HEADING FOR THE HEART - Part 9

I studied and participated in some spiritual exercises which were designed to reveal my life's purpose. In each case I realized that I needed to tell my life story. I began to write my memoirs as I pieced together the jigsaw puzzle of a fractured life. It was so cathartic for me. I came to honestly look at all of my faults and transgressions while I was also able to validate the greater positive attributes of my unique human experience. I could see where I had grown by leaps and bounds since I had come back into recovery from sexual addiction. The question was, “What would I do next?”

Thank God! I've always a sense of humor. You sure need that in order to get by in this life! Let me tell you, I especially needed that during the twenty years when I was a social worker. That's when I developed the character of Sister Mary Olga. I did it in order to entertain a colleague of mine. I soon began to develop the other zany characters until I had created an entire cast. I'd call up my friend and I would leave her voice-mails during which I would create spontaneous outlandish and hilarious scenarios. She loved it and that gave me a lot of joy!

That's when I thought to myself, I bet I could write a book about these crazy characters! So I sat down and I wrote a book in a little over a month. The thing was, I still had more ideas...so, I wrote another. Guess what? I hadn't run out of ideas yet! Over the course of the next three years I wrote a total of eleven novels in the series and I still haven't run out of ideas!

Around the time that I was getting ready to have the first book published, I asked my mother-in-law if she would pose in a nun's habit as Sister Mary Olga on the cover of my book. You see, to me, she embodied my mental concept of what Sister Mary Olga should look like. She said, “Sure, Davis. I'll do it for you!”

Unfortunately she passed away before that could happen. As she lay on her deathbed, I said to her, “Jan, I'm going to get you on that cover one way or another!” Thanks to the marvelous illustrator for my cover, that person was able to create a nun's habit over her picture. Once that was done, I dedicated my first book to her.

Only in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would become an author! Yet suddenly I began to write as if it was my full-time job during my very early retirement from social work. If you wonder what I'm doing now, I'll tell you. I'm polishing the other books in the series so that they will be fine and outrageously funny gems like the jewel of this first book that I've created. You can look forward to reading that first sequel. It's called Babes in Bucksnort..

After the second sequel, entitled Have a Heart, I travel back in time to trace Mary Olga's journey from the time she was dunked into the baptismal tank at the Bucksnort Baptist church up until she became a Catholic and later became a nun. I continue to move forward in time which has given me the opportunity to create many more delightfully zany characters as well as to trace the history of the endearing characters you'll be enjoying in this first book.


I must admit that I'm going to be leaving you hanging after the second sequel, but don't worry, I'll pick up the current story line later. I don't think I'm about to run out of ideas for a very long time! Sister Mary Olga and her friends have taken on lives of their own. That's given me a joyful sense of purpose in my own life. The beautiful thing about all of my experience has been that I have discovered I have always been heading for the heart of my being. The journey isn't over yet. The paradox is that I have already arrived at my destination That is also the truth for you!

Author Davis Aujourd'hui

HEADING FOR THE HEART - Part 8

During the summer of my illness, I had profound spiritual experiences. I had a pastor I'd never previously met tell me that I had been called for a great purpose. He told me that I had a tall, steep mountain to climb. Was he ever right!

In his presence, I once again fell backwards to the floor as, this time, I had a physical experience of Jesus' suffering upon the cross. Afterward I felt an incredible sense of peace. As that summer wore on, I experienced empathy for the alienation that Jesus felt during his final week of earthly light. This occurred during a time when people I had counted upon shunned me and judged me as insane. Indeed I took on their judgments and, once again, experienced insanity as another mania followed.

As before it was filled by spiritual experience, though this time much of that occurred before the mania. The other significant difference was that I remained purely sexually sober this time. That had been the opposite case during my previous experience those many years before. All of this experience will be included in another article about living with and recovering from mental illness. In the meantime my next article will be in a lighter vein.

During this mania, I experienced the same delusion as before. Perhaps there had been some foreshadowing. I had a complete stranger approach me one day and ask me if I was going to walk upon water. I smiled at him and told him, “Not today.”

Author Davis Aujourd'Hui

An incredible synchronicity developed within my life. I would only have to think of a person and that person would immediately call me on the phone or appear in my life at some later point on the same day. Songs on the radio spoke exactly to whatever challenge with which I was dealing. On two of my difficult days, I would walk outside into the rain only to find that the rain was falling around me. I would be bathed in a circle of light and I would remain dry.


I spent hours in daily prayer and meditation. Many of the things for which I prayed immediately came to pass. Spiritual insights would come to me as epiphanies. They were “Ah hah” moments in which it seemed as if a light bulb was going on within my brain. More importantly my soul was beginning to understand many of the mysteries of the spiritual realm.

Many of these spiritual truths will be contained within the lessons in Advanced Holiness within my future Sister Mary Olga Fortitude books. I may even write a non fiction book about them. I couldn't do justice to them within the context of an article. They are not mysteries that are unique to me. What I have discovered as I have continued my spiritual discovery is that I have subsequently come upon spiritual books in which my own previous revelations have been contained. Talk about spiritual validation!

All the while, my sexual recovery remained stable during continuing trials within my life. Life was not getting much easier for me, but I was being given strength from God to endure things of which I would never have thought it possible for me to cope with. My life continued to become an amazing adventure. Thankfully my mania came to a peaceful close. Yet my spiritual life continued to unfold.

HEADING FOR THE HEART-- Part 7

Here I was, back in recovery and just in the nick of time. Major life-changing events would begin unfolding over the course of the next one and a half years that could have shaken me to the core without support system. More importantly I had found my way back to a place of faith.

I realized that God was working a miracle within my life when he removed sexual obsession and desire from within me. More and more, I shifted my focus outward when it came to dealing with my own problems. By being of service to others and helping them with their problems, it helped me get past my own. It also awakened me more and more to my spirit and to a sense that there was a reason for everything that happened within my life and the lives of others.

As I have told you in my previous article, my recovery was not perfect. Slips happened, but they were few and far between. In the meantime, my partner was becoming more aware of the significance of my addiction and that it was not about him. Consequently he became more supportive which enhanced my sense of well-being. That was also a consequence of me becoming more honest and aligned with the values of my spirit.

I faced the deaths of my two dogs and the death of my best friend and I remained essentially sexually sober. I grieved during the final stages of my friend's illness, but I was at peace upon his passing. I was also with him when he took his last breath. I did not need to cry. I had faith that he was in a better place. It felt so spiritual to see him look me in the eyes with a sense of acceptance just prior to him taking those final breaths.

In the course of the next year, I faced my own life-threatening diagnosis, the end of a twenty-four year relationship, moving into a new home, suddenly being unable to work and coming close to death. This all happened just after starting a new relationship with a younger man.

Even so, I felt a tremendous sense of peace. Despite a lifetime of incredible emotional pain, I felt as if my life was complete. It's not that I had a death wish. I had a desire to do so much that would be of help to others. That desire was what ultimately saved me as I regained my strength and help with a lot of support from caring people. It's just that most of those who cared for me were not the friends who I would have thought to have been there.

In the case of two of the persons who helped me find healing, I hadn't even known them at the point I'd received my diagnosis. God placed people in my life at exactly the right moment in time. I can now see that He indeed had an ongoing purpose for my life. That would be for me to discover. Discover it, I did!

Author Davis Aujourd'hui

"Putting the Pieces Together" by Davis Aujourd'hui
Available in Kindle Format for .99 cents and can be purchased here !

(Putting the Pieces Together is an anthology of a gay man's journey toward self-acceptance. It is a poignant and intimate book chronicling recovery from mental illness, sexual addiction, and alcohol.)

HEADING FOR THE HEART - - Part 4

Soon thereafter, I met a woman who helped me understand my experience. She had been immersing herself in the writings of Jane Roberts, a medium through whom a spiritual entity named Seth spoke. While Jane was in a trance, Seth would speak through her about the nature of spiritual reality.


Upon reading her books, I was easily able to absorb every word of those teachings as spiritual truths. So many of the things I hadn't previously understood were suddenly put into perspective. I came to accept that we are each part of a larger soul, called an Oversoul, which is the culmination of each of our individual incarnational experiences. Suddenly everything I had previously questioned began to make sense.

I had seen that life was not fair even though I liked to believe that God was fair. I now came to understand that we are each given a chance through multiple lifetimes to learn all of the lessons we need to learn in order to perfect our souls. Whatever we didn't learn or whatever desire we didn't get to experience within any given life, we would be given another chance.

That spoke to me of a sense of fairness that explained all of the seeming inequities of life. It also gave me a motivation to begin to work on my spiritual self. As my life would have it, that spiritual quest would begin to be put on hold as I allowed myself to be drawn further into various addictions which only served to separate me from my spirit. Now I can see where all of it was intended to bring me to my today and to serve a Higher Purpose.

Even in the haze of addiction, I did not stop my spiritual quest. With great interest, I read the books of Shirley MacLaine's own spiritual journey while I explored other New Age teachings. I also began to explore some Eastern spiritual philosophies. As I did so, I began to keep a journal. Occasionally I, too, would write poems or essays that seemed to come from another place. They certainly didn't come from my intellect or my ego!


The challenge I had every step of the way was that my ego would invariably get in the way. To further stunt my spiritual development, I had begun to develop more and more of a pattern of engaging in behaviors that were increasingly toxic to myself. The worst part was that these behaviors inflicted pain on those I most loved. I was living a double life as an addict and I was increasingly losing touch with my spirit.

Author Davis Aujourd'hui

HEADING FOR THE HEART - - Part 3

I wrongly labeled myself as an agnostic after the time I had come out as a gay man at the age of twenty-three. I did believe in God. I just did not believe some of the teachings of man. I lost interest in the Bible because I chose to judge it based on those parts of the Bible that seemed to judge gay people without love. I began my new spiritual quest on a more personal basis. I came to believe that to be spiritual had nothing to do per se with religion.

My beliefs began to dramatically change after I had an out-of-body experience that included a very real dialog with God. It happened suddenly after what seemingly should have been a very serious, if not fatal, car accident.

I was driving about forty-five miles per hour along a curving road at a point where another road intersected at the curve. I noticed a large truck stopped at the stop sign on the intersecting road, but I paid little attention to it as I was rounding the curve. Suddenly a car pulled around the right side of the truck and into the intersection at the very time I was bearing down on it. I had no time to react.

The occupants of the other car were an elderly couple. In a split-second, I saw the female passenger raise her hands over her head and I could see her look of abject terror as I was about to crash into them head-on. Instead my car seemed to pass right through them and I was left in what I can only describe as a trance state.

For the next several hours I was actually having a conversation with God. It was all a form of telepathy, but I was aware of forming metaphysical questions from a subconscious state and I was getting very definite answers. The experience was so profound that it's difficult to put into words.

In the course of the afternoon I found myself in a variety of locations, including the church in which I had been baptized and the local Roman Catholic cathedral. Finally I found myself at the grave site of my beloved maternal grandmother whose death during my early childhood I had never gotten over. While at each of these spots, the conversation continued. I felt such a sense of peace within me. Yet I didn't really feel as if I was in my body. It was as if my spirit was accompanying my body as I traveled, but was separate from it. I also found myself in contact with the spirit of my recently deceased paternal grandmother. She gave me assurance that she was in a better place and that I should not grieve for her.

While I was at the Cathedral I saw my body walking past the stations of the cross and I felt as if I was in direct communion with Jesus, himself. The experience was awesome, but not overwhelming. It provided me with a tremendous sense of relief as well as a peace I had never known. The one new wrinkle in my spirituality was that I started believing in reincarnation immediately thereafter.

Author Davis Aujourd'hui