Some think

04.28.06 (3:31 pm)   [edit]

 

Some think magnify

Some think evil glamorous
Power over others something to seek,
Taking and not giving,
Lording it over others,
Consuming endlessly,
Seeking to fill a void
That has no substance.

Evil’s stomach is empty,
That nothing can fill
Since it seeks to absorb
Assimilate what is alive in others,
But once devoured becomes evil itself,
Loosing all life
Only the freezing void for warmth.

Evil is real
Yet without substance.
With no power to create,
Incapable of expansion,
Or movement,
Without some good to devour
Leaving only emptiness in its wake.

Hell is a state
Where emptiness rules,
Its kingdom
Consisting of one lifeless void
Seeking to devour another
Leaving only empty rage
As its reward.

Eternal self regard,
The fruit the tree produces
Turning to dust when touched
Blown away in a dark eternity
Where no light can penetrate,
The soul walled off;
Something it desires and embraces.

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Damian

04.26.06 (5:30 pm)   [edit]
 
 
 


I have known him for many years
Over thirty if truth be told.
He is older than me
a full generation in fact.
He was strong,
Loved to work,
Stubborn to a fault,
Funny;
A clown
Loving to see others laugh.
Age caught up to him
Not the man he used to be,
His strength gone
The mind also,
Being led to places he rather not go.
Locked up so he could not wander,
Told  when to eat
And sleep
Or least it was tried.
The last day I saw him
Sitting with his eyes closed
Trying to breath,
Legs swollen,
Knowing something was wrong,
Seeking help
But not doing what was asked of him.
Knowing me,
Also thinking I was someone else,
A ghost from the past.
I played along
What else can one do?
At midnight
The call came
Not unexpected.
Damian died,
quickly,
Falling to the floor,
perhaps dead before he hit.
Massive heart attacked it is thought.
I loved Damian
And in the end
When his strength was gone,
And his mind
I still saw the younger soul
I met over 30 years ago,
As I sat and prayed over
His now cool body.

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A faint touch of Winter

04.25.06 (6:41 pm)   [edit]
  
 



 


The cool early morning breeze,
A joy after a hot humid day.
The sound of the whippoorwill
With it’s in unending rhythm,
That lulls after listening,
Becoming a soothing backdrop
For the surrounding peace and beauty
That nature bestows.
The gentle sound of crickets
Calling out for their mates to be,
Accompanied by the deep profundity
Of the call of the bull frog,
Lonely with no answer
But with hope renewed
Calls again and again
Seeking an answer from the surrounding dark.
Such is the beauty of a spring morning,
That stills retains a faint taste of winter’s youth,
Long gone,
Now waning, and soon all trace of its manly strength gone,
Until the fall returns,
With its hint of cold,
As it again grows in strength
Calling nature to rest
Until the cycle begins again.

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The door

04.24.06 (5:21 pm)   [edit]
  
 





The door stays closed from the inside,
No way to open it,
No language to call out to others.
Only a nameless longing,
To be touched,
Held,
Loved.
To be simply seen,.
Not to be overlooked,
Ignored.
How to break out?
It is only from outside that help can come.
Someone to see the prison,
That encloses the one trapped within.
A gift
The ability to see
The worth of the so-called unloved.

 

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Practicing Death-The Key to Enjoying Life

04.24.06 (2:40 pm)   [edit]
Practicing Death-The Key to Enjoying Life  
 





Practicing Death-The Key to Enjoying Life
Michael E. Tymn

As I approached my 65th birthday and retirement from the work force last year, I was often asked by business associates and friends what I plan to do with all my free time. I’d tell them I intend to “ practice death. ”

I knew my response would draw puzzled expressions and raised eyebrows, but I would throw it out anyway in the hope that the person would ask for clarification. I enjoy talking about death almost as much as I do reading and writing about it.

Before you decide I need psychiatric help, let me call on several esteemed people to support my position.

The eminent Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung said that it is psychologically beneficial to have death as a goal toward which to strive. Mozart called death the key to unlocking the door to true happiness. Shakespeare wrote that when we are prepared for death, life is sweeter. The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne said that “to practice death is to practice freedom.”

Strange ideas to most, but these great men drank deep from the fountain of wisdom and understood life’s greatest paradox—that in embracing death we can live a fuller, more enjoyable, more meaningful life.

“Death is indeed a fearful piece of brutality,” Jung offered. “There is no sense in pretending otherwise. It is brutal, not only as a physical event but far more so psychically. However, from another point of view, death appears a joyful event. In the light of eternity, it is a wedding, a mysterium conjunctionis. The soul attains, as it were, its missing half. It achieves wholeness.”

It’s difficult for most Western materialists, whether they subscribe to a religion or not, to comprehend such sage reasoning. “The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human mind like nothing else,” wrote anthropologist Ernest Becker in his 1974 Pulitzer prize-winning book, The Denial of Death. Becker explained that to free oneself of death anxiety, nearly everyone chooses the path of repression. We bury the idea of death deep in the subconscious and then busy ourselves with our jobs, partake of pleasures, strut in our new clothes, show off our polished cars, hit little white balls into round holes, escape into fictitious stories in books, at the movies, and on television, experience vicarious thrills at sporting events, pursue material wealth, and seek a mundane security that we expect to continue indefinitely—all the while oblivious to the fact that in the great scheme of things such activities are exceedingly short-term and for the most part meaningless. Becker refers to this “secure” person as the “automatic cultural man.” He is “man confined by culture, a slave to it, who imagines that he has an identity if he pays his insurance premiums, that he has control of his life if he guns his sports car or works his electric toothbrush.”

Becker’s automatic cultural man is a modern description of Kierkegaard’s “Philistine.” For Kierkegaard, Philistinism was man fully concerned with the trivial. Of course, if we are not completely selfish, we also involve ourselves in loving, caring for, and serving others. Those acts seem to at least partially give meaning to our lives and validate our existence, until we ask: If our loved are simply marching toward nothingness with us, what’s the point of it all?

Eventually, one day, perhaps when it becomes apparent that our days are numbered, those repressed anxieties relating to death begin welling up into the consciousness. We proceed to live our final years under a dark and increasingly foreboding shadow. For the most part, the muddled information provided by orthodox religion offers little relief, little comfort.

Becker called repression of death the enemy of mankind. Conversely, the unrepressed life can bring into birth a new way of being. Robert Jay Lifton, a distinguished professor of psychiatry and psychology, makes the same point, stating that we must “know death” in order to live with free imagination.

As I understand it, knowing death is what Montaigne called practising death, a term which seems to have originated with Socrates. As he put it, according to Plato, practicing death is merely pursuing philosophy “in the right way” and learning how “to face death easily.” It can also be referred to as embracing death.

The Larger Life
As I see it, the key to living the unrepressed life is having a sense of immortality, a firm belief that our earthly life is part of a much larger and eternal life. Lifton points out that there are some who can derive satisfaction out of a biological sense of immortality, that there will be a “living on” through one’s progeny. There is also the creative mode, whereby one “lives on” through his or her works of art, literature, or science. However, when we begin to ask ourselves to which generation full fruition, to what end the legacy, such views seem pretty foolish and myopic.

I think the bottom line is that we must accept the survival of consciousness at death in order to free ourselves from the fetters that bind us to our culture’s negative view of death. Unfortunately, orthodox religion, especially the Judeo-Christian form, has done little to help us understand the survival of consciousness. It tells us that faith alone is all that is necessary. Yet, all the practicing Jews and Christians that I know—and I know quite a few—seem to fit into Becker’s “automatic cultural man” mold, escaping from death anxiety through the use of repression. Most of them strive to be one with their toys, rather than ONE with the Creator. Death is a monster to be feared.

To me, practicing death means moving from either skepticism or blind faith to conviction by continually searching for higher truths, cultivating an awareness of the larger life, and then being able to visualize other realms of existence. This is done through constant metaphysical study, through testing, analyzing, and discerning both ancient and modern revelation, through meditating, praying, and pondering, through seeking, serving, striving, struggling, surrendering, sacrificing, and, finally, solving and soaring.

In practicing death, one does not live in the past or the future, not even in the present. One lives in eternity, which is the only true way to live in the present as well as to live in the past, present, and future at the same time.

Practicing death does not mean locking oneself up and hiding from the rest of the world while pursuing enlightenment. It simply means putting priority on searching for Truth so that we can better love and serve our fellow humans in what time we have left. That search might not take any more than an hour a day, the time many of us spend on physical exercise to assure a particular quality of life. However, that hour a day should gradually allow us to better understand life, to savor it, to harmonize with it, to find inner peace, tranquility, and repose, to move closer to being one with the Creator, and to make a graceful transition to the world of higher vibration when the time is right.

The alternative to practicing death, as I see it, is living out one’s final years by doing not much more than growing gray, griping, groaning, groping, growling, grabbing, and grieving—the path followed by Becker’s automatic cultural man.

“Let us have nothing more in mind than death,” said Montaigne. “At every instant, let us evoke it in our imagination under all aspects. Let us wait for it everywhere.”

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The question

04.23.06 (10:39 am)   [edit]

 

The question magnify

When people dialogue about God, the question often comes up if God is personal or impersonal; something that is not a real issue with me, but I am intrigued by it in any case, since it always seems to be in the fore front of many conversations about the Other.

I have never in spite of my reading up on it; have been able to understand what “impersonal” means when it is applied to God.  Does it mean “less than”…&helli p;what?.....less than me?......a blind  unthinking force?  Perhaps it means a God who makes the universe and then steps back, and lets it run itself, sort of like a watch maker.  A God that is only transcendent, out there, separate.   Many seem to prefer that, perhaps they find the idea of God being personal un-nerving, or perhaps just impossible to believe in.  Yet we have creation, which for many points to a creator. A necessary existent, where contingent existence has its beginning; since what is created has no power of and in itself to cause its own creation out of nothingness; to believe that at least in my opinion takes a greater leap of faith than believing in a creator.

Perhaps ‘personal’, the use of the word to describe God is really a problem.  If by personal we look upon God as being another ‘Person’, just bigger; then we run into some real trouble.  I am not sure I would be too happy with the idea that God was like me, just a larger version.  Since personhood means boundaries and limitation; then on some level, perhaps unconscious, God would be just another human being, sort of like the gods of ancient times. 

A ‘person’, cannot be infinite, without boundaries.  Personhood points to a certain identity, a center of thought, a need to interrupt whatever information comes in, and because of that it implies some serious limitations; communication being the biggest one, at least it is in my experience.  So to think of God as a very large person can lead to some serious issue with the whole God question.  

Jesus revealed to us that God is love, infinite love, an ocean of love (another metaphor that limps, but good none the less), something without limitations.   Since human love is limited, it is hard to understand what ‘forgiveness’ and ‘justice’ mean.  When we think of justice we have a certain set of assumptions that we go by.  You get what you put out, and eye for an eye, pain and woe, with a touch of revenge……oh my.    However Jesus forgave his tormentors, embraced those who betrayed him, rejected no one.  So justice for Jesus is different from what is commonly thought by our species.  Perhaps God’s vengeance is love and life.  I got this from a homily given by Fr. Matt this morning at mass. 

Perhaps the wrath of God is in reality God’s love pursuing us to the ends of the earth, wanting to communicate fully the infinite love being offered.  Now a ‘person’, someone who has severe limitations because of the inbuilt subjectivity that comes with it, may have trouble understanding such generosity, unless of course it is applied to him or herself.  Mercy seems to be desire by all; it is in the giving that the trouble starts for many.

Paradox is the only way to get a finite grasp, to get some understanding of God, no matter how small that understanding may be.  Once we get too comfortable with what was once paradoxical, it is time for God to again to flip the tables with a deeper understanding of the paradox inherent in the whole God question.  Love cannot be boxed in, it is bigger, deeper, and wholly other, something we can get a glimpse of from time to time, but with us, it again is boxed in, with need, projection, unstated desires and demands.  God’s love has none of that; it is something that is free, constant, freely given, since all is understood.  To understand all is to forgive all.  God is the subject, hence there is no subjectivity, there is only oneness, and complete union with what is…….and that includes us, all we have to do is to grow in love, understanding and the ability to allow God’s love in.

We can only overcome the past by facing our fears about God and simply diving in.  Don’t believe what your emotions and feelings about God tell you, they are from the past, another box to climb out of.  I suppose that we will be climbing out of boxes for a very long time…….perhaps for eternity……& hellip;not bad really…….the mystery deepens.  That is why eternity will not be restful or boring, but an eternal series of joyful revelations about infinite beauty and love that beckons us all onward and upward.  Higher and deeper without end as C.S. Lewis states in the last book of the Narnia Chronicles

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The 2 step

04.22.06 (9:10 am)   [edit]
  
 




Learning a new job is like learning a new dance step.  I remember when my sister-in-law tried to show me how to do the 2-step. Looks easy, and it is, but learning to do it without counting takes some time; meanwhile the actual counting also makes it hard to do, since it interferes with the actual rhythm that is needed to do anything right, be it dancing or not; to do it properly

Right now I am so busy trying to get all the “details” right that it takes me twice the time that it took Theresa to do any one task, but hopefully my rhythm will kick in the next few weeks, and my self consciousness will lessen a tad.

I am glad for the new responsibilities, since it is making me to deal with some of my under developed aspects in how I relate to what is simply around me.  I am not good with detail, sort of drive me crazy, but now I have to slow down enough to simply “do it”.  So in the long run it is going to be very good for me.

I have a good crew working with me, who know me, and let me know when I am about to flub up, which in the last few days has been a lot.  However over all I have dealt with the literally “thousand and one thing to do”, ok. 

I am very good at delegating, but that comes with pitfalls and weaknesses, something that I will have to try to correct.  It seems that our gifts also come with an underneath that needs to be dealt with, and it seems that I will not deal with that underneath unless I am put into a actual situation where I have to. 


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After Death

04.20.06 (2:51 pm)   [edit]
  
 



Dying, Death & After Death:

Random Musing Concerning the Spiritually Challenged
by Michael E. Tymn

"When you're dead, you're dead," my doctor proclaimed quite authoritatively, as if his medical training had qualified him in subjects beyond the earthly shell. His comment was prompted by having noticed a book about near-death experiences I had brought to read in his waiting room.
"The most important thing to know about death is that you'd better make the most of what time you have," the doctor added in such a way as to clearly drive across the point that he does not believe in the survival of consciousness.
While I fully agreed with his comment about making the most of this lifetime, I doubted that we were anywhere near agreement on our underlying reasons. As I have come to understand it, life is a learning experience aimed at an ultimate graduation to something much greater - a Godhead that no human can really comprehend - and death, except for those ready to graduate, is merely a transition to another phase of that learning experience. Can anyone who does not believe in survival of consciousness view life as a learning experience? Where would the lessons be applied? What is the point of it all?
The doctor expressed concern that my interest in such a morbid subject might indicate depression, perhaps even thoughts of suicide. I informed him that such was definitely not the case. I wanted to explain to him that I consider death a very positive and uplifting subject, that the study of it helps me embrace this life in a much more courageous and fulfilling way, that it helps me be a better person, that it just simply makes me feel good. I wanted to recite the words of transpersonal counselor and author Lily Fairchilde:
"We cannot begin to live fully until we come to terms with the reality of death. We cannot know true courage until we look death in the face and see that it is not a voracious monster with yawning jaws that will eventually gobble up everything we hold precious, but instead a thing of beauty and wonder and great adventure. We will never be free to love fully and without fear until we know deep in our hearts the truth that love never dies, but lives on, along with those we have loved, forever." (Fairchilde, 1997, intro xviii)
I wanted to engage the good doctor in a discussion on the subject, to ask him how much, if anything, he knows about near-death experiences, whether he is aware of the growing body of evidence - even if no more purely scientific than his profession -gathered by reputable physicians and scientists in support of the validity of the NDE. I wanted to ask him if he has investigated psychic phenomena and the paranormal or if he has come to his conclusions from the superficial remarks of his colleagues. I wanted to ask him how much of his profession is probability, or just possibility, rather than certainty.
Cynical Snickers
But I hesitated and said nothing. I knew he did not have the time to discuss the subject in a meaningful way. It is far too complex, too subjective, too abstract, too controversial, too paradoxical. One cannot in a few minutes turn a subject of supposed morbidity into one of joyfulness, a subject of chaos into one of orderliness and serenity, a subject of dread into one of great expectation. Moreover, I suspected that he would reply with the standard scientific theory that NDEs are nothing more than hallucinations of an oxygen-deprived brain, perhaps enhanced by drugs, and that other psychic and paranormal experiences are figments of the imagination or just plain bunk. If he were like most of my scientifically-minded friends and acquaintances, he would most probably react with a cynical snicker at the mere suggestion that he could possibly be so gullible as to even consider so much folly and fantasy. Such snickers seem endemic to scientists and other skeptics, especially those reared in orthodox religion but then "enlightened" by college professors eager to ravage innocent minds and perhaps establish themselves as mini gods.
I understand the scientific method and I know the scientific mindset, but I must admit to not fully grasping why scientists are always looking for reasons to reject survival evidence rather than for reasons to accept it. It seems like it would be a much more positive approach to recognize that there are things outside the scope of science, and to open the mind to the likelihood that there is a spiritual world that cannot be completely understood by the limited human intellect. The eminent Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung had this to say about such attitudes:
"In response to this understandable skepticism, I suggest the following considerations: If there is something we cannot know, we must necessarily abandon it as an intellectual problem. For example, I do not know or what reason the universe has come into being, and shall never know. Therefore, I must drop this question as a scientific or intellectual problems. But if an idea about it is offered to me - in dreams or in mythic tradition - I ought of take note of it. I even ought to build up a conception on the basis of such hints, even though it will forever remain a hypothesis which I know cannot be proved. A man should be able to say he has done his best to form a conception of life after death, or to create some image of it - even if he must confess his failure. Not to have done so is a vital loss." (Jung 1989, 301-302)
As I drove home from the doctor's office, many thoughts concerning his comments raced through my mind: He seems like a caring physician and serves his fellow man in an very honorable way . Does it make any difference what he believes? It would seem that a person who can do good without regard to reward or punishment in an afterlife is a better person than one who is motivated by such reward or punishment. Philosopher-psychologist William James put it this way: "If religion be a function by which either God's cause or man's cause is to be really advanced, then he who lives the life of it, however narrowly, is a better servant than he who merely knows about it, however much. Knowledge about life is one thing, effective occupation of a place in life with its dynamic currents passing through your being is another." (James 1961, 380)
On the other hand, my thoughts continued, will his attitude about survival cause him to be earthbound or flounder in the lower ethers in a state of unconsciousness or semiconsciousness, perhaps not even realizing he is "dead," before at some future time - whatever form time takes or doesn't take in that realm -awakening to his new surroundings? In The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche wrote:
"The teachings make it clear that if all we know of mind is the aspect of mind that dissolves when we die, we will be left with no idea of what continues, no knowledge of the new dimension of the deeper reality of the mind. So it is vital for us all to familiarize ourselves with the nature of the mind while we are still alive. Only then will we be prepared when it reveals itself spontaneously." (Rinpoche 1994, 12).
This Eastern belief is present in. much of Western mysticism, including the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the 18th Century scientist who abandoned his scientific career at the age of 56 and devoted his remaining 30 years to spiritual meditation and mediumistic trances in which he traveled out-of-body to spiritual realms and conversed with spirits. He wrote:
"People who have not believed, in the world, in any life of the soul after the life of the body, are acutely embarrassed when they realize that they are alive. [They] make friends of others with like mind and are separate from people who were in faith. For the most part, they are attached to some hellish community, because people of this sort have denied the divine..." (Swedenborg 1976, 349)
But even Swedenborg, said to be one of three people who might have had an IQ higher than Einstein, gets that cynical snicker from most modern-day scientists. There is the assumption that he must have crossed the line that separates genius from lunacy
My thoughts about my doctor's beliefs continued: But even if he is able to make a conscious transition to a comfortable realm on the "other side," would it not be more consoling to him in his remaining years on this plane to know that he has a soul that will live on? ....How does his attitude toward survival influence his teenage children? Why bring children into the world if all you can offer them is 20 some odd years of growing under your tutelage before you cut them loose for 50 or 60 years of physical decay and then total extinction? What a selfish and cruel act propagation seems in that light.
As Jung saw it, the skeptic "marches toward nothingness" while the believer "Follows the tracks of life and lives right to his death." (Jung, 306)
I wondered if my doctor might be one of those skeptics who claim to be able to quell the inner voices, focus on the present, and live fully without any trepidation toward what they must see as the obliteration of the personality, all the while contributing to the welfare of society and future generations. On the one hand, it seems like such a courageous and unselfish attitude, but when we ask to what end the legacy, to what generation full fruition, it seems more foolish and myopic. I suspect that William James hit upon the truth of it when he wrote:
"I can, of course, put myself into the sectarian scientist's attitude, and imagine vividly that the world of sensations and of scientific laws and objects may be all. But when I do this, I hear that inward monitor of which W. K. Clifford once wrote, whispering the word 'bosh!' Humbug is humbug, even though it bear the scientific name, and the total expression of human experience, as I view it objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the narrow 'scientific' bounds." (James, 401)
As I continued to ponder my doctor's beliefs, a voice in my mind harshly ordered me to halt. Who are you to judge? the voice scolded me. Who says you have it figured out? Are you not being a little self-righteous? What are your qualifications to question anyone?
A somewhat softer voice intruded, but was in agreement with the first voice. Just do your own thing. If the doctor and others like him choose to stumble over their own egos, that's their problem.
But then a dissenting voice pushed its way between the other two. No, that's not the attitude. This whole thing is about love, not romantic love, but the caring and compassionate kind. How can one who anticipates total extinction not have at least some deep-seated festering fears concerning the future, whether he is fully conscious of them or not? You're not trying to "save" hint. You're just trying to offer him a little comfort. How call you possibly walk away from such an opportunity and still assume that you are on the path of truth, the path of love? If you can just plant a seed that might sprout at some later date, it is your duty to do it.
The Death Paradox
The mind rebelled at being an arena for such debate and proceeded to shut off the voices, tuning back into the material world. A few days later, however, the musing resumed as I attended the funeral of a neighbor. As I observed the mourners, the words of French essayist Michel de Montaigne came to mind:
"They come and they go and they trot and they dance, and never a word about death. All well and good. Yet when death does come - to them, their wives, their children, their friends - catching them unawares and unprepared, then what storms of passion overwhelm them, what cries, what fury, what despair!" (de Montaigne 1987, 95)
I couldn't help but wonder about the negativity associated with death by most present and contrast that with the attitude of many people whose views on death have changed following a near-death experience. I recalled a video on NDEs in which several experiencers were interviewed. One of them quipped that upon hearing of the death of a friend's father, he wanted to say, "Well, good for him," but he decided it would be more appropriate to offer condolences. Another comment that came to mind was that of John Van Luyk, as reported by author Ian Currie:
"I can hardly find words for it - the most beautiful experience of my life. I had the most peaceful, contented feeling - but I wish there were different words available to describe it. If you called it peaceful to the 10th power- that would be getting close to it. When they jolted me out of that, I was really mad. The experience changed my whole outlook on death. I think very different of it now - I'm not afraid of it at all. As a matter of fact, I sometimes tell my kids that dying is the most beautiful experience you can have but they look at me as if I'm some kind of nut. So far as death is concerned, I can recommend it to anybody." (Currie 1992, 202)
As I resumed reading the book I had taken to my doctor's office, Lessons from the Light, by Kenneth Ring and Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino, I came upon Dr. Ring's discussion of veridicality studies, those which have in some way been corroborated by witnesses and are not simply unsupported individual reports. Ring, one of the founders of the International Association of Near-Death Studies, begins with the now well-known "shoe on the ledge" case. In that NDE, a woman who had suffered a severe heart attack while visiting relatives in Seattle had an out-of-body experience during a cardiac arrest in the hospital. While still recovering in her hospital bed, she told a social worker of her OBE and how she had looked down from the ceiling watching the medical team at work on her before suddenly finding herself outside the hospital. She vividly recalled seeing a tennis shoe on the ledge of the third floor. She described the shoe in detail to the skeptical social worker, who checked it out and found the shoe in the exact place and exactly as the patient had described it. The social worker concluded that the patient could have in no way seen the shoe otherwise.
While such veridical NDEs are understandably few, it is a bit difficult to write off the hundreds of other documented cases as mere hallucinations. It does seem very strange that dying brains would have such very similar hallucinations. One would think that the variety of hallucinations would be as diverse as nightly dreams. It is also difficult to believe that the "being of light," the instantaneous life review, and the conscious decision as to whether to return to the body or not, common among many near-death experiencers, are all neurological effects or hallucinations. NDE researcher Pamela M. Kircher, M.D., writes:
"When people undergo a life review, each instant in their lives is reviewed, not just the 'big' ones. They find that it matters how they treat people in the grocery line or on the freeway. In the life review, they often experience the event, from their own perspective and from the perspective of the person with whom they were interacting." (Kircher 1995, 94)
Tom Sawyer, a Rochester, N.Y. resident who had an NDE in 1978 when his pickup truck fell on him as he worked under it, tells of reliving an encounter with a man he almost hit with his hotrod when he was 19. The pedestrian said something to him, which prompted Sawyer to get out of his vehicle and assault the man. During his life review, Sawyer, who says he was an avowed agnostic before his NDE, experienced the attack from the victim's perspective.
"[I experienced my] fist come directly into my face. And I felt the indignation, the rage, the embarrassment, the frustration, the physical pain. I felt my teeth going through my lower lip - in other words I was in that man's eyes. I was in that man's body..." (Farr 1993, 33)
More than the experience itself, NDE researchers point to the after effects of the experience as proof that these are not mere hallucinations. Ring observes:
 ".....we know that the NDE tends to bring about lasting changes in personal values and beliefs: NDErs appreciate life more fully, experience increased feelings of self-worth, have a more compassionate regard for others and, indeed, for all life, develop a heightened ecological sensitivity, and report a decrease in purely materialistic and self-seeking values. Their religious orientation tends to change, too, and becomes more universalistic, inclusive, and spiritual in expression." (Ring 1998, 4)
Surely, the skeptics cannot believe that such transformation is simply a neurological happening. Perhaps some of them believe that experiencers like Tom Sawyer are embellishing their stories so that they can sell books or otherwise profit from them. Does the skeptic truly believe that Carl Jung contrived his NDE in order to profit from it? Jung's NDE in 1944 came after he broke his foot and then had a heart attack. He recalled visualizing the earth from high above it and experiencing everything he had ever done and everything that had ever happened to him. In reflecting on his NDE, Jung wrote:
"I would never have imagined that any such experience was possible. It was not a product of my imagination. The visions and experiences were utterly real; there was nothing subjective about them; they all had a quality of absolute objectivity." Jung, 291)
Subdued Smirks
A few days later, as I watched the movie Saving Private Ryan, my thoughts returned to death. An early scene showed a foot soldier having his arm blown off as he charged the enemy on the Normandy beach. Yet, he continued to run, seemingly unaware that he had lost a member of his body. I recalled seeing photographs of the phantom counterparts of missing limbs and reading credible accounts of people who, shortly after amputation of a leg, forgot to use their crutches and then walked several steps on their phantom legs.
The thoughts flowed: With all the evidence to support the existence of an astral body - soul body, spirit body, etheric body, double, whatever name be assigned to it (or even a third body reported by some) - why does mainstream science turn its head and not attempt to examine the relationship here between the NDE and that phantom counterpart? Why does science not make a real effort to study people who have the ability to loosen the astral body from the physical body and have out-of-body experiences? Their numbers are not limited to those having NDEs or to the likes of Swedenborg, Oliver Fox, Sylvan Muldoon, Frederick Sculthorp and other well-documented astral projectionists of the past; there are so many now incarnate who have this ability. Moreover, there are reportedly many doctors and nurses who have witnessed deathbed apparitions of the dying person. Why can't science see the links?
While the movie was set in World War II, my thoughts wandered back to World War I and to the esteemed British physicist Sir Oliver Lodge and his book, Raymond or Life and Death. I recalled how an agnostic friend had been scanning the books in my personal library during a party in my home and had randomly pulled Raymond from the shelf to browse it. To satisfy his curiosity, I explained how Lodge's son, Raymond, had been killed on the battlefield in France and had communicated with Lodge through the famous medium Gladys Osborne Leonard. I mentioned the evidential material that Lodge received, information that no one but Raymond had knowledge of, and which was later verified by the elder Lodge as being true. I explained to my guest how Lodge, one of the most respected scientists of the early part of this Century, subjected all of the information to every scientific test before eventually concluding, beyond a reasonable doubt, that his disincamate son had actually communicated with him through Leonard. But my guest, whose attitude on such matters is "I have to see it to believe it," responded with only a subdued smirk and shake of his head. Later, after my guests had departed, I pulled Raymond back off the shelf and began rereading some of Lodge's words, including these:
"Death is not a word to fear, any more than birth is. We change our state at birth, and come into the world of air and sense and myriad existence; we change our state at death and enter a region of - what? Of ether, I think, and still more myriad existence; a region in which communion is more akin to what we here call telepath, and where intercourse is not conducted by the accustomed indirect physical processes; but a region in which beauty and knowledge are as vivid as they are here: a region in which progress is possible, and in which 'admiration, hope and love' are even more real and dominant." (Lodge 1916, 296)
Sympathetic Smiles
My musing continued but with a 180 degree shift. Rather than the obstinacy of the skeptic, my thoughts turned to the credulity of my aging parents. Since all they have been taught by the Catholic Church is a heaven in which Jesus walks on clouds and angels play harps, a hell in which the devil reigns supreme over an inferno, and in between a purgatory which is just as bad as hell except that it is not eternal, it is understandable why they look upon death as that "voracious monster" of which Fairchilde spoke. Moreover, they have been taught that except perhaps for Mother Teresa and a saintly few like her, everyone who is "saved" must spend some time, possibly decades or centuries, in the flames of purgatory. How can anyone anticipating such an environment not look upon death with fear and great anxiety?
The thoughts raced through my mind during a visit with my parents: How is it possible for the Church to have done such a poor job in preparing its faithful for death? How can I possibly share with them what I have come to understand about the "other side" without rocking the foundations of their faith? If I can convince them that the Church has given them a distorted picture of the afterlife, will it cause them to lose faith altogether and perhaps become even more fearful and anxious in their final years? Is it better to say nothing? What chance is there that they will accept what I want to tell them when it is not consistent with what they have been told by popes and priests? How can their son, a "heathen" who hasn't attended Mass in 30 years and leans toward a belief in reincarnation, possibly know about such things?
I wanted to share with them the discoveries of Swedenborg, Leonard, Edgar Cayce, Alice Bailey, Rudolf Steiner, and other mystics or clairvoyants who were able to "cross through the veil" while still incarnate and then report on it. I wanted to share with them how their discoveries strongly suggests various planes, spheres, or realms making up the nonmaterial world. I wanted to tell them how so much of this is apparently beyond the human vocabulary and why therefore the Church was forced to use imagery through metaphors, similes, and symbols to describe it. I wanted to tell them how that "fire" the church has indoctrinated them with is really a "fire of the mind" on the very low planes, what they would call hell. I wanted to read to them the words of Alvin Mattson, a Lutheran minister, who made his transition in 1970, as channeled through the British clairvoyant Margaret Flavell Tweddell. Mattson, who found himself on an intermediate plane, reported:
"From this point we can progress to higher planes - to higher levels of consciousness. By 'higher' planes I do not mean spatially higher but rather those planes which have a finer vibration... The astral world is almost a replica of your world, except that it is of a finer substance and we are not 'bound' by our objective reality as you are. On the astral plane we are conscious of our personalities and the modes of life we carried out on earth. Therefore, we have denominations on this plane and we continue to practice the rites of our respective churches ...On numerous occasions since I arrived here, I have been permitted to go into the higher planes where there is a unity of God-praise, not a segregation of the praise of God." (Taylor 1975, 41-44)
I wanted to tell my parents how even St. Paul talked about a plurality of heavens (2. COR 12:2-4). I wanted to tell them that those intermediate planes, what they call purgatory, are reportedly quite pleasant, not a blazing inferno. I wanted to tell them that a belief in out-of-body travel, channeling, and other psychic phenomena, does not mean forsaking Jesus or the Bible. I wanted to mention how Swedenborg, Sculthorp, Sawyer, and Mattson all met Jesus during their out-of-body travels. Since my parents put doctors on a pedestal with priests, I wanted to tell them about George G. Ritchie, M.D., who had an NDE in 1943, and how he encountered Jesus as a brilliant light:
"For now I saw that it was not light but a Man made out of light, though this seemed no more possible to my mind than the incredible intensity of the brightness that made up His form." (Ritchie 1978, 48-49)
I wanted to tell them how Dr. Ritchie, like so many others, also saw every moment of his life played out before him. I wanted to tell them how Mattson reported seeing Jesus:
"When I first saw Him, the light and the glory and the surging of power was so tremendous. It was like an avalanche of feeling over me. At the present time I just don't feel that I have found a way in which to describe what it was like - an indescribable contentment and uplifting, a tremendous ecstasy of feeling on all planes, being completely out of yourself, an unusually vivid knowledge of the intense, sympathetic love around you -the warmth of it, the light of it - something that is not external but is part of you. It s like a sunrise on a mountain that is covered with snow, when the colors come down and reflect on you - a dazzling brilliance that would make you close your eyes and yet feel it in every pore or your body. This is the feeling that you have as you come toward the LIGHT." (Taylor, 36-37)
As some evidence that these encounters with Jesus were not mere hallucinations, I wanted to tell my parents that Ritchie, Mattson, Sculthorp, and others all mentioned that Jesus did not look exactly like the pictures we have of Him; and yet, they still knew it was Him. There was so much I wanted to say, but I knew it would bring only sympathetic smiles. My success in communicating with my parents was no greater than with my doctor or my house guest. I again considered my duty or responsibility, if any, in this regard and recalled the words of Alice Gilbert, which she says were telepathically transmitted to her by her son Philip from the "other side":
"To follow another soul into the mire, to walk by its side there protecting it from the ultimate dregs - this must not be done even by love. Each soul has to trudge alone - only so, it can learn to fly." (Gilbert 1948, 25)
The musing continued, however: Does my interest in this subject indicate a twisted personality, as some would suggest? Does it detract from the "real life" things I am or should be involved with? Does it interfere with grasping the lessons of this lifetime? Could it be that 1 am the blind one, not them? Am I the spiritually-challenged one? Or perhaps the reality-challenged?
To each question, my answer, after some deliberation, is always a definitive, if not totally objective, "NO!" To "practice" death for an hour or so a day, as I usually do, seems no less important than the hour a day I give to physical exercise to better enrich the quality of this lifetime. As de Montaigne wrote:
"To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. Knowing how to die gives us freedom from subjection and constraint." (de Montaigne, 96)
And yet I am constrained slightly by those cynical snickers, those subdued smirks, those sympathetic smiles of my associates, friends, and relatives. Whenever I feel so constrained, though, I recall the reaction of Professor James to such skepticism: BOSH!
Still, I concern myself with the spiritually challenged and wonder if I should resign myself to emulating an unidentified victim of the Titanic (possibly W. T. Stead, the spiritualist) whose heartfelt story was told by Colonel Archibald Gracie, a survivor. After the ship had gone down, some of those left swimming, including Gracie, climbed on a capsized auxiliary raft. Gracie later told of a moment, referring to it as "a transcendent piece of heroism that will remain fixed in my memory as the most sublime and coolest exhibition of courage and cheerful resignation to fate and fearlessness of death." When the "hero," swimming in the 28-degree cold, approached the raft, someone shouted that there was no room for him. The unidentified man calmly responded: "All right, boys; good luck and God bless you!"

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Stages of Faith by James Fowler

04.18.06 (11:46 am)   [edit]
  
 



Stages of Faith

James Fowler

Stage I Intuitive-Projective faith is the fantasy-filled, imitative phase in which the child can be powerfully and permanently influenced by examples, moods, actions and stories of the visible faith of primally related adults.

The stage most typical of the child of three to seven, it is marked by a relative fluidity of thought patterns. The child is continually encountering novelties for which no stable operations of knowing have been formed. The imaginative processes underlying fantasy are unrestrained and uninhibited by logical thought. In league with forms of knowing dominated by perception, imagination in this stage is extremely productive of long-lasting images and feelings (positive and negative) that later, more stable and self-reflective valuing and thinking will have to order and sort out. This is the stage of first self-awareness. The "self-aware" child is egocentric as regards the perspectives of others. Here we find first awarenesses of death and sex and of the strong taboos by which cultures and families insulate those powerful areas.

The gift or emergent strength of this stage is the birth of imagination, the ability to unify and grasp the experience-world in powerful images and as presented in stories that register the child's intuitive understandings and feelings toward the ultimate conditions of existence.

The dangers in this stage arise from the possible "possession" of the child's imagination by unrestrained images of terror and destructiveness, or from the witting or unwitting exploitation of her or his imagination in the reinforcement of taboos and moral or doctrinal expectations.

The main factor precipitating transition to the next stage is the emergence of concrete operational thinking. Affectively, the resolution of Oedipal issues or their submersion in latency are important accompanying factors. At the heart of the transition is the child's growing concern to know how things are and to clarify for him- or herself the bases of distinctions between what is real and what only seems to be.

Stage 2 Mythic-Literal faith is the stage in which the person begins to take on for him- or herself the stories, beliefs and observances that symbolize belonging to his or her community. Beliefs are appropriated with literal interpretations, as are moral rules and attitudes. Symbols are taken as one-dimensional and literal in meaning. In this stage the rise of concrete operations leads to the curbing and ordering of the previous stage's imaginative composing of the world. The episodic quality of Intuitive-Projective faith gives way to a more linear, narrative construction of coherence and meaning. Story becomes the major way of giving unity and value to experience. This is the faith stage of the school child (though we sometimes find the structures dominant in adolescents and in adults). Marked by increased accuracy in taking the perspective of other persons, those in Stage 2 compose a world based on reciprocal fairness and an immanent justice based on reciprocity. The actors in their cosmic stories are anthropomorphic. They can be affected deeply and powerfully by symbolic and dramatic materials and can describe in endlessly detailed narrative what has occurred. They do not, however, step back from the flow of stories to formulate reflective, conceptual meanings. For this stage the meaning is both carried and "trapped" in the narrative.

The new capacity or strength in this stage is the rise of narrative and the emergence of story, drama and myth as ways of finding and giving coherence to experience.

The limitations of literalness and an excessive reliance upon reciprocity as a principle for constructing an ultimate environment can result either in an overcontrolling, stilted perfectionism or "works righteousness" or in their opposite, an abasing sense of badness embraced because of mistreatment, neglect or the apparent disfavor of significant others.

A factor initiating transition to Stage 3 is the implicit clash or contradictions in stories that leads to reflection on meanings. The transition to formal operational thought makes such reflection possible and necessary. Previous literalism breaks down; new "cognitive conceit" (Elkind) leads to disillusionment with previous teachers and teachings. Conflicts between authoritative stories (Genesis on creation versus evolutionary theory) must be faced. The emergence of mutual interpersonal perspective taking ("I see you seeing me; I see me as you see me; I see you seeing me seeing you.") creates the need for a more personal relationship with the unifying power of the ultimate environment.

In Stage 3 Synthetic-Conventional faith, a person's experience of the world now extends beyond the family. A number of spheres demand attention: family, school or work, peers, street society and media, and perhaps religion. Faith must provide a coherent orientation in the midst of that more complex and diverse range of involvements. Faith must synthesize values and information; it must provide a basis for identity and outlook.

Stage 3 typically has its rise and ascendancy in adolescence, but for many adults it becomes a permanent place of equilibrium. It structures the ultimate environment in interpersonal terms. Its images of unifying value and power derive from the extension of qualities experienced in personal relationships. It is a "conformist" stage in the sense that it is acutely tuned to the expectations and judgments of significant others and as yet does not have a sure enough grasp on its own identity and autonomous judgment to construct and maintain an independent perspective. While beliefs and values are deeply felt, they typically are tacitly held-the person "dwells" in them and in the meaning world they mediate. But there has not been occasion to step outside them to reflect on or examine them explicitly or systematically. At Stage 3 a person has an "ideology," a more or less consistent clustering of values and beliefs, but he or she has not objectified it for examination and in a sense is unaware of having it. Differences of outlook with others are experienced as differences in "kind" of person. Authority is located in the incumbents of traditional authority roles (if perceived as personally worthy) or in the consensus of a valued, face-to-face group.

The emergent capacity of this stage is the forming of a personal myth-the myth of one's own becoming in identity and faith, incorporating one's past and anticipated future in an image of the ultimate environment unified by characteristics of personality.

The dangers or deficiencies in this stage are twofold. The expectations and evaluations of others can be so compellingly internalized (and sacralized) that later autonomy of judgment and action can be jeopardized; or interpersonal betrayals can give rise either to nihilistic despair about a personal principle of ultimate being or to a compensatory intimacy with God unrelated to mundane relations

Factors contributing to the breakdown of Stage 3 and to readiness for transition may include: serious clashes or contradictions between valued authority sources; marked changes, by officially sanctioned leaders, or policies or practices previously deemed sacred and unbreachable (for example, in the Catholic church changing the mass from Latin to the vernacular, or no longer requiring abstinence from meat on Friday); the encounter with experiences or perspectives that lead to critical reflection on how one's beliefs and values have formed and changed, and on how "relative" they are to one's particular group or background. Frequently the experience of "leaving home"--emotionally or physically, or both--precipitates the kind of examination of self, background, and lifeguiding values that gives rise to stage transition at this point.

The movement from Stage 3 to Stage 4 Individuative-Reflective faith is particularly critical for it is in this transition that the late adolescent or adult must begin to take seriously the burden of responsibility for his or her own commitments, lifestyle, beliefs and attitudes. Where genuine movement toward stage 4 is underway the person must face certain unavoidable tensions: individuality versus being defined by a group or group membership; subjectivity and the power of one's strongly felt but unexamined feelings versus objectivity and the requirement of critical reflection; self-fulfillment or self-actualization as a primary concern versus service to and being for others; the question of being committed to the relative versus struggle with the possibility of an absolute.

Stage 4 most appropriately takes form in young adulthood (but let us remember that many adults do not construct it and that for a significant group it emerges only in the mid-thirties or forties). This stage is marked by a double development. The self, previously sustained in its identity and faith compositions by an interpersonal circle of significant others, now claims an identity no longer defined by the composite of one's roles or meanings to others. To sustain that new identity it composes a meaning frame conscious of its own boundaries and inner connections and aware of itself as a "world view." Self (identity) and outlook (world view) are differentiated from those of others and become acknowledged factors in the reactions, interpretations and judgments one makes on the actions of the self and others. It expresses its intuitions of coherence in an ultimate environment in terms of an explicit system of meanings. Stage 4 typically translates symbols into conceptual meanings. This is a "demythologizing&quo t; stage. It is likely to attend minimally to unconscious factors influencing its judgments and behavior.

Stage 4's ascendant strength has to do with its capacity for critical reflection on identity (self) and outlook (ideology). Its dangers inhere in its strengths: an excessive confidence in the conscious mind and in critical thought and a kind of second narcissism in which the now clearly bounded, reflective self overassimilates "reality" and the perspectives of others into its own world view.

Restless with the self-images and outlook maintained by Stage 4, the person ready for transition finds him- or herself attending to what may feel like anarchic and disturbing inner voices. Elements from a childish past, images and energies from a deeper self, a gnawing sense of the sterility and flatness of the meanings one serves any or all of these may signal readiness for something new. Stories, symbols, myths and paradoxes from one's own or other traditions may insist on breaking in upon the neatness of the previous faith. Disillusionment with one's compromises and recognition that life is more complex than Stage 4's logic of clear distinctions and abstract concepts can comprehend, press one toward a more dialectical and multileveled approach to life truth.

Stage 5 Conjunctive faith involves the integration into self and outlook of much that was suppressed or unrecognized in the interest of Stage 4's self-certainty and conscious cognitive and affective adaptation to reality. This stage develops a "second naivete'' (Ricoeur) in which symbolic power is reunited with conceptual meanings. Here there must also be a new reclaiming and reworking of one's past. There must be an opening to the voices of one's "deeper self." Importantly, this involves a critical recognition of one's social unconscious-the myths, ideal images and prejudices built deeply into the self-system by virtue of one's nurture within a particular social class, religious tradition, ethnic group or the like.

Unusual before mid-life, Stage 5 knows the sacrament of defeat and the reality of irrevocable commitments and acts. What the previous stage struggled to clarify, in terms of the boundaries of self and outlook, this stage now makes porous and permeable. Alive to paradox and the truth in apparent contradictions, this stage strives to unify opposites in mind and experience. It generates and maintains vulnerability to the strange truths of those who are "other." Ready for closeness to that which is different and threatening to self and outlook (including new depths of experience in spirituality and religious revelation), this stage's commitment to justice is freed from the confines of tribe, class, religious community or nation. And with the seriousness that can arise when life is more than half over, this stage is ready to spend and be spent for the cause of conserving and cultivating the possibility of others' generating identity and meaning.

The new strength of this stage comes in the rise of the ironic imagination-a capacity to see and be in one's or one's group's most powerful meanings, while simultaneously recognizing that they are relative, partial and inevitably distorting apprehensions of transcendent reality. Its danger lies in the direction of a paralyzing passivity or inaction, giving rise to complacency or cynical withdrawal, due to its paradoxical understanding of truth.

Stage 5 can appreciate symbols, myths and rituals (its own and others') because it has been grasped, in some measure, by the depth of reality to which they refer. It also sees the divisions of the human family vividly because it has been apprehended by the possibility (and imperative) of an inclusive community of being. But this stage remains divided. It lives and acts between an untransformed world and a transforming vision and loyalties. In some few cases this division yields to the call of the radical actualization that we call Stage 6.

Stage 6 is exceedingly rare. The persons best described by it have generated faith compositions in which their felt sense of an ultimate environment is inclusive of all being. They have become incarnators and actualizers of the spirit of an inclusive and fulfilled human community.

They are "contagious" in the sense that they create zones of liberation from the social, political, economic and ideological shackles we place and endure on human futurity. Living with felt participation in a power that unifies and transforms the world, Universalizers are often experienced as subversive of the structures (including religious structures) by which we sustain our individual and corporate survival, security and significance. Many persons in this stage die at the hands of those whom they hope to change. Universalizers are often more honored and revered after death than during their lives. The rare persons who may be described by this stage have a special grace that makes them seem more lucid, more simple, and yet somehow more fully human than the rest of us. Their community is universal in extent. Particularities are cherished because they are vessels of the universal, and thereby valuable apart from any utilitarian considerations. Life is both loved and held to loosely. Such persons are ready for fellowship with persons at any of the other stages and from any other faith tradition.

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From the depths

04.16.06 (6:26 pm)   [edit]
   
 




From the pit of the deepest hell,
Where only coldness and darkness exist,
A howl was heard,
Expressing agony infinite,
Death defeated,
The light has overcome darkness
Captivity taken captive
Forever defeated
The Lord has Risen!!!!!!



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Holy Saturday

04.15.06 (8:43 am)   [edit]
  
 



 


The body cold in death,
Covered with wounds,
The heart pierced with a spear,
Accepted the frigid embrace,
That the tomb carved in rocked offered.

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Good Friday

04.14.06 (4:23 pm)   [edit]
  
 



The cross beam patient,
Silent,
Just there

Laid on the pavement
Waiting
To be carried
By the one condemned

Placed over the neck
With arms stretched out
Tied with ropes

Heavy
Causing pain
Crushing
To the one bearing it.

Each step agony,
For a body already
Tortured beyond bearing

Falling
The face hitting the path
The neck twisted
With no sympathy from those following

A rest
Short lived
Relief an illusion

Wrist pierced
Then the feet
One nail for that
Then the raising

Looking on those who hate,
Who lied to kill him,
On those who tortured

With only one short prayer
To respond
To such cruelty
“Father forgive them, they know not what they do”.

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Holy Thursday

04.14.06 (10:17 am)   [edit]
  
 





The calm evening;
Warm breeze gently blowing
Among the olive trees,
Old, and bent, with age.


A man apart
Kneeling shivering,
Alone.


Those with him asleep
Over come with fatigue;
Sleep unaware of the anguish
Of the one they follow.


A silent scream
Piercing the heavens,
Heard only by God.


The knowledge of knowing,
The coming pain understood
Needing to be faced
Accepted.


FATHER!!!!!
Let this pass
It is too much


The sweat
Burning the eyes
Coppery to the taste
Becomes red.


Quietly the prayer;
Father,
As you will


God with us,
Tabernacles with us,
Takes on our pain
Our self destructive ways.


That which is most pure,
Most innocent,
Most loving condemned.

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Trust the process

04.12.06 (4:07 pm)   [edit]
  
 





There is a proverb that always seems to speak to me…..”Trust the process”…..a simple statement no doubt, but when meditated upon when going thru some change in life, can be very helpful, and even comforting. 

 
Change can bring to the surface many conflicting emotions, and feelings; excitement, fear, and anxiety, with each flowing thru the conscious awareness one after another, sometimes perhaps being experienced all at once.  Causing a swift experience of “ups” and “downs”, that can be unnerving, and exhausting, to say the least.  Sort of like being on a roller coaster with no end in sight, to an already unpleasant ride. Yet there are times in everyone’s life when this has to happen, since so many changes need to be made, in order to move on with one’s life. 

 
It can be starting a new job, getting married, moving, getting promoted, or simply taking on some new responsibilities that will take a lot of energy and time to learn.  Like a person who is more intuitive, and global, in their thinking, taking on a job that is more detail orientated.  Something that can seem daunting, but in reality can be learned with patience, all it takes is learning to slow down and take one aspect of the job as it comes up, the over all picture will come later.

 
The trick is, to really “trust the process”, that whatever needs to be gone thru is allowed to happen; with the desire to move forward and learn still intact , and the possibility of failure always there, but excepted as part of the equation.  I think the possibility of failure adds a little spice to the whole experience.  Not knowing the outcome is what brings up the emotional roller coaster ride in the first place, it is an ego thing. 

 
Life is about expansion, either in our relationship with the world outside of ourselves, or with our own inner world. Both are entwined, so there are times in our lives when we need to be able to move outward and learn, at other times to go inward and grow in that direction.   Not to do so is to start a life that…. “Does not trust the process”…. and that can cause a lot of restriction and blockage in how life is dealt with.


Trying and failing, is far superior to not trying at all because of some supposed fear of failing.  Failure is just as much a part of life as succeeding, both are important in allowing us to get over the fragile ego syndrome.

 
Fear is there to warn us of some threat, which is good, it keeps us safe.  There are times however when feeling ‘safe’ is just an excuse not to step out and take a chance.  I suppose the only way I can deal with fear is to face it, probably a temperamental thing, I can’t do otherwise, the regret is too great if I don’t.

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Learning

04.11.06 (11:18 am)   [edit]
 
 
 





So much to learn in such a little time,

the information comes in,,

the duties pile up

so I slow down

keep moving forward

trying not to panic,

or collapse,

knowing that in the end

things will fall in place;

they have in the past

why should this be any different?

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The green grass

04.10.06 (6:05 pm)   [edit]



The  grass
More beautiful,
Luxurious,
Sensual,
Than the most expensive carpet,
Spread out in green waves,
Covering the hills.
Deep green,
Evoking serenity
In those with the time to contemplate
Its beauty,
Not lulled by its commonness
But rejoicing that it simply is,
Its silent presence
Responded to

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Pope laments corruption in world

04.09.06 (1:32 pm)   [edit]
Pope laments corruption in world  
 





Pope laments corruption in world
Sun Apr 9, 2006 11:27 AM BST


By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Surrounded by palm and olive branches, Pope Benedict led the Roman Catholic Church towards the first Easter season of his pontificate on Sunday and said selfishness and corruption were devastating today's world.

Benedict presided at a Palm Sunday service in St Peter's Square to commemorate Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when he was welcomed by adoring crowds a week before people turned against him and he was arrested and crucified.

This year marks the first Easter season for Pope Benedict. His predecessor John Paul was in his dying days for all of last year's Easter season and was only able to make brief appearances in the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.

John Paul died on April 2, a week after Easter.

Speaking on a brilliantly sunny day to tens of thousands of people, the Pope weaved his sermon around the contrast between material and spiritual riches and the relationship between personal freedom and responsibility.

After blessing palm and olive branches -- symbols of peace -- he called for people around the world to undergo "a purification of hearts" to help heal what he said was a "lacerated world".

He urged them to look to Christ for help to "overcome the corruption and selfishness which is devastating the world today".

Christ's message, he said was "not to respond to an injustice with another injustice, to violence with another violence, but to remind us that evil can only be overcome with good, not with another evil."

Palm Sunday also marked this year's World Day of Youth, which is held in local dioceses each year and at an international venue about every three years in the presence of the Pope.

The last international day was in August in the Pope's native Germany; the next will be in 2008 in Sydney, Australia.

The Pope, wearing red and white vestments, urged the young people not to give in to the temptations of worldly riches and moral irresponsibility.

"All this sounds convincing and seductive but it is the language of the serpent," he said, referring to the Biblical story where Eve was convinced by the devil in the form of a snake to disobey God.

At the service, young people from Germany handed over to those from Australia a large wooden cross to take the Sydney.

The Pope said their journey would symbolise their attempt to spread peace "across continents and cultures, across a world lacerated and tormented by violence."

The 78-year-old Pope will have a hectic week ahead of him as he leads Roman Catholics to Easter.

He hold his general audience on Wednesday.

On Holy Thursday he presides at two services, including one in which he will wash and kiss the feet of 12 priests in a gesture commemorating Christ's gesture of humility to his apostles on the night before he died.

On Good Friday, he will hold two services commemorating Christ's death, including a Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession around the ancient ruins of Rome's Colosseum.

He says an Easter Eve mass on Saturday night and on Sunday will deliver an Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) blessing and message.


© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.


Posted: Sunday April 9, 2006, 10:38 am
Visibility: Everyone

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The call

04.07.06 (7:10 pm)   [edit]

Things are a bit hectic at work at this time.  One of our key personal is leaving and they are training me to take up part of job which is extensive, and a real challenge to me.  However I love a challenge and am excited about overcoming some of my weaknesses when it comes to work.  I am not all that good at detail, but with this job I am going to have to learn to be, so I am revved up to go, but also exhausted.

I miss posting everyday, but will get back to it in a week or so…..hopefully.

The call

Whatever brings fear,
The desire to not do it
Or anxiety
Is just another way
To answer the call  for me to move forward.

Not to answer is to live in regret
Not trying brings its own punishment
Fear being allowed to box me in,
Because of fear of failure.

Failing is not so bad
If all that can be done is done
And even in that
Something is there to learn
And then to move on.

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The tree

04.03.06 (6:27 pm)   [edit]
  
 





The tree stood in majestic silence,