by Judy Alexy
My parents were raised in the Southern Baptist Church. When I was six months old, they moved north from New Orleans and to Pittsburgh, PA where we began attending an American Baptist church. I don’t remember experiencing any strong resistance to my Sunday school lessons, but I did get God and my father confused. I kept telling myself that my dad must love me because I was his child, but I didn’t feel that love and certainly never felt safe. Thus, God became a distant figure that judged me harshly and felt dangerous. I remember church being mostly focused on Jesus and His love. I can remember questioning how a good person who had never heard of Jesus could be denied entry to Heaven. The answer: “Because the Bible says so.” Fortunately, I did not struggle with a passionate indoctrination about sin, hellfire, and salvation; instead, I connected to sermons that had a more intellectual appeal and the hymns that resounded with praise to Jesus. The church remained my hub until I left for college.
After college, I got married. I bounced around with irregular church attendance, continuing to find the Baptist churches easiest to relate to. But over time, I lost my connection with church and for years careened from one spiritual path to another, sometimes delving into several at a time: I was attracted to Edgar Cayce’s work and joined a Search for God group (based on the Cayce teachings) that really began my deep dive into things spiritual; I was drawn to the Christian mystics because I resonated strongly to their devotion to Jesus; I studied with the Arcane School (Alice Bailey) very seriously for a couple of years and still have all her books; I read the Mormon Bible, as well as all of Wayne Dyer’s books, and as those of Carlos Castaneda and Eckhart Tolle, to name a few others. As I think about it now, it is mind boggling how far and wide I was seeking to gain an understanding of who God was and what role I had in His plan.
Somewhere along the line I picked up the idea that I was a worthless person who could not possibly reach the connection with Jesus I so longed for. I felt it was my job to stamp out every bit of my sinful self, like the way St. Ignatius Loyola flayed himself with a whip. This seeking was also heightened by a tremendous fear that what was really required of me was to be crucified. As strong as my longing was for a deep personal relationship with God, I was also terrified of what sacrifices He would ask of me.
When I was about 30 years old, I was hired to direct and teach a nursery school at the church where I grew up. The church was led by a young minister who seemed to display all the passion I was seeking for in my private searches, and I renewed my connection. My husband and two daughters were baptized by him, and I threw myself wholeheartedly into the children’s ministry. However, after ten years of personality clashes with the minister, I found I could no longer sit comfortably through a traditional Christian service, as I was mentally rewriting what I was hearing in the sermons. Sometimes, I would walk out of the service because I felt so much pain in the words being used to describe Jesus’ teachings. I eventually left the church and my ministry and began working as an in-home counselor for children at risk.
I missed the worship community, so I began attending a Unity Church where I found I did not have to rewrite anything and could stand and sing “Let There Be Peace on Earth” with tears streaming down my face. They had a great bookstore, and it was there that I first came across the three-volume set of A Course in Miracles (ACIM, the Course). At the time, I was also looking at buying Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh when I heard a voice in my head telling me, “Judy, you can have your own conversations with God.” I purchased the Course but couldn’t get into it, even though I kept going back to it year after year.
I first began working with Gary Craig’s Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT or tapping) in 2001 and used it very successfully in my counseling practice. In 2014, I began a year-long coaching program with Christy Whitman’s Quantum Success Training Academy that is based on the teachings of Abraham delivered by Esther Hicks. On April 7, 2015, I had a major stroke which left my right side compromised. Thankfully, the teachings of Abraham had sunk in enough that I didn’t sink into despair and depression. I was convinced that being partially immobilized was not my destiny and immediately began searching to understand why I had had the stroke.
In 2018, I went back to the Gary Craig’s site and discovered that his EFT that he had described as the bottom rung on a stairway to miracles was now designated as OEFT (Optimal EFT) and focused explicitly on the work of the healing power of the Holy Spirit (which he called the “Unseen Therapist” to avoid turning people off with religious terms). It was his description of OEFT’s goal “to remove the blocks to Love’s awareness” that immediately resonated with me. I did not know until then that his work was the result of his being a Course student. Once again, I was being drawn to ACIM! And yet, I was only dipping in and out of the Course. I remember telling my OEFT counselor that the Text (the theory) made so much sense that I never wanted to read another book… only to lay it aside again. In the summer of 2021, when I was desperate about my inability to shed excess weight and a decrease in mobility, I started doing the Workbook (a one-year practice program) for the second time but stopped the daily lessons in October because I had so much resistance.
Meanwhile, I had been listening over and over to Alan Cohen’s A Course in Miracles Made Easy and Marianne Williamson’s Return to Love. In January 2022, I began to do the Workbook again and read the Text with the commitment to finish both by the end of the year. In August, I acknowledged to Holy Spirit that I needed help to go deeper into the Course. I bought the Complete and Annotated Edition (CE) of the Course and within days I made connection with the Circle of Atonement (the Circle) and began attending their Workbook classes. I immediately felt at home thanks to the welcoming spirit of Mary Anne Buchowski (a teacher at the Circle). I attended the Circle’s Sunday gatherings and did not have to rewrite any of the teachings of Robert Perry and Emily Bennington.
I wish to close by sharing a shift that happened this past week in one of Mary Anne’s Workbook Zoom classes. I had intellectually accepted a long time ago that Jesus came to show us the way to God, but in doing Workbook Lesson 258, “My only goal is God,” I realized I have substituted my devotion and love for Jesus for truly seeking God; while I could feel the love and patience of Jesus, God has been like the Wizard of Oz, blowing smoke and bellowing behind the curtain, leaving me completely intimidated. I mentioned earlier that as a child I got God and my father confused. Now thanks to the Course, the love my heavenly Father has for me is taking hold. I no longer feel I must destroy myself to be acceptable to Him; all I have do is show a little willingness each day to follow the path He has laid out to the home that I have been seeking all my life.
It has taken me 35 years to really commit to the Course and I have written this story that it may give encouragement to others who have had similar experiences. I don’t know if my body will ever be fully healed, but I do know that every day I spend with the Course, my heart and mind are healing. How amazing after a lifetime of frantic searching to realize I now have a guide for the rest of my journey. I have no doubt that all this time, the Holy Spirit has been gently but steadily leading me to this path. And for this I am ever so grateful.
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