About

Hi, my name is Normand. I am getting on in life. I have had many life experiences that lead me to this place. This blog is really about me coming out of the closet, as it were. I see this as a place where I allow myself to go public.

It is a place where I am intending to open up to outside eyes and to allow myself to give voice to the thoughts and desires that I have, up until now, kept close to my own heart.

I see this blog as a portal where I give myself permission to state my truth and the opportunity to engage with others in a public forum.

The theme of Sounding Through is really about the ‘authentic’ self.  Back in the 70’s, when the eyes of my heart opened I recall having a very intense desire to live authentically.  I grew up in a context where there were a lot of double messages and I found myself quite sensitive to the hurt that people in ‘authority’ caused when they gave orders that they themselves were not willing to carry out.  I called it hypocrisy.  I remembered the words of Jesus to the Pharisees when he accused them of being whitewashed tombs and of being a hindrance to the people they were serving because, they themselves were not entering.  He pointed out to them that because they were not ‘integrating’ their knowledge into their lives they actually became a stumbling block.  They became like closed doors and no one could enter.  They were intended to be opened doors and facilitators to spiritual knowledge and initiators into the higher wisdom that is God. But, because they did not really understand what they were preaching and teaching they became obstacles in the way of spiritual progress, hence, the term hypocrisy.

I resolved in those days to live a life of truth and integrity, as best I could.  I studied the Christian Scriptures and meditated on them day and night for several years.  They served to give my thinking direction. They served in the ‘renewal of my mind’ by initiating me to principles different than what I had been taught, for the most part.  I learned to think for myself and to be increasingly aware of what ‘proactive’ means.

My studies then took me broadly into psychology, philosophy, theology and all manner of spiritual and secular writings and biographies of great people.  Then I thought I would become a Pastor.  Off I went to Bible College to get a degree in theology and preparation for ministry.  Needless to say my studies there led me to go more deeply into many other fields of study with history becoming very dominant.  I graduated and became a Pastor for a few years.  As my journey into the authentic self unfolded I decide to leave that role and instead get involved in intentional community with a strong emphasis on the need to build community as a means of effecting change in the world and social justice.

All through the years I kept an eye on my soul’s development and living only in ways that were true and authentic, as best I could.  I became more and more aware that the true self does not seem to show itself easily.  Then I committed to extensive work in the field of self-awareness which included a lot of soul searching and re-scripting of beliefs, both personal and inherited.

I am a perpetual student of the human soul or psyche.  I believe that each one of us has a unique mission to fulfill in this world.  I believe that this can be accomplished only by releasing that which is most originally us from the cage of ‘precedents’.  The latter meaning the unconscious beliefs that each of us has formed as children.  These were also mostly influenced by the environment each of us grew up in. So I’m of the opinion that not many of us really know what we want because our true heart is kept hidden from us until the time we are ready to reveal it.

So Sounding Through means the release and expression of that which is uniquely me.  That, in my estimation is the purpose of this life. The ‘person’ I am needs to be released to accomplish what it only can do.

The purpose guiding my life is to use my openness, (honesty and sincerity), my desire for truth, insightfulness, candor and intuition by listening, learning, visioning, synergizing, facilitating and inspiring others and myself to be all we ought to be, so that, as I do, all of my potential as leader is drawn out of me for the highest good of all.

Normand