Shoot the Gun That’s Meant for You: Finding and Using Your Spiritual Instrument
Welcome to our fifth installment of our Summer Camp News Bulletin. Last week we revealed the full mystery of the cabin with two bears, the little white mare, and the two-word prayer. We are now in the midst of Experiment 2 which has everyone taking the stage, emphasizing the performance art of spiritual cooking rather than the passive non-art of aboutive looking. In other words: more tinker, less thinker.
This week we’re sharing Brad’s recent unusual dream that takes us back to Africa. It brings a teaching about finding and using the spiritual tools that are meant for you:
I was in Africa hanging out with some of the men who formerly helped me travel into dangerous remote areas in search of healers. All of these men had been in the South African special forces and some had served as the bodyguards for Nelson Mandela (which is how I was able to meet him). A few of these soldiers became vigilantes with stockpiles of rocket launchers, machine guns, and grenades. They once let me hold an Uzi open-bolt, blowback-operated submachine gun. I refused to shoot it because I wanted no traumatic shock of its force on my piano playing hands and wrists. In fact, the only gun I ever shot in my whole life was a BB gun.
In the dream, my bodyguards and I were in a roadside shop where we stopped to get supplies. Suddenly we were ambushed by terrorists. I was handed a gun and told, “You must use it if your life is threatened. Do not hesitate to shoot.” I could see that my situation unambiguously benefited from holding a firearm. Within seconds, a heavy weight man faced me and was ready to kill me with a knife. I pointed the gun at his heart and pulled the trigger. The gun would not fire. The man saw that he had me cornered so I spontaneously tossed my gun to the nearest bodyguard, the one who had given me the gun, and he used it to finish off the attacker before I could be harmed.
I was stunned and confused in the dream, not so much by the attack but primarily because I could not figure out why the gun didn’t fire. Why did nothing happen when I pulled the trigger, but it fired easily in the bodyguard’s hands? It made no sense. After the fight was over, I asked to examine the gun. I pulled the trigger and again, nothing happened. Puzzled, the bodyguard took the gun back and fired it without any problem.
Everyone else laughed except the man who had given me the gun. He felt guilty for putting me in a situation where I would have to pull the trigger and then live with the consequences of taking a life. That was not something that would bother him in the line of duty; he just didn’t want me to deal what that kind of shit. I was surprised, however, that I felt no remorse for having pulled the trigger—that terrorist intended to kill me, and my response was a natural reaction. I was more focused on the mystery of why I could pull the trigger but not fire the gun.
After the gunfight we all gathered in the bar and I played the piano. This was something they loved to do out in the bush — kick back in a cozy lodge surrounded by wildlife as I played the piano for a singalong. It felt like Hemingway was with us, tipsy in the wild. The man who had handed me the gun had now recovered from his bad feelings after a drink or two and a song.
He is the last person I’d expect to deliver a teaching in a spiritual classroom, but suddenly he was hit with inspiration. Perhaps it came after he witnessed me truly in my element with my hands on the keys. The man jumped up on the bar to announce, “I get it. All of us were made to shoot a certain kind of gun. Some of us are called to be warriors and others are called to be healers, singers, dancers, bar tenders, or piano players, among other necessary roles in life’s wildlife show.”
He poured me another whisky as I proceeded to play a Broadway love song, thinking I should remember my bodyguard’s teaching and never mix it up. Otherwise, I would likely find myself confused and out of tune.
Shooting N/om
Set in Africa, this visionary teaching carries ancient Kalahari Bushman reverberations within it. Any gift involving n/om is seen by the n/om-kxoasi (healers) as comparable to an arrow, nail, or spear. They “shoot” n/om. A n/om gun belongs to another kind of outlaw, one who rides among the stars with the Sky God’s posse. These outcast characters were born to be n/om gun slingers, archers, and spear throwers. They shoot up a holy storm when they come to town. Others are called to fulfill other equally vital roles with different kinds of props in play.
If you hold a gun not meant for you, it won’t fire, no matter how many times you try. Find your spiritual firearm, tool, or instrument and use it wisely. And make sure someone else is covering your back, someone who has found their instrument and knows how to use it. The next time you venture out into the everyday wild, remember this ecological wisdom that is being shot straight at you from the original cradle of humanity.
-The Keeneys June 28, 2020