Love. There’s a word that’s used a lot. Thrown around a lot. Casually and very seriously. “I love this!, I Love that! Love’s what makes the world go round,” etc., etc., etc. Yeah, we use the word love a lot, don’t we? Everyone desires love in their life. They say it gives life meaning. Even with the psychologically unbalanced, with the hardened criminals, all the misfits in life, the psychological experts would agree. The lack of love in their lives is part of their problem. It seems that love is required to have a real, meaningful and satisfying life.
Having gone through a lot in life, I would have to agree that one thing that is required to fully live, is love. In fact, at this stage of life, I would go so far as to say it is really everything. That may sound extreme, may sound very “new age.” But after living a long life, I would stick with my statement that love is everything. After studying a lot about religions, about philosophy, about life, psychology and evil or the dark side of life, it seems the only thing that really matters is, “have we loved? Really loved? Has our life been about love?
I am of the belief that love is Divine. True love is beyond us. It is from another realm. It is not part of the ego. It is, well, like, “magical.” The apostle Paul wrote the famous chapter on love in the New Testament which I think sums it up very well. Says it all, I think.
At this point in life, I am totally committed to living a life of love. I’ve lived other types of life. I’ve lived a life of turmoil. I’ve lived a life of confusion, bitterness, hate, resentment, revenge. Like most people, I’ve “acted out” at times in life. I’ve reacted to manipulations and abuse in so many ways. I feel “I’ve done it all.” From here on out, just give me love or forget it. No more crap. If you are not going to relate to me in a loving way, well, be on your way. Have a good life. Just stay out of mine. I do not accept the unloving stuff in my environment any more. Period. This past four-year period of the political situation this country has been in has had its affect on me. I’ve seen so much unloving action and expression that it has changed me. I cannot respect people I have previously had respect for. Some were close people. Does not matter. When I see the hate, the false accusations and slander, I’m done. Now the biblical passage of Jesus telling his disciples to “shake the dust off of your feet and leave the unaccepting people and move on” makes sense, takes on a whole new meaning for me.
So, I will only live in love from here on out. Decision made. But what does that entail? That question brings me to the second part of my essay. I strongly believe that to love with true, real love, one must go through a process of surrender. Yes, I know that word has bad connotations in this world and society. Surrender. Usually means, to people, to give up, give in, lose, be a loser, etc., etc. And some of that is true. But I think we need to re-define the word.
If you are truly going to love, I say some surrender is necessary. One must surrender some (I’m saying some, not all) of the ego. Some of our strongly held beliefs, feelings and opinions. If you love, you are going to be changed to some degree. An internal change and to some degree, an external change. Required, I say.
When I decided to live a life of love, I had to give up some things. When I got married, I had to surrender to the new arrangement, the new type of relationship. I even had a pastor tell me, oh, that’s dangerous. Hmmm, I thought. Wonder how his life is if he really thinks that way. I hope he was kidding, but it didn’t sound like it.
So, living a life of love and surrender. In a way that does sound like it is a way of life fraught with danger. Being a doormat, being controlled and manipulated and all that. Well, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about being strong, assertive, solid, forceful in living in love and surrender. Not weak, cowering and subject to the jerks of this world. It’s a matter of saying, “no, I will not accept that!,” Do not talk to me like that or treat me like that. We’re done here.
Yeah, these last few years have really had an impact on my life. Forced me to face what I will accept in my life now. What energies I will accept in my immediate environment. No more sh*t now. I’ve seen and experienced too much now.
Currently I am involved in a personal project, an in-depth study of philosophy. I just happened to stumble onto this project recently, and I am absolutely enthralled with the study I’m doing. Let me backtrack briefly and tell you how I got here into this unexpected place. I have a collection of some good, intelligent educational cassette tapes left over from years ago when I had my own business of selling and distributing educational and motivational tapes. I gave up the business when cassettes became outdated and CDs became the new technology. The old tapes got stored away and as I was recently decluttering my office area I came across these tapes and realized a lot of them I never actually listened to. The time came to decide, “throw then out, or listen to them and see if they are of any interest to me at this stage of my life.”
Some of the tapes I’ve converted to CDs and am currently studying. Each CD case contains four CDs..
I made the decision to listen to them, at least those that possibly interested me. I converted the tapes to CDs and began listening. For some reason I never put much effort into studying philosophy in school. I learned enough to get through college, but the bare minimum. I studied religion a lot but neglected philosophy (even though they are very interconnected and complementary in one getting a “complete” education, as I see it.
But, this blog post is not going to be about philosophy. Perhaps in a future post I will cover that subject. This post is about a life long habit I have just been thinking about recently, the habit or practice of being a “life-long learner.” At this stage of my life, I realize that habit or practice has been a great motivator and has kept me going, intellectually, and been my salvation, in a sense.
As child, somehow I got into a children’s book club that was a series of “All About” books. All about astronomy, mathematics, geography, etc. I would get a new book every month or so and I would devour it. Loved it. I loved learning new things. In a previous blog I mentioned how I was being steered to not go on to further education after high school. In fact, my thinking when I was young was, “I can’t wait to just be done with high school so I can just go get a job and live my life.” But when my high school counselor refused to let me take English literature class in high school and told me I was not “college material,” that set my mind in a new direction. I did not accept that label and eventually did get into a college and graduate school after that. I did not settle for what people thought of me, how they judged me or tried to limit me.
So, I spent my years getting my “higher education.” I loved that time. I loved college and then theological seminary (see my earlier blogs). I had my mind opened. I saw a big world out there. I traveled the world with my airline job. I developed a side business selling educational tapes for a few companies like Simon and Schuster, etc. I did listen and study the various subjects those tapes covered. (I even sold Trump tapes on how to become rich, etc., but never liked him much way back then).
When I decided it was time to realize my dream of being a pilot (a dream since about age six), I thought, well, nobody is going to help me, motivate me, guide me, so I just better get started and do some studying and pass my written exam for my private pilot license. I did just that. Found some good books, found a study guide, and on my own sat down and did some intense study. All self motivated. I went and passed my written test and then found a flight school to begin my flight training. After that, I got my commercial pilot’s license, my flight instructor’s certificate, my instrument flight instructor’s certificate and my advanced ground instructor’s certificate and did some flight instructing and commercial flying.
So, there are many instances like this where I just persisted in pushing myself in pursuit of more knowledge, or pursuing my quest of “lifelong learning.” I got my amateur radio (ham) radio license a long time ago, I used to log all my reading of books. It was an amazing list every year. In college I took a course in piano playing (I had taken lessons as a kid). I would force myself to take guest speaking gigs when offered, preaching sermons when the opportunity arose. So, even though I, like most people, experienced and fought procrastination from time to time, I always eventually pushed myself forward and learned new stuff. I’ve heard it said that our “in box” will never be empty, even at our death. I certainly believe that is true. I will never complete all the tasks I have set for myself.
So, what are the alternatives to being a lifelong learner? Well, I suppose one can just be a “drifter,” One can just drift along in life. Eat, drink and be merry, as they say. Yes, that can be a good life. Others can be more melancholy throughout their life. Living a more sad type of life. I see that as sad, but a way of life that many seem to choose or as they would see it, they are stuck with. At the opposite extreme of being a lifelong learner as I see it would be the lost individual. The person with no enjoyment in living, perhaps a gang member or a committed criminal who just has no purpose, meaning or any real motivation in life. Now, I’m not talking about a person going through a period of depression, perhaps a long and deep depression. I’m referring to a way of life. A lifelong choice.
So, lifelong learning. I see it as my salvation. I had dark periods in my early life but I propelled myself out of those prisons. Reading my previous blogs will show you that. It has been a struggle at times to make my life meaningful, give it purpose. I am now glad for those experiences. I learned my lessons and they have served me well.
A book from my library. It got me in touch with this whole subject of lifelong learning.
So, now I’m deeply involved in studying philosophers and philosophy. An area I have previously avoided in my life. It is amazing how it is opening up my eyes and thoughts to new ways of seeing things. Not that there is one philosophy, or one religion, one philosopher or guru or one way to believe (my blog, “Only One Way” goes into that way of thinking). I am on a new path in my learning adventure. I will probably purchase more university courses (CDs and DVDs) from a company I deal with. The learning will never end while I still have a breath within me. Then it’s on to learning new things, “somewhere else.”
This is a joint blog with Larry Thomson, my friend who has written two guest blogs previously. It’s a little different in that we delve into the weird side of life, the speculations on the other dimensions of life that some people, including some scientists, sense and believe in to some degree. I’m talking about things like String Theory, Black Holes, Black Energy, Etc. Quantum physics is currently exploring and investigating these realms and I must admit, it is interesting, confusing, and way beyond my comprehension. I read the books by scientists concerning these topics and my eyes glaze over as I don’t understand what I’m reading, often. Still, I do push to expand my mind to try to comprehend as much as I can. I admit, this is mysterious territory and I just can’t dismiss, categorically, all of this “woo-woo” stuff. I will now present Larry’s essay that he provided to me on this subject.
Two interesting books on “woo woo” subjects of different dimensions I’ve recently read
WHAT IF
By Larry J. Thomson
When I was a senior in high school, my friend Brian and I drove from Owensboro to Henderson in Kentucky one night for some “up-to-no-good” time. On the way home, I was showing off and driving way too fast. The faster I drove, the more Brian tensed up and squirmed. I was rather enjoying this uncharacteristic display of power. As the speedometer hit 90 mph we hit a curve in the road, I hit the brakes, and the blue ’64 Chevy station wagon, my family’s car, flipped three times, caving in the roof, demolishing the car, instantly killing Brian and myself..
This story is true except for the ending. Instead of flipping, the car did three or four whirlybird spins and stopped in the highway median, not a scratch on us and no damage to the car. Fortunately, no other cars were in sight. After the initial shock, we laughed it off and continued, under the speed limit. We were teenagers.
While the car was spinning, I went into, what seemed like another zone. I could see Brian down on the floor of the car and I felt like I had resigned all control to another power. In those moments, what if…?
What if we were in a portal to another dimension; a place where the scenario could have gone either way? What if both scenarios actually happened simultaneously; one where we survived and another where we died, and maybe even another where we were maimed or paralyzed for life? We all have those “what if” moments in our life. What if I had gotten on that plane that crashed? What if I had married my high school sweetheart? What if I had been drafted and sent to Vietnam?
There are also those bigger “what ifs” of life. What if Lee Harvey Oswald had missed? What if Hitler’s mother miscarried? What if we had contact from life on another planet? What if a person in Asia hadn’t eaten a bat?
I believe all these situations are playing out right here, right now, as well as the one situation we are focusing our awareness on – right here, right now. Metaphysics, as well as quantum physics talks about such possibilities, and experiments have been done to support the theories. Scientists believe there are at least eleven different dimensions that can be proven. I believe the number of dimensions is infinite. I believe there are as many dimensions as there are thoughts and every thought can switch us from one dimension to another. I also believe that when we dream, our soul-mind is interdimensionally traveling while our body is resting and continuing functioning as it, of itself, knows exactly how to do. Our awareness moves from our bodies and travels through what Rod Serling called the “dimension of our imagination”. There, we live other lives; with souls we don’t know in this world, with souls that we knew but have departed this world, in places from our past, places in other worlds, with beings from other worlds, etcetera, etcetera. I have realized that while I sometimes have recurring dreams, I most often am amazed at the unlimited variety of situations I experience in my dreams. Sometimes we decide to remain in one of those situations. More often we awake and our focus is back where we were before we went to sleep.
Most likely, we all give thought to those tipping points in our life and think “what if”. Personally, I could have joined the religious brotherhood, married a girlfriend named Debbie right out of high school, been drafted and sent to Vietnam (I was low on the draft list but got a 4Fclassification), stayed in Owensboro, Texas, Denver, or San Francisco instead of moving on, stayed with my lover David in Denver, OD’d on Quaaludes in San Francisco, died of AIDS in the 1980’s, not taken that permanent job with the County, and so on and so on. And if I had pushed a little harder on that gas pedal and reached 95 mph, the car could have flipped instead of spun. Knowing what I know now, all of the above would have been disastrous. But in the eternal realm of creation, all of these occurrences are playing out this very moment as well as limitless others.
Many new age authors write about “the now”, and what we experience now is depending on where we focus our awareness. It works individually as well as collectively. We may focus on the past or the future, but we’re doing it now which makes the past and future mere illusions. I’m sure a lot of folks consider all these kinds of things a lot of woo-woo. But then they will say, “God is everything, everywhere, in everyone, all the time” (time being another illusion). Jesus said, “all things are possible with God” which also means God is all possibilities; those we are focused on, and those we are not. Within the stillness of God, every potential is playing out. We have the choice of which potential to put our attention on, and sometimes we let our choice be influenced or even dictated by others with an agenda that may be altruistic, or may be selfish.God said to Moses, “tell the people I AM sent me to you”. How many times a day do we say “I am”? When we say it, are we realizing we are speaking the name of God? What follows? I am this or I am that. Are we focused or speaking vaguely? Are we controlling our focus and therefore our lives? Are we afraid of losing something or someone if we change our focus and therefore change our lives?
Ancient wisdom teaches that nothing is lost in all of Creation. Matter is simply focused energy and energy is neither created nor destroyed, but ever changing; changing based on focus. So I feel assured that whatever our focus is “mattering” at this moment, all the things we are not focused on are still happening in some dimension waiting to be focused on, or not focused on. Jesus said “in my father’s house are many mansions (dimensions)”. Then he affirmed that this is true for himself as well as everyone.
Science, religion, new age – ancient wisdom spirituality, and our own life experiences tell us in agreement; all things ARE possible; nothing is lost; and God Power is in every one of us ready to be applied to our lives and take us wherever we will to go, do whatever we will to do, and be whoever we will to be.
In conclusion (Wally)…
So, we’re really “getting out there,” aren’t we? I am pretty much in alignment with a lot of what Larry writes. I know my dream world is really wild. Have I got stories! I think a lot of us do. We often dismiss a lot of things we experience in life and the dream world that are very mystical, spectacular , unexplainable and unbelievable. I think we sometimes “drift” into other dimensions, into the “twilight zone,” you could call it. People who have had NDE’s (near death experiences) have some wild stories. there is more to life than meets the eye, as they say.
If you are a total skeptic or an unbeliever of anything but the material, physical world, well, so be it. I get it. But, someday you may just stumble into some type of contact with other dimensions and be astonished, shocked, dumbfounded. I think the perspectives Larry and I have shared here are not that uncommon in the whole scheme of life on this planet. New discoveries are being made all the time in science and physics. I say, just be open to all dimensions as you proceed on your journey. Life is an evolution and a revealing if we are awake and true to ourselves.
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.
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.
Watching an old rerun of “The Golden Girls on TV recently, the character Sophia used the phrase “within spitting distance of St. Peter” when referring to her age. So, here we are people in my age group, in this strange land of being near enough to the end of our life that we can almost taste it, see it, feel it, sense it, have an intuitive knowing that we are “close.” We can deny it but it’s there, none-the-less. We know our time is limited in a way we never felt before. A certainty. The evidence is all around us. I have outlived so many of my friends, as I have discussed in previous blogs. No way around it, “spitting distance.”
So, I have decided to delve into this area. I realize this is a topic most people prefer to avoid, in fact, most people do all they can to avoid. But as Tolstoy said, “If a man has learnt to think, no matter what he may think about, he is always thinking of his own death.” Hmmmm. I am not confining my essay to death, but rather this whole period of life where we realize that our own time is more limited than ever before. We always thought in terms of having decades and decades of life ahead of us, exciting and greatly anticipated life ahead of us, but one day we realize we are at what the world calls “old age” and we can tell, in various ways, that the “end is in sight.”
So, here we are. We have lived a great deal of our life. Has it been a good life? A so-so life? A miserable life, painful, sad, perhaps mostly unhappy life? I can only speak for my life. It has been a good life. but, as I have explained in my blog posts, there certainly were dark periods, difficult times in many different ways, but navigating my way through those times, my life has turned out to be a great life. I thank God for that.
So, this final period, what do we do? We know what’s coming. I personally have watched so many, (most, in fact) of my friends and co-workers pass on to the next world, whatever that is. I always am relieved it is them and not me, of course. Don’t we all think that way? Yet, we realize that our day is coming and it could be any time. Any time. Any day. Wow, are there things I have put off in life, unrealized dreams and desires and tasks? Relationships to be healed or completed or released?
Well, for me those areas are pretty clean and in order. No real problems in unrealized dreams. I have had a great time on this earth. Stumbled here and there at times as I said, but a great life was the result. Am I ready to go? Not really. I feel there is more to do. But at the same time I do live my life as if this may be my last day (my tagline on my Facebook page currently). I really do live that way every day, so in a sense I am ready but I am still very busy with my various projects and living a full life.
Many people I know seem to have a less happy life. As the seventeenth-century divine Thomas Fuller said, We are born crying, live complaining, and die disappointed.” Philosophers and moral essayists, tragic dramatists and unhappy poets all agree about this. So sad. So unnecessary, as I see it. Yes, there certainly are tragic lives, sad lives, and I have compassion for those lives. But so often the amount of misery is compounded by wrong thinking, wrong living, ignorance and stupidity, etc. Good and bad things happen to everybody at various times. How we handle those times, how we handle our thoughts and actions and whether we have a faith and spiritual presence in our life can make dramatic differences among us.
So, some people do keep busy right up to the end of life. I’m thinking of Alex Trebek, who worked right up to the end of his life doing what he enjoyed; he never took a “retirement.” And that is good for a lot of people. Great, keep doing what you love. For me, I’m keeping busy ((very busy), but not doing work I spent thirty-three years doing, working for a corporation. I desired a retirement and I made that decision when I was burning out. I feel that I made the right decision, for me. So, we are all individuals when deciding how to live out this last portion of our lives. I certainly do not believe there is only one way to do it. For me, retirement is the greatest experience. I’m doing things I’ve put off and discovered I want to do now. I am currently in the midst of studying philosophy and philosophers, a subject I pretty much avoided in my college years and now have a deep interest in, perhaps because of this final period I am in. Also, this is a period of some great travel experiences. I have always enjoyed travel (hence, my working in the airline industry), but now we are really enjoying the freedom of traveling a lot.
So, for me this is an exciting time. Doing interesting things. Including doing my hiking exercise, sometimes in the graveyard these days. I’m finding these hikes to be great times of deep contemplation as I wander among “the dead.” Lots of thinking about this “final period” of life. Together with my study of philosophy and religion, life is becoming more interesting, even if the real answers to the questions of life are always an elusive mystery. The journey is interesting, that’s for sure.
So, yes, I may be within spitting distance of St. Peter, but I’m not wasting this time being morose and fearing the end. Well, maybe we all fear death in a sense, but I do believe we can diminish that fear and be more accepting of all of life, including its end. We do have a choice how we want our life to conclude. At least we can be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually prepared to a great degree if we work at it. If we never deal with it, well, then it will “just happen.” I have had two what I will call DPEs in my life. What is a DPE you ask? Well, you’ve probably heard of NDEs, “near death experiences.” And you may have heard of SDEs, “shared death experiences,” where a person shares the dying experience along with the person dying, being a companion during the person’s transition to the next world. Well, I’ve invented the term DPE to describe the “death preview experience,” of which I’ve had two in my life. Very vivid experiences.
Hiking in the graveyard. Good exercise and good times of contemplation on life and the meaning of it all.
I touched briefly on, in a previous blog, my experiencing of “going to God,” or a type of “death preview” I had as a young child. I was going under the ether to have surgery to have my tonsils removed. When I went under the ether I had a strange experience that I can recall today exactly as it was sixty-some years ago. I felt I was going to God. Hard to put into words, but a very vivid experience. And then, in middle age, I had a drug-induced experience of going through the death experience. It was very real. I knew it was a preview of what dying was going to be like. A letting go of everything in life. I mean everything, it was a very real experience. Again, hard to put into words, but so real, I remember it exactly. All the feelings and the absolute release of all of life. The dying experience. Today, I realize I was given that experience for some purpose, a preparation for what someday it would be like.
I had one other strange experience burned into my memory. I was driving a car (not my own) , in the 1960’s, I was alone and traveling very fast, perhaps eighty miles an hour or so. Suddenly I lost control somehow and went off the side of the road and down a slope into a ditch. I was sure that this was it, I was going to die, there was no way to get out of this situation. But, somehow I got the car out of the ditch traveling at that high speed and got back up the embankment and onto the road. Finally, I stopped to inspect the car, sure there had to be some damage from all of this. But, miraculously, no damage, not a scratch.
So, I find the stories of NDEs I’ve read to be fascinating. And the stories of the SDEs I’ve read also fascinating. And these three experiences of “dying” or previewing the dying experience of my own, well, what can I say, they were life-changing.
Looking back on my life, I see that so much of life has been BS. We waste so much life being controlled and manipulated, coerced and sometimes abused by others. What really matters in life? Isn’t that the question of all philosophers, all philosophies, all religions? People get yanked around by their jobs, their bosses, their relationships and friendships, by society, by our culture. People give up their freedom and join groups, religions, cults, etc. Why? Why give up your God-given freedom? Life is short. Be free. That’s what I have come to see in this last portion of life, in my evaluation of it all, of life on this planet. That is what I have come to understand at this time of my life. This is the good life… freedom.
“Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man”- Leon Tolstoy.
“Everybody has got to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what” – William Saroyan (on his deathbed)
“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness” – Vladimir Nabokov
“Tell them I have led a happy life!” – Ludwig Wittgenstein (last words)
May my last words be like Ludwig Wittgenstein’s. I’ve stayed on my path and am having a wonderful life.
One of the biggest problems I have with this life is the thought, the belief, that “there is only one way.” This dilemma confronts me almost everywhere I turn. Perhaps the problem arises for me because I am an open-minded person (as I see myself), compared to many people I know. I see that in life, there are often “many ways” to think, many ways to live, many ways to believe, many ways to have a faith or a religion. Let me explain what I am talking about.
Most currently, we are seeing in the political realm right now a very divisive situation. The extreme right wing and the extreme left wing in politics see their way as the only way. There seems to be no middle ground any more in the political world. I have always seen myself as more in the middle, a centrist or a moderate in politics. Perhaps a bit left-leaning at times, but I have been open-minded. In fact, over the past thirty years or so I have voted for both major parties in presidential races. Yes, I have not voted a straight party line in every election. I study the candidate and make my decision from my investigation rather than vote the “party line.” I know everyone has good ideas and bad ideas, so I have to consider all that I am aware of. Many people I know do not really do that, they just vote the party line, which is often the political belief that they grew up with in in their family. Not always, but often, from what I’ve seen.
Another example of “only one way.” I grew up as most people do, believing that there really is only one way to live the good life, the normal life, the All American life, the Godly life or whatever. That correct way of living was to have attraction to the opposite sex, to date and find a “good woman,” (or “good man” for a woman), and marry and have a nice family with children. That really was the only way to live a “normal” life. That was the American dream, God’s way, etc. etc. There was no alternative. Those that did not marry, well, there was something strange about them. They were not normal not playing the role they were assigned by the Almighty. And I, of course, bought into this teaching from my youth. It didn’t even cross my mind that there was any other life to live than this “ideal” life. Once again, there was only “one way.”
Then, considering faith and religion. Oh, my . I bonded with the evangelical Christian movement and faith group in my teens. In that group there is only one way to live and believe. There are only two groups of people, the “saved,” and the “unsaved.” The saved go to heaven upon death, the unsaved to hell. And the only way to salvation, of course was the “Christian” way of accepting Jesus as your personal savior. Repent and accept Jesus and live for Jesus. One way, once again. And of course, if you were Catholic, the Catholic Church taught that they were the real, only true church, the only church. And don’t forget the Mormons, the Jehovah Witnesses. They think they have the true religion. And so on and so on for many other religions. Just “one way.”
To many, heterosexuality is the only way to live when it comes to love. Love, true romantic, physical love can only exist with the opposite sex. Of course brotherly love is allowed, but anything beyond that is not allowed. That’s how I was brought up. Same-sex attraction of course was a no-no, sinful, condemned, punished. Again, regarding love of a romantic, emotional, physical nature, there is only one way. No alternatives. Got to get with the plan, do the right thing, the only right thing. Get a good job, have a good marriage and have children.
So, when it comes to other cultures, other races, people different than us. Gee, does racism exist in this world? Do we think we are superior to other races, other cultures. You betcha! Need I say much about this subject? There’s only way if you are a white supremacist, only one “good” race. I was brought up with this way of thinking in my childhood environment and I rejected that way of thinking. I did not follow the racist thinking of my childhood of the 1950’s. It made no sense to me and I suffered because of my stand, being called nasty names because of the stand I took. I just saw everyone as a child of God and could not understand why there should be only one race.
So, this idea that there is only “one way.” I don’t accept it. I never really have. I won’t. It is closing your mind to reality. The idea that there’s only one way to live, to think, to believe, to act and react. That’s not how I live. I will never fit into that box. There are many different ways to live. Some good ways, some bad ways. But there are many ways.
I will occasionally tune in a Christian radio station when I’m in the car, just to see what they are up to these days, what they are “preaching” over the airwaves. And of course, they are pushing the conservative Christian idea that there is only one way a Christian should be. They assume any religious person is in alignment with their political views. Also their views on other topics. No room for opposing views. Very narrow perspective, very rigid beliefs.
Wow!
So, it’s not very popular these days being open-minded. It’s easier to just go along with the thinking and believing that there’s “just one way.” Sorry, that’s not for me, not on my path not part of my wonderful life.
Once again it is my pleasure to have a guest blogger, my friend Larry J Thomson, share his recent essay on my blogging site. His subject, nature and glorifying God, fit in with my blogging theme of being on “the path,” and “it’s a wonderful life.” Enjoy.
By
Larry J Thomson
I woke up to the sound of a bird chirping somewhere in the giant Eucalyptus tree right outside my window. I realized I hadn’t heard the bird for a good long while. Previously, I woke to it every morning at exactly the same time, making the same sound. I wasn’t aware when it stopped being there, but this morning I wondered if the fact that the clocks just turned back one hour somehow made a difference. That the bird always came at the same moment, but my routine changed because of our manipulation of time. I lay there and listened to the bird for a while. Then the thought came to me that the bird was glorifying God, simply by being a bird, doing what birds naturally do. It was a sacred, enlightening moment. “That bird just taught me how to glorify God,” I thought. It’s so simple. Just be your natural self. Do what you love. Does the bird love hanging out in a tree, chirping? Apparently so. I also realized that by my lying there appreciating the bird, I was also glorifying God. For a moment, the bird and I were one.
I’ve always loved nature. Growing up on a farm, I was surrounded by an abundance of it every day. The farm animals were my pets, but I had to learn that some of them would someday be my breakfast or dinner. So I learned to enjoy the farm animals, but not get attached to them like I did my dog Trixie. My devotion to nature eventually led me to vegetarianism, and drives me out to the wilderness every chance I get, to hike, appreciate the sensations of sight, sound, and smell, and glorify God.
Once, I was hiking near Idyllwild, up in the mountains above Palm Springs. Supposedly, I was on a loop and if I just kept going, I would end up back where I started. But the longer I hiked, the more I wondered if I hadn’t taken a wrong turn somewhere. The hike was seeming longer than it was supposed to. But I sometimes felt that way on hikes, and the trailhead ended up being just around the next bend. Suddenly on the trail ahead of me I saw an animal jump across the path. It moved so fast that I didn’t get a real good look at it, but I swore it looked like a wolf. I know there are not supposed to be wolves this far south. But then maybe they are here and it’s just that no one has seen them. I’ve seen enough coyotes to know that it was too big for that. It wasn’t someone’s dog because as I stopped and waited, I didn’t see or hear any other people on the trail. I waited for a moment thinking, what to do? I knew turning around and going back the way I came was going to be a long hike. But I finally decided to give the animal, whatever it was, it’s space. I turned around to retrace my steps, looking back occasionally to make sure I wasn’t being followed. I hadn’t gone too far when I came to a fork I had missed earlier. As it turned out, I had ventured off the loop and was heading completely in the wrong direction. Back on the loop, I returned to the car. I paused and thanked the “wolf” for steering me in the right direction. Glorious Nature had taken care of me and prevented me from getting lost.
A while back, I was hiking in Griffith Park. I was taking a road less traveled with thick bushes lining a narrow path. Suddenly, I heard an unfamiliar sound. It was a clicking of sorts. I looked down and at my feet was a rattlesnake fixed between me and a rock. It was only a couple of feet away, and withing striking distance. It had nowhere to go and was curling and slithering back upon itself. I was wearing shorts and felt extremely vulnerable so I slowly took a step back, then another, and another until I was safely away. Then I turned and hightailed it out of there. The first thing I realized was that rattlesnakes don’t sound like they do on television. It wasn’t like shaking a baby’s rattle. It was like a clicking and hissing combination. It was creepy and it haunted me for several nights afterward. Even so, after some thought, I understood that by nature, it didn’t want to hurt me. It was letting me know it was there and would protect itself if necessary. I was smart enough to take the warning. Nature is at its most glorious when there is mutual respect.
Nature gives me so many pleasures. My favorites are the smells of daffodils and honeysuckle. They both grew on the farm, and now there are some honeysuckle bushes in the yards around my neighborhood for me to enjoy when I go for walks. I love the beauty of daisies, sunflowers and morning glories. I remember the taste of blackberries that also grew wild on the farm, and how we ate them as we picked them for Mom to make into cobbler. I delight in the feel of grass on my bare feet, a clod of dirt in my hand, and a cooling breeze on my face on a hot summer day. And as for sound; I love the silence of the Redwood forest or a pasture cloaked with snow on a winter day.
Speaking of Winter; there’s a song that goes “If I Ruled The World, Every Day Would Be The First Day Of Spring”. I once felt that way, but after years of being away from distinct seasons, I appreciate whenever I can experience them again. I love the beauty and uniqueness of each one.
And so here I Am. A unique and beautiful creature of nature, as are We All. As the bird chirps and flits about from branch to branch, so do I do what comes natural for me. And the more I Am able to be in that state of passionate, loving, natural awareness of being; the more I glorify God.
If you live long enough, manage your life fairly well (including your finances), and have the desire, you get to move on to a life of retirement dreams and hopes. When I was in the middle of my working life, the life expectancy of someone retiring was around three years. Not a great thing to look forward to, working hard your whole life and then just having three years free from work to enjoy retirement life and then death. Fortunately, today the prospects are much better. Life in the retirement phase is now much longer for most people. I am glad for that improvement.
I took retirement in my fifties, earlier than the norm for most people. I was burned out and was ready to be free from the usual working life. I was thrilled to retire. I had a fun career and enjoyed many benefits of working in the airline industry, but the last few years were a turnaround to where the job was no fun anymore and a great stress for me. So, time for retirement, freedom from going to work every day. Time to work on things I want to work on, and do whatever comes my way and interests me.
I was ready for retirement. I realize others are not ready for retirement or not prepared for being free of the working life. Some have made no preparation for the transition or even thought much about this big change in life. No matter how ready or not ready we are, it is a period of adjustment. I would say, for me, it took probably a year to feel really comfortable in the new environment. Several friends I know did volunteer work to help make the transition. I can understand that, but for me, that was not my path. I really loved not having to work every day. A few years after retiring, I did take on one post-retirement job, just for fun. It was a very unique type of job, one where I got to set my own hours and work days, only working when I wanted to. I was a “mystery shopper” for Safeway stores. I would go grocery shopping and write up reports of my shopping experience, noting employees that were doing their jobs in a commendable manner and those that were not functioning at their best in their “customer service” capacity. I also had to cause employees to go out of their way to handle certain situations, see if they would help me, etc. I got to experience this experience from the other perspective when I was an airline employee and we had encounters with “secret passengers” that would fly around the country and write up reports on the employees they encountered and rated how well they did their jobs. So now I have had experiences on both sides of this issue.
So, being retired and being done with the work-a-day world, that was my choice (except for the brief job with Safeway). Now what? Well, I have a very curious mind and always seem to have projects to work on . I do not sit around and get bored. Fortunately, I have a great home environment and marriage, so no stress, really in my personal life (unlike earlier periods in my life). We were now free to travel as much as we wanted and enjoy my airline travel benefits. We acquired a good timeshare system which had many timeshare locations that we loved visiting. Life was good! Life is good! Due to the current virus situation, we have had to modify our travels to do car trips instead of air trips and train trips. We, of course, are hoping that some kind of a normal life returns during our lifetime.
Speaking of our lifetime, that’s a subject that seems to surface a lot for me during these retirement years. This period of time being the last third of life, there’s a real awareness that the end is coming. A lot of time may be remaining, or maybe not. Who knows? The way I look at this situation is I figure that I may have twenty minutes remaining to my life, or perhaps twenty years. Who knows? Twenty minutes or twenty years. Hmmm, heavy thoughts to consider.
My cemetery hikes and contemplations
So, I work at keeping my body in decent shape by walking and hiking almost daily. One of the places I often do my hikes is the graveyard nearby that is nice and hilly. I get some exercise and I get to reflect on the deep issues of life and death. I mentioned in an earlier blog that in college I would climb the hill near my college and walk through the cemetery and contemplate life and what my life was going to be after I finished my education. So, cemetery contemplations is not a new practice for me. It’s just been a long time since I have done those practices. And my graveyard contemplations now are not about what my life is going to be, but now what my final period of my life is going to be about and reflections on what my life has been so far. The joys and adventures and loves I have had, and what it all means. Life is so short when you think about it, but that’s the way it is, isn’t it?
So, before you know it, you have aged. You have gone through the different phases or passages of life. You have survived a lot. Hopefully, you have achieved a lot and lived a lot and loved a lot. Or, maybe life has been a little less successful. Or even miserable and unhappy, perhaps. That can be sad, very sad. I think about these things in my graveyard wanderings these days. Look at all these graves, all these people who were alive for however long they had on this earth and did whatever they did. What kind of lives did they live? A million thoughts flood my mind as I study the gravestones. Who were these people? What would they tell me if they could? They were so alive, but now, they’re gone.
I have come to realize now that so much of life has been malarky. So much energy was wasted in life on such unimportant things. All the struggles and worrying and fighting and wasted life. For what? What is really important in life? I wish that I had more focus and intension and clarity in my earlier years. But, you know what? Life works out the way it works out. We learn our lessons, eventually. It just often takes a lot of time and energy that we could have avoided wasting.
So, I find that retirement is a time to try and do new things. Not a time to give up. Not a time to be bored. Not a time to be lonely. It is time to do those things you have put off during your working years. It is time to reflect of your life and appreciate the journey you’ve been on. Hopefully you appreciate your journey. It would be sad if you don’t. We all have our own paths and I’m very grateful for my path. It has been good. I have been given a long life. Many of my friends cannot say that as I have outlived so many of my friends. It has been a good life. I have been given time to reflect and appreciate it all.
It may seem strange for me to combine my experiences with mental illness and my experiences with cults in one essay. What’s the connection, you may say? Well, I’ll tell you how I see these two subjects and how they may be related, in my view. I am not talking from a professional or medical viewpoint, just a personal observation.
I’ve lived closely with two people who had mental problems. The first one was my mother. Yeah, my mother. When I was very young, her father died, and from what I gathered from my family members, she went off the deep end, as they say, and was never the same, normal person she was previously. As you can imagine, that had a major effect on me, having a mother who was a bit unstable and never knowing when she would “act crazy.” Yes, I knew she loved me, but how was I to understand her strange behavior at unpredictable times. I don’t feel like getting in specific situations, but believe me, some incidents were very shocking, unpleasant, and horrendous. Those years living in that situation affected my childhood and contributed to what I would consider my very dark, depressed time in my life. I was deeply depressed for years.
In preparation for this essay, I did a brief study of depression and I was amazed to find out some facts regarding the condition. I discovered that of all people who experience depressed times in their lives, about 50% of those people only have one episode of serious depression and never have a recurrence. The other 50% have a lifelong experience of depression, perhaps an on-and-off encounter with depressed periods or a continuous depressed state. I was glad to discover this, as I am in that 50% that just have a “once in a lifetime” encounter with that “darkness.” My depression lasted from my childhood through my teenage years, until I left home at age 18. I broke free from the darkness, never to return to it.
I do realize that that curse is always around, around the corner, perhaps, in the shadows, always ready to come and take me over, but I have through many long years of hard work managed to keep it at bay. I have developed new perspectives and experienced spiritual renewal on an ever evolving upward spiral, thank God.
Now, I did have another close, intimate experience with a person with what I would consider serious mental problems. Someone I lived closely with for years. He was an extreme narcissist, a constantly pot smoking, controlling, manipulative, “gaslighting” type of person. All the characteristics I see in a popular politician today. My friends also noticed the strange actions and behaviors of this person, which helped verify for me that I was seeing things accurately.
So, just like with my mother and my family, I eventually left this person and experienced a wonderful sense of breaking free of a psychological darkness and prison of sorts. I was never to become entangled in such drama again, at least in a personal way with any friends or intimates. I chose my friends and intimates very carefully after that.
Now, in regard to my experiences with cults. I see similarities with cults, people deeply involved with cults, and the people in my life who seemed to be a bit unstable in their mental thinking and behaviors. I’m certainly not saying everyone involved in groups that may be considered cults is mentally ill or anything like that, but I have found that people deeply involved in cult-like groups and leaders of these groups often are, well, not “normal.”
I was in a group of religious friends that followed certain “spiritual” leaders in an almost cult-like manner, which made me somewhat uncomfortable, but it was not really serious enough to be overly concerned. Later I did become involved in a rather popular “human potential movement” that was all the rage in the 1970’s. My close friend that I mentioned earlier (the druggie, narcissist) was getting heavily involved in the group and of course was manipulating me into getting deeply involved, also. I was involved for a while, but eventually I realized I had to leave the organization.
I was involved in the courses, the trainings, etc., but the time came for me to leave. I was becoming aware that things were not “right,” I had that uncomfortable feeling that I needed to exit the movement. One day I was on the phone with someone from the organization trying to get me involved in a course or something and I informed him that I was done with the organization.
Well, that did it. He lashed out at me and told me off, put me down, and told me that it was going to cost me my life if I left. He told me that I was “out of integrity” by leaving the “truth” of the movement. He said I would be in a car and would have a fatal accident, or I would board a plane and it would crash. The universe will get you, he was telling me. Wow, I thought they were cultish, but this was unbelievable. If I leave, I will die, I’m being told.
That was enough for me. Enough for being around mentally weird, mentally off or ill people and groups. Enough! I had to get out of these situations and become aware of such people and groups so that I lived a good, psychologically healthy life from here on out. I realized that I cannot be around these situations at all. I need to protect myself, set my boundaries, be strong and stand up to such abuse.
So those were my experiences with people and organizations that are not “normal,” a bit “off,” or even very much outside healthy and normal. My life improved immensely since then. No more mental sickness or depression episodes. I survived, I moved on and thrived!
