Whats New Around Here

Just spill it

October 28, 2011, 3:11 pm

Putting my thoughts down on the paper for the first time in a very long time and it makes me feel anxious, like I have septic backup in my chest and a rolling nausea in my belly that is struggling for equilibrium. I don’t know why such trepidation is linked with spilling my guts. Hmm….that choice of phrase might give me a clue. People tend to want to keep their guts right where they are. But such a metaphor doesn’t come from nothing now, does it? It seems that opening oneself up in such a permanent venue such as pen and paper, or in this case, the even more everlasting blog-bound word document, can be a bit like letting people get a look at your insides. I don’t want to spill my guts, though, I’d much rather empty my head.

 What a wonder it would be to have the kind of archives possible today for our grandparents. Imagine being able to see your grandmother’s journal in clear digital starkness; the many musings of your distant relative. My god!  The things that will be chronicled in this age of digital infancy are immense.  Our grandchildren and great grandchildren will look at these archaic files just as easily as we look at them.They will have pictures, blogs, tweets, facebook statuses, youtube video, and emails to piece together whole lives as if they were actually there.No having to see between the stains, creases and fades for them!

There is certainly something to be said for the portraits that lined the hallway walls in great ornate frames of oak. My great-grandparent’s photographs, lovingly kept in leather bound albums by my grandmother, and then my aunt, show the sepia toned ladies in long skirts and high collars, their hair expertly twisted and piled high on their heads. The gentlemen stand looking straight at the camera with proud and serious expresions that are mirrored in the faces of their spouses and their children, all of them frozen in time and space. But looking through that void with their familiar faces, their lives, these freshly furrowed fields, that porch or parlor; they are all in a distant sepia-toned world for which we have very little frame of reference.

It is true that in this age of information, there will be no shortage of detail about every aspect of our lives for future generations to peruse. With the way some people publish the most tedious details of their lives on facebook and in tweets, it makes the jobs of future historians easy. Archeology will have a whole new division dealing with digital archives, and today’s facebook drama will be tomorrow’s historical record. No sifting through the dirt piecing together clay shards for them. They will be looking for the stories of individuals, and communities of digitally connected lives, in full HD.

That being said, let me just say that I hope my grandchildren, etc… have enjoyed this blog, and if I have represented myself well, then I hope you will be inclined to express yourself, too. Be clear and honest, and say the things you think about. Don’t mind too much if anyone will read and appreciate your words, just put them down for posterity. You just never know who might find them someday.

What Happens When We Die

October 28, 2011, 2:45 pm

Most of the people in this world believe in some kind of afterlife.  If this were a collegiate dissertation, then I would have been required to annotate that statement with reference to someone more credible than myself, or with a statistical analysis to offer, however, I only make the statement because I believe it to be true. 

There are a certain percentage of people who believe that the grave is the last stop for both the body and the spirit.  They are forever entwined and forever gone.  Like a leaf fallen from the family tree, you live on no more except to go back to the earth, which nourishes the tree, so that it can produce new leaves. That is a kind of afterlife, when you think about it, even if it does mean getting recycled. That old chestnut about not being able to destroy energy , etc.., can equate to a lot of post-mortem scenarios.

I once heard a story about a man who created a machine that would suck up the residual energy – what many believe to be the souls – of people who died.  He used the energy he harnessed to fuel his automobile, and, on the occasions when enough people died in the proximity of his machine, he was also able to supply his home with fuel for cooking and heating.  He was a doctor, and he kept his machine in his town car under the careful eye of his driver.  He was a good doctor, and he cared for his patients, but when his best medicine could not save them, his machine was always in proximity to harvest the energy that escaped their bodies after death.  He didn’t believe in souls or eternal salvations or damnations. To him, it was just like using the hide of a bear to warm you. After all, the dead bear has no use for it, he would reason, so why shouldn’t you have a warm coat?

The driver became very ill one day and begged his wife not to call for the doctor. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the town car in case he was to die and be sucked into the machine. When he is well again, he vows to destroy the machine. He hopes that the souls trapped within it will be freed, but his conscience is tortured by the soul energy that has already been spent.

I do believe in our spiritual immortality. I have seen it evidenced through reputable mediums, and in amazing first-hand experiences. I also believe in reincarnation. There is just too much in living, too many profound and astonishing reasons why this life can’t be all there is for each of us. The concept of living one life, a random collection of cells that happens to be born into circumstances that are privileged, or tortured, or evil, or blessed, for a long or short or medium length of time, and then gone forever into a void of nothingness just doesn’t make sense to me. This does not compute.

I don’t believe anyone who claims to know for sure what happens when one dies, and the things I was taught in catechism just seem ridiculous to me. In spite of the overwhelming empirical evidence of a tunnel and a great white light, reported by some who died and then came back, I am not sure that everyone will have the same experience when they pass.  I think our afterlife has much more to do with our state of mind, and the beliefs we carry when we die than anything else. It will be different for everyone. Does this mean that Jesus will be there to greet you? If you believe it hard enough it does. And that also means, unfortunately, that those young men who blew themselves up thinking they were martyring themselves for the reward of seventy virgins in paradise will probably get that reward, since that is what they believed. I don’t know what happens to the atheist who thinks the grave is the end. Perhaps it is.

Anyway, I am fascinated with all things ghostly, so I’m certain there will be other blogs to expand on this subject, but that’s it for now.

 Thanks for your time.

October 28, 2011, 1:22 am

So this is blogging. It's just after one in the morning and I am still up because I'm excited to make my first post as a blogger. I find I don't have a whole lot to say, but I did mention that it's early, right? And I am a bit fried from the day, so we'll let this first run be just a ramble to be sure that it's working.

I'm just glad as all get out to have a forum for my musings, if not an actual audience. If I write it they will come? I can't say I'm divinely inspired in this moment like the guy in the Field of Dreams movie was to build his ball field. I do have a lot to share, though, and I can claim divine inspiration on at least some of what will make it to these pages.

Well I guess I've written enough here to see how this works. Love to the world and may the light of divine source always be ready to give you what you need in every moment.

baby chimp kisses!