested food and water.

The doctor was too busy to speak with me. The compassionate nurse practitioner spoke with me at length.

My nephew’s wife was a nurse. My sister-in-law had worked in hospitals for years. Both had witnessed patients whose families tried to keep them alive, only to have them die excruciating deaths by pneumonia. Both said the same thing. “Let it be.”

I sat by my mother’s bedside and held her hand. She squeezed mine. The following Sunday, she gasped her last breath.

Her body was in my hands. Her soul was in God’s.

© 2009 Janet Smith Warfield All rights reserved

In discussing Esther Hicks (Abraham) and Jane Roberts (Seth), a friend commented, “Interesting that the woman of the couple is the one doing the channeling in both cases.”

I was just reading that women, physically, have a much broader connective tissue between the left and right hemispheres of their brains. I do think the feminine energy (right brain) tends to be more intuitive, wholistic, and open to finding harmonious and integrative solutions.  The male energy (left brain) tends to be linear and goal-oriented. I believe it is simply not possible to experience spiritual centeredness using left brain tools. While useful in simplifying experiential data, focusing our attention on certain aspects of it, and allowing us to manipulate it, these left brain tools are human-created and fallible. This does not mean that left brain tools can’t catalyze spiritual centeredness. They can, when used one-on-one creatively.

© 2009 Janet Smith Warfield All rights reserved