Month: January 2021

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Trusting God [ Post # 54 ]

In previous blogs I stated my very simple religion as ” Love, Trust God, and F the Rest.” And I mean “fooey with” the rest. That is what works for me as my personal religion. Look, religion can be and is a very complicated subject and very controversial. I like to keep things simple. I believe my simple statement covers everything.

Taking my statement apart, let’s look at each part of it. The first part is “love.” Wow, that’s a big subject. Perhaps I’ll cover that in a future blog. This blog will be concerned with the second part of my belief/religion, “Trust God!” What does that mean? That, also, is a big subject. Gee, how many books have been written about trusting God? And that means what, exactly?

You live life. You live a lot of life. You go through a lot if you live to a decent middle or old age. You get kicked around a lot by life. You get hurt, abused, damaged, perhaps. Of course, you probably also get blessed, loved, excited, lucky, successful, happy and satisfied abundantly, hopefully along the way. Lots of good and bad is usually the mixture we experience over the years. We keep “moving on” unless we get really down and hit rock-bottom and decide to give up or end it all as a way out. That’s a very sad decision or choice to make, but it’s always available. So, unless we do opt-out of life, how do we make it? How do we survive the yuck, the sad, the dark, the disappointing periods we travel through? Well, as I see it now in my life, it comes down to a “trusting,” a trusting in “something.” Atheist or believer, I see it as us trusting in something.

This is where it gets all crazy and confusing and bizarre, as I see it. There are many, many ways to see life, and many beliefs to have regarding what it all is about. There are many paths to take, many ways to see how life works and how it doesn’t work. So, how do we handle all of this? This mystery of life, as the song says, “what’s it all about, Alfie?”

Well, I’m not going to get into what it is all about. I may be an enlightened soul, but that is way beyond my understanding, really. We’ve got religions and philosophers for that. That’s their business to sort out and try to make all of life into a logical system. I’ve done quite a bit of that myself, and will probably always continue to work in that region of thought and consciousness until my last breath. But for now, let me turn to how to live now, today, with no absolute certainty of what it ((life) is all about.

I very strongly believe that we have to face what’s right in front of us. I mean, really, what choice do we have? As they say, “it IS what it IS!” Life, ultimately, goes one way, the way it goes. (Oh, I am so profound, aren’t I?) I guess that’s called fatalism. Yet, I transcend that fatalism by my “trusting in God.” Hey, what? A contradiction here, you say? Well, I don’t think so, really.

So, regarding faith. I say that I have faith. Faith?, Faith in what? How can I have faith if we don’t have any real absolutes, certainties, gurus, etc.? Well, now we are touching on that part of my religion where I state, F the rest (fooey with). I do have faith. I have faith in what I call God. Others may use other words. The universe, life, etc., but I use the word God. The unseen force, creator of life, of the cosmos, etc. It’s the perspective I have on life. There is the unseen world. There are forces at work in life which you can sense if you open up to all of life, as I see it. I believe we can communicate with that force, God. I believe we can trust in that force. I believe we can live in peace, no matter what may be occurring at the present moment in time.

Now, I’m certainly not saying that things may not be going well, from our personal perspective. It seems that bad things do happen in life. Sometimes, some very bad things. We can get down, we can be devastated, hit bottom, seemingly have no hope, no faith.

But that is exactly where, as I see it, my trusting God comes into the picture. Life happens as it happens. I do my part by being awake, being aware of as much as I can. I rely on what I sense as the Divine force (God) in life. I communicate with the unseen side of life through contemplation, prayer and meditation. I listen, I pause, I open myself to what is going on. I sense the invisible dimension of Spirit life. I cannot control everything in life, but I can trust. I can surrender to the Good of life, the God, the Divine. And I do.

Now, I do not in any way put down those who have a very elaborate religious system in place in their life. You may have specific beliefs and rituals and rules which you live by. You have “your” religion. You deal with life how you believe you should. That’s fine, I say, if it is done in love, in a loving, compassionate, open way. If your religion is a religion of hate and meanness, well, I do have a problem with that.

So, “love, trust God, and fooey with the rest,” that pretty sums up what I live, what my religion is.

Wally

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Emergency Blog: Dealing with an Unhinged Person; Insanity [Post # 53]

I had been working on two upcoming blog posts when I had an experience that caused me to put those two projects aside and consider this post as more necessary at this particular time due to current events. I delayed working on this blog until I was sure I wanted to write this post in a public forum. I feel it is time to discuss this particular childhood experience as I relate it to what is happening right now, this very week in our world, our country.

I awoke two nights ago with a very strong memory and thought on my mind. The subject was how we personally handle a mental problem, an unstable person, an insane person. Yes, I know insanity is a “legal” term but you know what I mean, a person who we say has become “unhinged.”

I had an experience when I was probably six years old or so. An experience most people would never talk about, you know, one of those “family secrets” that we take to our graves, as thy say. I wrote out this brief essay and gave it to a few very close friends. I said, just yesterday, “this is not going to be a blog but I just want to tell you something.” Well, just twenty-four hours later, after reading my essay several times, I had a change of mind and decided I needed to say this since I have an experience that I relate to what is happening in our country right now. Embarrassed? Ashamed? No. Embarrassing your family, no. I don’t see it that way. If anyone is, that’s their problem, not mine. So following is the short essay I gave to a few very close friends:

Ok, time to say what all that’s going on is doing to me. Yeah, bringing up memories that I see parallel the current world situation.

I lived with someone who, as I see it, had three psychotic breaks as they are called (my view, I’m not a trained medical person). There were three incidents I am aware of when my mother “became unhinged.”

I was involved and present in one of those events. It is burned into my memory. It’s one of those “family secrets” that never gets talked about, never dealt with, just “forgotten,” hopefully, so life can go on. Yeah, don’t face it, don’t deal with it.

So, the one incident I was a witness to and a participant in was when I was very young, probably around six years of age or so. My mother “went crazy.” I don’t know the why or the what, I just remember my family subdued and tied my mother with rope to a chair in our dining room. My father commanded us to go through the house and collect all knives and scissors that may be lying around anywhere. We did, and secured them so they were4 out of her reach.

Someone, probably my father, called the police while we kept her tied up. Eventually the police arrived and took her away. She ended up in a psychiatric hospital/sanitarium in Glendale, not far from our house. She was there for some time and received shock treatment, which was quite a cruel experience in those days. One day we got a call that she had escaped from the facility through a window and was loose in town. Somehow, as I recall, she made it the few miles to our house in Eagle Rock. That’s my memory.

So, how does this relate to current events for me? Well, I see our president in a bad mental state. As I see it, he is “unhinged” right now. He is crazy and out of control. He has a lot of power, he has the nuclear codes, the military at his command, etc. Similar to my mother having access to knives and sharp objects, etc. lying around the house. Yes, a crazy person in a crazy state of mind and the number one priority in that emergency situation is to subdue the person and protect ourselves, whatever it takes. Yes, even with a person one loves very deeply, one’s own mother. Protection is number one!

There. That’s my story. That’s the experience I had as a young kid. Trauma, yes. A memory forever burned in one’s memory, yes. This memory was deeply hidden in my unconscious mind but surfaced in the middle of the night due to our situation of us (this country) having a president that is unhinged, in my opinion. Yes, you people of his base have all types of excuses of why this is not so bad a thing or how this was “set up” by the Antifa people, etc. etc. Well, I say this is a dangerous situation. An unhinged person with such great power needs to be reigned in and brought under control. Period. Whatever it takes. I had to do it with a family member. A loved one. We do what we have to do for the safety of all.

My mother had two other major incidents similar to this. My purpose in discussing this should be obvious. So this memory is now out there and you know why I think dangerous people must be subdued and controlled, no matter who the person is or what the situation is.

Wally