The Medium Experience

I went to see Theresa Caputo, the Long Island Medium, in Pittsburgh on Saturday.  I know this is going to come as a huge shock to everyone, but I've actually been doubting the validity of mediums over the last few weeks.  I've been praying much more than I have in a very long time, and for the first time in my life, I am not praying with specifics requests.  Instead, I am praying for clarity, for guidance, for the ability to accept what is unknown, and for the ability to better channel God's love into my life.  Since I started praying, I have had two dreams about Theresa Caputo.  In both dreams I met her, talked to her, and really liked her, but for some reason she was unable to read me.  I woke twice with a feeling of, "It's not real.  She's not truly channeling the dead."

But you know me, my loyalties are not fragile enough to be broken by a dream.  Besides, it's just as crazy to believe that God sent me a message in a dream that the Long Island Medium isn't real, as it is to believe in mediums in the first place.  After a lot of thought, I have come to believe that the dreams don't mean that Theresa is a fake.  Whether she is real or not has no impact on me.  I believe that there is something to be gleamed from them, though.  Whether the message came from God answering my prayers, or the deep recesses of my mind where a teeny bit of logic still resides, is up for debate. (Yes, I swear there is a bit of logic left in there somewhere.  It just doesn't show itself very often.)  What matters is that I have taken from these dreams the realization that I do not need to see a medium.  Would I like to?  Heck yeah! I haven't thrown in the towel by a long shot, but I am slowly abandoning the obsession with talking to my grandmother through a medium.  (Slowly is the key word here too, I might add.  Old habits die hard.)  I've been questioning the validity of channelers, but more importantly, I've been contemplating my fascination with the contacting my grandmother. All this thinking and praying has actually given me some clarity, believe it or not.  I've had several mini-epiphanies over the last month, which are helping to ease some of my obsession.

While I think absolute clarity and resolution are ultimately impossible, three people have helped me to see things with a healthier perspective lately.  The first is my friend Kelley, who after talking to her husband, urged me to be careful in my pursuit to contact the dead, for fear of unholy workings.  It is because of my conversation with her that I have been praying more.  The other was my friend, Sharon, who suggested that I wasn't actually longing for my grandmother, but instead for the comfort which I have always associated with her.  And the third was my friend Jen, who gave me a book to read over the summer about women who lost their mothers in childhood.  By assembling the input from these three sources, I am approaching a better understanding of myself and my needs.

It was that fated conversation with Kelley at work, which started me praying (you know, the one which gave me a disdainful visual of Heinz Hall, full of minions, brainwashed by Satan, all through the hands of the Long Island Medium.  Click here if you didn't read that post).   I don't believe that Theresa Caputo or any other medium is under the influence of Satan.  I felt nothing but good at the show last weekend.  True or untrue, it was entertainment.  If you take it at face value - as entertainment, and not as a guarantee that you are going to talk to your dead mother - then the influence of evil is erased.   I believe it is possible that true mediums exist.  I think some people who claim to be mediums are phony, out to make a buck, skilled at reading people.  Lots of people make money by swindling.  However, I also believe it's completely possible that some people have been given the gift of connecting with the dead.  Likewise, I believe it's entirely possible for our loved ones to visit, guide and protect us from beyond the grave.   I don't believe for one minute that Heaven is cut off from the earthly world.  I think that there are many planes of existence coinciding at any given moment, with Heaven included in those strata.  I don't think that Theresa Caputo is evil, or that her gift comes from a bad place.  That, however, is not to say that I don't think that evil can come into play with mediums.  I believe that the evil comes not from our loved ones talking through a medium, but rather from our desperation to know the answers to questions that are perhaps simply not our burden to carry.  It's that desperation that ultimately undermines our faith and belief in a higher power.  Desperation leads to obsession, to constant questioning, including (and perhaps, especially) questioning the existence of God, leading to extreme anger and possibly in turn, godlessness.  That is when evil wins.  So, while I don't agree completely with my friend, I am also not dismissing her position.  In fact, I would say that I partially agree.  I've never been good with black and white scenarios.  To me, there are always gray areas to be found, and mediums are no exception.  Evil certainly could be at play, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.

Honestly, I could see myself heading down the path of desperation.  I don't always need to know all the details of my life.  I don't always need to be the one in charge, but there are also plenty of times when I do need order.  When it comes to the grief related to my grandmother's passing, I feel disordered, out of control.  It grips me out of nowhere, comes without warning and stays as long as it likes.  I can list all kinds of clinically sound ways to deal with grief, but when it all boils down, I don't really know how to implement any of those methods effectively in my own life.  You can understand why after 24 years, I have moments when I feel beyond desperate.  A person can only take so much.  I joked that Kelley ruined my night out with that awful visual of Satan's minions, but in all seriousness, it was that talk with her that made me think that perhaps I should pray more.  If it's not apparent, I am indeed grateful for her care and for her words.  Up until that point, it didn't really cross my mind that perhaps God was calling to me back to Him, because I was straying too far.  Don't worry, I'm not going to get all bible-thumping, crazy religious on you!  This isn't about me shouting the words of God from the rooftops.  It's about my own personal journey.  So, without telling anyone right away, I began to pray more often, and I have continued for the last few weeks, trying to make a habit of it.  I pray while I am getting ready for work, in the middle of the day when I feel that tightness in my chest, while I make dinner, before falling asleep.  I stopped allowing my mind to wander mid-prayer.  If I lose track of my prayer, I start over and stay focused.  I stopped asking for things, and instead just ask for guidance and acceptance, for the ability to soothe this pain through God's love.  This isn't going to be a testimony about how my life has been transformed overnight by the healing power of God.  God hasn't touched me, or whispered in my ear. I'm not feeling the need to declare myself born again.  My life hasn't drastically changed for the better, and the grief has not disappeared.  But I am aware of God's presence more often.  Right now, just being aware is plenty for me.  It's a big enough change to make a difference in my opinion, and thereby, also in my emotions.  It's working...slowly and without exaggeration, comfortably.

I had a hair appointment after I wrote that last blog entry too.  If you didn't already know, my friend and neighbor has been cutting my hair.  It was just the two of us in her shop that night, and she had read my blog.  She gave me her perspective on the medium.   We talked about me maybe needing to pray more, but what really struck me was when she said this: "Maybe you feel like you need comfort, and because your grandmother was the one who gave you comfort in childhood, you feel like that's where you need to go now." Bingo!  I don't know why I didn't figure this out for myself a long time ago, but she is completely right.  I am displacing my inefficiencies to self soothe, looking for an easy answer.  It's not really about my grandmother. It's about searching for solace.  Not that I don't want to talk to my grandmother.  Of course I do, but if all this bellyaching isn't really about her in the first place, then what good would a medium do?  It wouldn't do much good at all.

This is also where the book that Jen gave me comes into play.  It is very common for women (and men too, I imagine) to look for a resolution to grief in ways which are not reachable.  My life problems would not be gone if my grandmother were still alive.  Even though I feel like that's what I desperately need, I know that if I talked to her through a medium, nothing would really change.  After that hour, she would still be dead.  I'd still be unable to channel her myself, and I'd still be facing the same problems that made me feel so desperate in the first place.   On the flip side, if I could learn to distinguish the difference between true grief, and my inherent, ongoing melancholia, and more importantly, to pacify myself, then maybe I could also lighten my own heavy heart.

I think prayer is a good place to start, because through prayer not only do I become closer to the ...."let go, and let God," mindset,  but I also magnify the blessings in my life.  I have long said that gratitude is one of the key components to happiness, and I stand by that statement to this day.  It is probably not a coincidence that all of these thoughts are culminating right before November, the month which I traditionally set aside for gratitude.  It's perfect timing for me to put into practice what I am preaching.

Am I giving up on the Long Island Medium?  No way!  I love that show.  I'm still going to watch it, and if I have the money, in two or three years when I've made my way to the top of the waiting list, I will absolutely go for a private reading.  But the obsession is definitely waning.  When I feel that desperation mounting (and it will inevitably ebb and flow until the day I die), instead of allowing myself to become consumed with contacting my grandmother and finding the answers to all of my earth-bound questions, I will pray for guidance and comfort from God, and I will remain hopeful that someday I won't feel so desperate.

In the meantime, if you have the opportunity to see Theresa and you are a believer, I suggest you go.  She was loud, bubbly, charismatic an compassionate.   She did readings for over two hours, with no breaks.  She even walked to all the levels of the hall, which I thought was great.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching her.  Go.  Get validated! And have fun!