Wow! A Metaphysical Bookstore With a Church Attached

Metaphysical bookstores were one of my favorite places to hang out in Boston. I also went to workshops, saw a psychologist for 4 years, worked in halfway home for juvenile deliquents, majored in psychology and joined the Institute of Noetic Sciences in my quest to discover who I was.

While I was learning about myself psychologically, I still spent a lot of time trying to understand God and the world. One of the questions I was trying to answer was, what did the major worlds religions have in common? Having taken a class on eastern religions, I found it hard to go to "just" a Christian church. I kept thinking that there had to be a Truth that was true in all religions.

After many months of pondering this, I am came to the conclusion that all religions taught Oneness in their own way and the purpose of life was to know our Oneness with God. I wrote out my new philosophy, religion by religion, in great joy.

In 1989 I moved out to Pasadena, CA to go to acting school. I had decided at the end of college I wanted to be an actress without ever actually having done any acting. It appealed to me because unlike college where all the knowledge was to be found in the head, acting included the body, the emotions, and I craved to experience the physicality and emotionality of life. Acting seemed like the perfect choice for a career.

While in Pasadena, I found a metaphysical bookstore in the neighboring city of Santa Anita. Upon arriving, I was amazed to discover there was a beautiful church there too!! I couldn't imagine what kind of church would have a metaphysical bookstore as part of it so I eagerly went to a service on Sunday. To my amazement, the core principle of this church was Oneness. "There's a whole church with my philosophy!" - I remember the exact place I was standing when I had this euphoric realization.

In my psychological work I had gotten used to always finding what was wrong with me and what I could do to improve myself. Now, sitting in my first New Thought service at the Santa Anita Church I was hearing that my Real Self, was whole, perfect and complete, that there was nothing wrong with me, nothing I needed to fix, or change. I was loved just as I was. I deeply breathed in the ministers' words and felt relief and joy wash over me. Even in the midst of my human imperfection, I was perfect. And this wasn't true just about me, but all beings, regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation.

I was home.