Category: Religion / Spirituality

Posted on

And When Your Heart Stops Beating, Its All Over, Baby! [Post # 32]

I’ve written a couple of blogs regarding death and survivor’s guilt, so I don’t want to rehash those subjects. I want to look at some other aspects of the end-of-life topic. As we age and watch our friends and loved ones leave us one by one, it makes us look at what life is, really. I’ve stated earlier that death has stared me in the face my whole life. I’ve never been able to deny it like some people have.

So, yes, when your heart stops, it all over. Period. Everything you’ve done all those years, it’s gone, over. You may have been a great person, accomplished a lot, had a terrific impact on the world, but your heart stopping ends it all, instantly. You were there one second, completely gone the next. That really is impossible to handle when you go through that experience, if you’ve ever been with someone as they “passed away.” I remember when we had to put our cat down and I held her in my arms as the vet administered the deadly injection. She’s purring affectionately one second and the next one, gone. It makes you think, “what is life” What is non-life? Here one second, gone the next. All that lifetime, all those events over all those years, all that work, all those loves and relationships, gone, over.

Now, of course, I’m talking about this physical, material, earthly perspective from the standpoint of us living when we experience someone transitioning instantaneously from this life to death. I’m not talking about the possible continuation of existence in the spirit realm. That’s another blog. In fact, I covered that topic in an earlier blog. I’m talking about what a fragile thing life is. We think it’s so solid, so certain, so impossible to suddenly be gone. But it’s not really.

I remember in college my friend assured me that he was never going to die as he was going to be “raptured,” when Christ returned, according to some popular Christian theologies He was absolutely sure he would just float up into the sky to heaven. Hmmm, I thought, that’s how he is going to deny death. Okay, that’s his choice to believe in that. Not my theology, though.

I believe that by contemplating our demise deeply, it can actually help us live a better life. I think some great lessons can be learned. So what can be learned by looking at this subject that many would say is a morbid topic to probe and contemplate? Here are my thoughts on looking at the unpleasant end of our existence.

Life and death are a package deal. If we are alive, we know there is an end to it all. We see it all the time, sometimes motivating us, sometimes scaring us, sometimes depressing us and causing serious mental problems. On the flip side of the coin, there is wisdom that death can teach us.

We can take the position of welcoming everything in our life. Not that we have to like everything. We don’t have to like it, but if we are brave we can be open to all that happens, to all that we encounter. We can be with the present situation, we can be a manifestation of love and compassion, even through those times of great suffering. Sh*t happens. It’s always going to happen from time to time. We need to travel light as much as we can because the world can be very heavy.

I don’t mean to get preachy, but we can learn the skill of letting our burdens go. We can learn the sometimes very hard lesson of forgiving. We can learn to love deeply, no matter what. Yes, life is heavy at times.

I read the analogy recently that regarding life and death, we are all on the edge of the canyon (that deep, dark canyon of death), we just don’t know how close to the edge we are at any moment, at what moment we are going to fall in.

So far, I have not seen a book titled “”Dying for Dummies,” so it looks like we all have to deal with this subject as best as we can, however that may be. I know there are very unpleasant and tragic ways of dealing with this, but I know there are better, healthier, mentally stabilizing and more peaceful ways of dealing with all of this. And, yes, it is horrible to think of this all ending and not being able to control this end of the spectrum, usually.

We all deal with this as we do The best way I can handle this at this later stage of life is to make the commitment every morning to “live like this is my last day!” One day it will be. Where exactly is the edge of the canyon?

POSTSCRIPT

Those killed in the recent helicopter crash after this post was written.

I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago. I let my posts sit for a bit to be sure I feel like publishing them and seeing if they need any revisions, etc. The Kobe Bryant helicopter crash occurred after this post was written and I thought, wow, this illustrates so much of what I was writing about. Life is so fragile. We are gone in an instant. We are doing our life, just going along and wham, it’s over. Life can be very sad when we experience these situations.

Kobe with his wife and two daughters at the White House

R.I.P.

Wally

Posted on

Love the Bible! [ Post #30 ]

Hmmm you may be thinking, now he’s become a “Bible thumper.” a “holy roller,” one of them “fundamentalists,” or “evangelicals,” etc. Well, I can assure you I am none of those. Perhaps I should have titled this blog “I love the Bible, BUT….” That would be more accurate, perhaps. So let me explain. I love the Bible, I read and study the Bible a lot. Also, the scriptures from other religions, not just the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. So, maybe, in a sense this blog should be subtitled , “My weirdness, part 2,” in conjunction with my blog regarding my weirdness by being a pilot and obsessed with aviation details ( blog # 28).

A little background may help to explain what I’m talking about regarding my love of the Bible. I was forced to attend church and Sunday school as a child. Then my family ceased attending church. This was when the civil rights movement was going on in the 1960’s in this country. My family did not like churches getting involved in the issue as my family was not in favor of “civil rights.” I didn’t agree with them on this, but I did like the fact that mandatory church attendance was now a thing of the past. Freedom at last from church, I thought.

So, church-free life went on for a few years. My childhood and early teen years were not the greatest for me. I experienced a lot of emotional and psychological turmoil and pain living at home and couldn’t wait to leave home after high school graduation. It was really bad at times and one day I had a “come to Jesus” experience. I needed something to help me survive what I was experiencing and a religious conversion experience helped stabilize me emotionally. It was my salvation, in a sense.

I eventually got involved in a church that my high school friends attended and did a lot of activities with my “church gang.” It was a fun time. I found an escape from my family problems and the depression I had been living with for a long time. After high school I decided to go to a Christian college in Seattle ( there’s a story there for another blog sometime). That decision got me away from home and family and I was looking forward to a college education with a religious perspective. This had to be a good plan, I thought, and as it turns out, it was. I loved my college years. I learned a lot, made some great friends and loved traveling between Los Angeles and Seattle in my VW bug when I came home for summer vacations. It was a fantastic time. And along with this, I got a pretty good religious education, from a Christian perspective, of course, but it was broader than that. My mind was opening up to religion and philosophy and the deep issues of existence.

After college I decided to continue my religious education by going to a theological seminary and working on my Masters of Divinity degree. I did not finish my studies there but really enjoyed the time I spent there studying theology.

Professor Walter Helsel, my college professor for my class in “Revelation” at college. He opened my mind to a more scholarly perspective on a book of the bible many fundamentalists and evangelicals get carried away with in preaching about the “last days.” Here we are fishing in an Eskimo village in Alaska.

So, through it all, I got a good grounding in religious and philosophical studies. I developed a keen interest in what life is all about, about the great mystery of life. After all the study, though, you learn that no matter how much schooling you have or how many degrees you earn, you come to realize, if you are honest with yourself, it’s all a gigantic mystery. Nobody has the answers. Nobody! It’s all speculation!

So, what’s the result of all my studies and life experience? I have developed an intense interest in looking at this mystery called “life'” “existence,” and death. What the hell is all of this? Why are we here? What’s the point? So, I love studying it all and yet at the same time I know there really is no answer to find. We must just live “in the mystery!”

That’s why I love the bible, as well as other religious scriptures and writings. It’s interesting to see how people have handled this great mystery of life through thousands of years. The bible is full of wonderful stories, wonderful teachings, wonderful truths, if you see it that way. Oh, yes, and it is full of some raunchy, awfully violent tales. It also contains some bad advice ( stoning your children, stoning adulterers to death, etc.) It’s human history in the raw and human fantasy and fiction. The biblical scholars are always dissecting the writings and finding new and often fascinating information. In another lifetime I would probably desire to be a biblical scholar, or at least a professor of comparative religions. Ain’t that weird! I guess I just abhor a superficial, shallow, materialistic life.

A few of my Bibles and other religious scriptures and study aids

So, yes, I am a bit obsessed with all of this. I have, at last count, about sixteen or more bibles in different translations. Protestant bibles, a Catholic bible, a Jehovah’s Witness bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the lost gospels, the Book of Mormon… well, you get the idea, I’m a nut for the worlds scriptures. I have bible commentaries, handbooks, dictionaries, etc.

And more….

So, I love the Bible in a way a scholar would love and study it. It is fascinating. It is inspiring, it can give insight and so much more. My caution to people would be to not take it literally. Those who take it literally have real problems. It’s a collection of writings. See it for what it is. Read up on scholars who devote their lives to this study. It does contain truth. Don’t follow a fundamentalist preacher or televangelist who knocks biblical scholarship and is going to tell you what it all means.

Most people, I would say, do not read the Bible. Some do, but they take it literally and follow what their preacher tells them it says and means. That’s too bad, I say. A lot can be learned from the writings if approached in the right, rational, reasonable way. It’s too bad the secularist, agnostic person can’t often be open minded enough to enjoy it for what it is, for what it gives the serious reader. Much is missed in a lifetime spent avoiding the study of religious scriptures. So much of our culture and society has its roots and formation in religious writings. Even during the years I was a strong atheist I still read the Bible. I just read it with an atheist viewpoint, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. Study truth, I say, whatever that involves. I read recently regarding the bible that even a good book can contain bad things. I would agree. Look at all of it, ponder it, and as I always say, think.

Three general books about the Bible for a good overview for me

In closing. I would just say that two of my favorite books of the Bible are Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) and James (New Testament). You know Ecclesiastes, “all is vanity; eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die: to everything there is a season (“Turn, turn, turn,” the song by the Byrds, 1965). I love that book. And the book of James, “Faith without works is dead!” The book Martin Luther hated, did not want it in the Bible and tore it out of bibles because he hated it so much.

So there you have it, my weird love of the Bible as a theology student and a person of faith, but not fundamentalist, evangelical faith. A long twisted life path of “born again,” “atheist,” then a spiritual person of faith again.

Wally

Posted on

Need My Sabbath

The Sabbath, what a concept. A day of rest. You know, God created the heavens and the earth then rested on the seventh day (Genesis in the Hebrew Bible). For most of my life I never thought much about the concept or the commandment (the fourth of the ten commandments) to honor and observe and keep holy the sabbath day.

I remember growing up in the 1950’s as a kid and Sunday was different in society and the business world. Much of business ground to a halt on Sunday, many stores and businesses were closed. It was just the way life was. We had “blue laws” which meant a lot of business closed for the day. My spouse says he remembers when J C Penny first opened on a Sunday, he was shocked and really stunned about the change.

I had one incident in my childhood related to this sabbath concept and practice. My childhood friend and I developed a lawn mowing business in our neighborhood. One family we mowed lawns for was a Seventh Day Adventist family, so they required that we not mow their lawn on Saturday and they let us know how important honoring the correct sabbath day was to them and their religion. For the first time I started to get interested in religion and theology as I thought about what they said and preached. I did some research and realized they did have a point. They really believed honoring the sabbath was a very important factor in living a holy and good life.

One other time the sabbath commandment really hit me, right out of the blue. I was in my twenties and walking along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood on a Saturday night (okay, yes, I was bar hopping in my “wild days”). It was a very heavily Jewish and gay area. I was approached by an orthodox Jewish man who acted very desperate to find someone to help him out. Being the kind person I am (yes, being kind and bar hopping were not a contradiction for me), I lent him my ear and he told me he was really in a conundrum. It was his sabbath and he needed to listen to his answering machine for some reason. He explained to me that he is prohibited from performing any work on the sabbath, so he asked if I would come up to his flat and play his answering machine for him. Sure, I responded. So I performed my service as a decent human being by helping someone stay true to their “sabbath.”

But, aside from that incident in my childhood and the incident on the street in West Hollywood, the serious thoughts about sabbath observance pretty much did not enter my mind much. Like I said, the blue laws were the norm back then and I didn’t think much about the sabbath or a day of rest. For most of my life I worked at my airline job on Saturdays and Sundays. The only airline employees who had weekends off had many years of seniority (decades) and days off and vacations were bid strictly on a seniority basis. Holidays and weekends were days of work in my lifestyle. Didn’t really give any thought to the sabbath commandment.

So, fast forward to today, this stage of life I’m in now, usually called “retirement.” (I’m much busier now than I ever was during my working days, but that’s another topic for another time). Now, every day’s agenda is totally up to me. I set my schedule, I create the life I want now. It took me a long time to get to this point.

So, now I am revisiting the concept of the sabbath practice and commandment. I have read some excellent books on the subject, very thought provoking. I’m not going to get into the technical aspects of what is the real sabbath as far as religions and scriptures are concerned. In my life, in my culture and society, I find I need my “day of rest,” and what works best for me is a Sunday day of rest, a real break from daily routine. No matter what the week has brought me in my life, I do need a break from daily routine and totally rest my body and soul.

Sunday is my favorite day of the week now. I really shift gears and totally take a break. I always put everything off that in any way resembles work if I can, and I usually can, unless there’s a real emergency ( remember, Jesus healed on the sabbath… got him in a lot of trouble with the religious authorities).

I usually go to church. A good church that teaches real life spiritual principles. That’s my thing. I believe even an atheist can enjoy a sabbath day, the practice will work for anybody. But for me, a little extra spiritual boost is nice, a nice addition to my daily spiritual practices.

So, that’s the way it works for me now. I have come full circle from taking a sabbath day for granted (the 1950’s and the “blue laws” in our society), to not thinking about a sabbath at all for decades and then coming to fully embrace the whole concept of a day of rest, practicing keeping the sabbath holy or the Lord’s Day as the Christians in their early history called their Sunday day of rest.

Wally

Posted on

Doing Your Thing [ Post #21]

One part of my life “doing my thing.”

I like to look at things and life in simple terms. Yes, I know it is all very complicated, but the way I look at life, it is basically very simple. My view is that we come, we do our thing, and we leave. There’s no way around that, that’s just the way it is. It’s the “do your thing” part of my view that is so difficult, so complicated, so “messy” for most of us. But, still the basic process is that we are born, we do our life, and then we die.

So, what is our thing that we do, what do we do with our life? Some people do a lot with their life, they accomplish tremendous things and leave a mark on this world and perhaps history. Some seem to not do much, some may even spend most of their lives as homeless, discarded and forgotten people. Most of us fall somewhere in between. I find it curious why some people accomplish to much and some don’t. What makes people so different? Why the motivation, the drive in some people? Why are some people so genuinely happy and some so miserable most, if not all, of their lives? Okay, that is a big subject, a dilemma that can consume a lifetime of therapy, a subject matter that fills hundreds of books. Of course in a brief essay like this blog post, I can only give you a few of my personal thoughts and experiences regarding these matters.

I can look at my life and think, “gee, I didn’t become a great, famous person; I did not become a top surgeon or find a cure for cancer or invent a wonderful product or make my mark on the world.” So, does that mean I am a nobody or disappointment to the world, etc. etc. What is life all about, anyway? Of course, I can’t answer that question.

What I can say is that my life has been about trying to find what life is really all about in the deepest sense. It has been about my finding my way through this maze, this haze, about not letting others determine what my life should be. To not be manipulated and controlled or coerced. To be my own self, to have my own dreams and goals, to live from love, not hate.

Now, I did accomplish my dreams. I may not have accomplished the dreams others may have had for me. My family, it seems to me, had a dream of me just living a mediocre life, getting a job, sticking with it for life, and then die. (Wow, how exciting!) I rejected that limited vision and did “my” thing (which I now see as “God’s” thing for me). Doing “my” thing ( God’s thing) has made my life absolutely wonderful and perfect. I feel that it takes a lot of work to really be yourself. Everyone wants to mold you, bend you this way and that way, make you conform.

So, what about the paths not taken? Well, they were not taken, so that’s sort of the end of the subject. I know, a lot of people play the miserable game of “what if,” “if only I had done…,” “If I had it to do over…,” etc. etc. But, life goes the way it goes, as I see it. If you have faith, if you have a connection to something higher than your self and your world, as I see it, you are in the flow. The flow of Spirit, your higher self, God, your Christ Consciousness, your Buddha self, or whatever you may call it. You may not have a name that is famous is this world, but you have “done your thing.” And then, when you go, you leave this place and can feel good about yourself and not feel regretful or miserable.

I believe these are the choices we all have. We come, we do our thing, we leave. How do we handle it all? I feel I have done a good job so far, and I have not been alone on this journey. It’s not all been just me. As Jesus said, “it is the father who lives in me that does the work.” I know there’s something to that statement. I must just listen, listen to my life and let it tell me who I am and what is my thing to do.

Wally

Posted on

Sin (Yes, Sin!) [ Post #17)

So, my thoughts regarding sin. If you have any experience with church or organized religion, you probably heard a lot about sin. Turn on any Christian radio station or tune in to any televangelist on TV and I can almost guarantee you you’ll hear that word within fifteen seconds or so. Most conservative religions seem to be obsessed with the word and concept. A few years ago I preached a sermon on religion and sin and types of religious people. I referenced the classic book by William James, (the “Father of American psychology ,” as he is called ) “The Varieties of Religious Experience” (the late 1800’s). He basically divided religious people into two camps. There are the unhappy, miserable sinner types of people and the happy religious and spiritual people. (Now, of course, I’m oversimplifying this for this short essay.) The unhappy, miserable sinner type of person is often racked with guilt and seeking salvation from that prison of depression.

The other type of religious/spiritual person has a more pleasurable experience of religion and is happy and joyous and feels good about life and his or her connection to that something greater (God, the universe, the higher self, etc.) I would place myself in that camp now in my life. I am enjoying a good, happy, joyous life and I am not obsessed with the idea of “sin,” personally. Now that does not mean I don’t see the evil or vile side of life. I am realistic. There are some spiritual teachers and gurus that preach that evil does not really exist or is not real. I’m not going to get into that debate here. Let’s just say that I do see the crap in the world. History has always shown how evil people can be. So, what I can say is that yes, I see the bad in the world, but I do not let that suck me into the whirlpool of depression and the experience of a miserable view of life.

Now, having said all of that, I guess the paradox is that I do have experience with sin, personally. I do not go out and murder or steal or hurt people, but I do have to admit I have what I consider “my” sins. I am not racked with guilt as the miserable sinner type of person is, but I do have to watch for my personal sins creeping into my life.

Let me tell you what I consider to be sin in my life. First off, the root of the word sin means to “miss the mark,” referring to spear throwing. I like that definition better than the usual church definition of an immoral act of transgression against divine law. So, for me, what do I consider “missing the mark” in my life? Well, for me, the biggest sin for me is to stagnate. To just be stuck in my life, to stay stuck, to choose to be stuck and not growing and moving forward in my daily life, on many levels. For me, to be alive is to constantly progress, to learn something new every day, to have new insights, new experiences, deeper relationships, to have every day be a new, creative experience.

For me, the other sins that concern me are: to be mean, to hurt others or myself, to hate, to have resentments, to be envious or jealous, to desire bad things for those people that I don’t particularly like. To have unforgiveness in my heart ( I can forgive even despicable people I do not like, that’s for my own good only, really).

Those are sins for me in my life. I have to watch closely in my daily activities and thoughts that these particular sins to not sneak into my life or consciousness. Many people do not watch that these sins stay out of their lives, they usually don’t even pay attention or care, really. They just live and react without working at this.

So, for me, sin is not necessarily a bad word. It is necessary to be aware of sinful or thoughtless or damaging thoughts and activities. I do not live in guilt or negative environments in my life. I do not want any of these mentioned transgressions from the good life to be in my personal world.

Wally

Posted on

Who, What is God? [ Post #15 ]

Okay, I’ve been talked into this topic by a good friend. I would have tackled this one eventually, but maybe the time is right the more I think about it. At dinner recently, my friend said, “the post I’m waiting for is ‘Who is God?'” He stated that I recently said that, “you know, I guess I’m really an atheist at heart.” I was stunned that he said that and I wish I remembered the context I said that in. I don’t remember the conversation and find it hard to believe that I actually said that. Oh, well, I’ll take that as fact and see how to cover this very deep subject in a short essay. (Maybe I was just drunk and being a smart ass.)

In previous blogs I covered my spiritual and religious wanderings through my life. I said my eventual religion today boils down to a very simple theological statement, “love, trust God, and #@$/* the rest!” And that really is it, that covers everything for me as far as my personal religion goes.

So,the first part, “love.” Do we need to discuss that? I don’t think so as far as I’m concerned right now. Maybe later in another post, but not now. But the second part, “trust God,” well, what does THAT mean? And what is God as I’m using the term? Trust what? Okay, so here we go, putting in a brief blog what no one really knows or can understand or explain.

Making it all very simple, there seem to be two basic views of life. One view is that everything is just total randomness in life; it’s all just an accident, chaos somehow just coming together to create life. The other view is that life is not just randomness and an accident and chaos. My life experience and my intelligence puts me in the latter group. (I was an atheist for a few years, so I’ve been on both sides of this dilemma .) I now know (as stated in an earlier post), that there is an “unseen” side of life. I’ve experienced it. I will call it the spiritual dimension of life. It is in this dimension that I experience what I call, to keep it simple and comprehensible to me, God. Now, what is that? What the hell is that? You tell me! Oh, no, please don’t. My whole life people, authorities, intellectuals, religious leaders and others have been doing that. And you know what? They don’t know, really. We are all guessing, speculating, pronouncing, preaching what this driving force of life and creation is, what a majority of people call god or God.

I’ve been to theological seminary, I’ve studied this subject most of my life. I’ve studied many religions. The spiritual has been a part of all civilizations throughout history and even before history was written. People have always been aware of this “something” beyond the visible world.

So… that’s it. That “something.” That’s it! It’s as simple as that! Wow, what a cop out you say. Haven’t really said anything. Not very deep theology. So God is a something. So, love and trust “something?” You gotta be kidding me!

So, what I will do now is give you some tidbits and statements of my feelings about this vagueness that I am presenting as God.

God has many names (from the civilizations of the world and history), I have a list of over one hundred terms used for “God.”

The theologian Paul Tillich says God is not a being, but BEING itself. I agree with that assessment, and he says God is the God above god.

As I see it, God is or God isn’t. God can’t be both, It’s not a sometimes thing. God always is or always isn’t, It doesn’t come and go depending on circumstances, nor depending on whether times are good or bad or evil.

I am not a God seeker. I do not “seek” God. I know God. If I’m seeking God, then I have not found Him or It.

God is love and love is God ( 1 John 4:16 in the New Testament).

God is always with me, always inside of me ( “the Kingdom of God is within you” as Jesus said).

God is truly, absolutely unknowable, but I KNOW him (woops, excuse the sexist terminology…him, her, it, whatever… oh chill out over the term used).

Many people, as I see it, use God. They want him around only at certain times (times of trouble, on the deathbed, etc.). Otherwise they want to keep him away. Not me. God is an always thing, every moment of life, every situation.

I’ve had two very intimate times with this something I call God. Maybe in a later blog I will discuss that. I’ve faced very realistically my death.

So, there. Maybe I haven’t really said anything intelligible or profound ot theological. Maybe I’ll return to this subject at another time.

What I do know is that I can’t lose God. God simply is. God is life. God is life itself, the life force. I am one with God, the father and I are one. There is a oneness in all of life on the spiritual plane.

So, the statement my friend says I made that I’m really an atheist at heart, maybe I was saying I see God differently than a lot of people do, that to them I’m an atheist because I don’t see things their way. These days especially, in our current political climate, the “crackpot Christians” in the spotlight would probably call me an atheist or worse. Yeah, like I care what they think?

We all have our own experiences of the unseen side (the spiritual side) of life. Maybe this gives you a glimpse into mine. I could write a book, but this is enough for now. I prefer to keep it simple. Thank you for joining me in this blog of “Theology 101,” my ramblings about stuff theological. A lot more could be written and maybe it will be at a later date.

Wally

Posted on

Survivor’s Guilt? Reconciliation with Death? [ Post #13]

We’ve heard about survivor’s guilt, you know, when someone survives an accident in which others were killed. That nagging, perhaps lifelong feeling of guilt of “why me?” Why did I live and all the others died? Yes, I should just be happy to be alive and count my blessings, there’s no reason to be racked with guilt for being so lucky. Except that life doesn’t work that way with our psyche. It can be a bothersome phenomenon, psychologically, mentally, and spiritually.

It took me some time to realize on some level that I was feeling the effects of survivor’s guilt, in a sense. Let me explain how this feeling has come about. It has a lot to do with my work life, my thirty-three years in the airline industry. You see, I worked with basically the same group of people all of those years. From age 25 on, the same people, perhaps a hundred or so co-workers, often in close quarters, day in and day out. We were just kids starting out in life, then young adults, then middle-aged and finally older adults hitting retirement age. I knew these people well. We grew up together, married, had families. All the life events that occur over the years. I think that is quite unusual in this world, to experience all this with the same group, like a large family.

Most people I know, outside of my work group, don’t stay in a job or single career or stay in a single company for their entire work life. Most people do not have the same co-workers at retirement age (60’s or so) that they had in their twenties. A very unique situation and work life.

So, in a sense, it was a very close-knit family of co-workers for several decades. Like I said, this is very unusual these days for most people. We really knew each other, we lived through so many life events together. And then, one by one, we started thinning our group through death. It seemed to be a continuous decimation of the ranks and it kept happening at a faster and faster pace as we aged. There was a period of a few years where I was going to funerals or memorial services at least once a month.

These were people my age or very close to my age. These were very lively, fun people in a close-knit work group. I began to think to myself, “wow,” I am really surrounded with a lot of death. When I would tell my other friends about this phenomenon I was experiencing, they could not relate to what I was going through. Their responses would be like, “gee, that’s weird, I experience a death of a friend or loved one every few years, maybe, but nothing like what you are experiencing.” It got to a point that most of my friends and co-workers were gone. I began to feel like the survivor of my work group. Then it hit me, this feeling I had was somewhat similar to the phenomenon of survivor’s guilt. Unconsciously I was thinking, why am I still here? All my friends are gone, many who I felt were a lot healthier and livelier than I.

So, I have a close relationship with the death experience. Even in college, I spent one summer living in and helping out in a mortuary. I would help the morticians during the day and I would be the caretaker of the mortuary all alone at night. (Don’t ask to see my pictures from those days. I’d even have friends come visit me at night and show them around and they would faint on me.) So, death has been no stranger to me.

So, this survivor’s guilt and my experiences have caused me to reflect on a lot on the end of life. Call me morbid if you must, but I see great value in not denying death but rather in reconciling myself to the inevitable. Do I have a fear of death? Most of the time, no, I don’t feel I do. On the other hand, yes, there are brief periods or terror regarding the end of it all (this earthly life). Fortunately, most of the time I’m okay with this birth, life, death thing. I am spiritual, but I also am human.

So, what’s the bottom line of all of this? Well, three years ago, my brother-in-law died in his sleep. It was the day before his seventy-eighth birthday. He had planned to go golfing with his wife (my sister) that morning and before going to bed he was saying how good he felt and how he was looking forward to the next day with great excitement. But the next day was not to be as he passed away early that morning as he slept.

That experience has really affected this whole “thinking of death” thing. Besides all my friends dying around me, this sudden death hit me hard. I realize that every day or every night could be it, my last day here. I’m very aware of this fact. I now really live every day as if it could be my last. I mean really, this is not just a trite saying for me. Every day I think, am I living this day as I would if I knew that this was my very last day on this earth?

So, I feel I’ve learned my lesson through all this experience with death. I have been blessed with a long life. A lot longer life than I expected in my early, very dark and depressed, pessimistic years. I love every minute of life. I do not get bored. I will not let the crap of this world knock me down any more. Like I’ve said in an earlier post,my personal religion is now very simple, “love, trust God, and *#$&/% the rest!” May we all find our peace with life and the life force, which I call “God.”

Wally

Posted on

Our Shadow, Our Dark Side [ Post #12]

This has not been an easy subject to write a blog post about.  I will try to briefly explain the topic and give my thoughts on it.  Many books have been written regarding our “dark side,” or our demons.  All I can do in this short post is give my thoughts.

I think we all can acknowledge that the evil people in our world have a serious problem with their dark side. No question that evil criminals have serious flaws or demons that cause them to act out in evil ways in our world.

I want to turn, instead, to another sector of our society and talk about our shadow side of our lives.  I’m talking about the “good” people in the world.  Nice, good, even religious and spiritual people in our midst.  I think we all have our dark side, we all have our demons that we have to deal with, or not deal with in life.  One way or another, they do affect us and influence our life, thoughts, and actions.

A good book I recently read (twice, I am planning a third reading soon) is titled “Spiritual Bypassing, When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters,”  by Robert August Masters, PhD.  It is concerned with religious and spiritual people who think they do not have a dark side to their personality and life.  Now, as mentioned in my previous posts, I have spent a lot of my life with religious people, church people.  I have seen that though they are nice, good people, they, too, have their own “demons” that do affect their lives and will keep them from having really free, joyous, honest and psychologically clean lives.  I must include myself in this assessment as I too have my shadow side and have had my own demons to deal with during my life.  

What the author of this book deals with is how often religious people use their spirituality and their spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid dealing with damaging, painful feelings and unresolved wounds.  This is often ignored in our society, we just go on with our daily lives and live in a limited, wounded manner, even if we don’t realize it.

Now, I know some people have found resolution to their wounded parts through therapy.  I also know some people who have had a lot of therapy and don’t seem to be much better in regard to handling their dark side.  Personally, I had a breakthrough when I had a session with a medium and had contact with my deceased parents.  I finally cleared up what happened in my childhood that was not pleasant for me, even though I was not conscious of a lot of the issues we had.  I feel like I had $10,000 worth of therapy in one hour and a half session with my medium.  I totally resolved any early childhood issues for good.

Like I said, I think we all have our wounded parts that need healing.  I still have issues to handle.  I have my father’s temper, that’s a difficult one to totally eliminate (thanks, dad! ).  But my point is, we do not handle these issues by using “spiritual bypassing” or using spiritual bs to just pretend we do not have demons in our lives, a shadow or dark side that God or Jesus or whatever has handled or swept under the rug, so to speak.

The more unresolved issues we have in life, the more our life is limited, as I see it.  Limited in that we are not really free and have real total joy and a sense of a close relationship to all of life and to the Divine life that is available to us all.  I’m not saying that therapy is the answer,  maybe it is for some.  There are different paths to handling these issues in life.  I’m just saying I sometimes see spiritual  people that seem to use spiritual or new age bs to think they have no dark side whatsoever in their lives.

I’m all in favor or living the “good life.”  That includes cleaning up the messes we may have made in our lives.  Heal our wounds, learn to love and practice forgiving all the time!  My particular spiritual path involves working on forgiving everyone and everything.  Not an easy task, not a necessarily pleasant task.  I do not want to be crippled by the past.  I love freedom and  joy and openness and loving relationships.  That’s my choice in how I live and I recommend it.  

Wally

  

Posted on

The Unseen Side of Life [Post #11]

Ok, now we are getting into what some would call the “woo woo” stuff.  I think we all have a sense that there is more to life than the “visible” world that we live in daily.  But what exactly is beyond the visible world, though, is the question. And, of course, everyone has a different opinion about this.

First off, science says that we only see about 5% or so of what makes up the visible part of life as we know it.  So 95% or more of existence in “invisible.”  So that really is not “woo woo,” but rather science!  But, as I said, what is the invisible or unseen world, the unseen side of life?

Religions deal with this realm of existence and they seem to have lots of explanations for it all and often claim to have it all figured out.  Some are rather rigid and certain that they have the answers to what the unseen world is and are very precise in explaining it all.

I covered briefly in my blog post #7 my religious and spiritual journey, explaining how I wandered all over the spiritual map in my life from conservative, fundamental evangelical Christian religion, to strong atheism and back to an open spiritual outlook on life.  I explained how I always had a feeling that there was more to life than just the physical, material, visible and tangible existence we experience day to day.

It was just a vague feeling I had of something, I was not sure what, though.  I definitely had some strong beliefs in this area.  I absolutely did not believe in any “afterlife,” any existence beyond this earthly life.  Of that I was certain!  Life could not possibly go on after physical death, no way, no how.  Even though I felt a spiritual dimension was possible in this life, even real , there was nothing, I was convinced, once this life was over.

Well, that belief of absolute certainty got totally blown up about four years ago for me.  Through a dinner conversation with a friend one night, I made the bold decision to have a session, a reading, with a medium, one who claims to be able to have contact with those who have died, or as thy would say, passed over, are behind the veil, on the “other side,” etc.  My friend told me of an incredible reading he had with a medium and I was intrigued, though an absolute unbeliever in such stuff.

I figured this was the time to do some research and see what all this stuff was really about.  I figured I would waste my money and have a “reading” just to fortify my unbelief and skepticism on the existence of life beyond this earthly one.  This would be money well wasted, I guess you could say.  So I plunged in a set up a reading.

Now this was really an unusual situation for me, as the reading was to be over the phone with a medium in New York State, someone who knew nothing about me and was just a voice over the phone.  

The session lasted for an hour and a half, but immediately after we started, I was blown away.  For the entire session this person told me things no one could ever know about me, my family, my friends, and my life.  Family and friends came through the medium and communicated with me, in the exact way they would have spoken if they were right beside me.   Over the next three years I had two more readings, each one just as amazing as the first one (one session was shared with a good friend also on the phone with the medium).

So, my belief system about continued consciousness after death was been absolutely turned upside down.  That experience has totally shifted my life in new directions.  I have since had several “psychic” type experiences and had to look at life very differently than I had in the past.

So, now I know. I know that there is the unseen, invisible, spiritual world for certain!  Do I understand it?  No, I do not.  It is a mystery, that’s the way it is.  I deal with that as best I can.  It really does change everything when your belief system is totally overhauled like this.  I see things differently, I live differently.  I do see more “wholeness” in my life now.  It’s easier to trust in life, or as some would call it, to have faith.

So, there is an unseen world out there, or rather, in here, or right here.  It’s truly a mystery.  But, I am not going to fall for anyone who says they have it all figured out.  It is a mystery.  Always has been, always will be.  We do have to trust the mystery if we are going to have the good life we have been given.  A good life we have been given for some reason, often a mystery for most of our lives.  So, I would just say, “just go with it, trust and let life be, it works out eventually, even if you don’t see it all now.”

In future blogs I will probably get more into the invisible world and the religious and spiritual worlds we all have some experience with.  Topics I have been tossing around in my mind lately have been things like: what is God?,  Sin (yes, sin), death, etc.  You know, the light topics of life.  Anyway, we’ll see what develops as I ponder things.  I hope you’ll check in regularly to see what’s up as I let my mind meander.

Wally 

Posted on

Hate and How We Handle People We Hate [ Post #9 ]

Well, There’s a word that packs a punch, that throws life off-center, that destroys and kills, often literally.  It’s a word that’s very topical in our world today.  I wish it wasn’t so, but, as they say, “it is what it is,” and we are living in a very hate-filled, hate-obsessed world if one focuses on that aspect of life.

As a child we probably didn’t think much about the emotion of hate.  In childhood we would casually say we love something or we hate something. No big deal.  We love our parents or we hate our parents.  We love or hate our siblings.  We hate or love broccoli, etc.  We love school or we hate school.  I don’t think we were taught the potential damage hating could have at that stage of life.

But advance to the later years and we see hate is a very destructive energy to live with.  Gangs thrive on hate as do most criminals.  Left unchecked, hate just becomes a way of life or at least a part of life.  Yes, it has always been that way.  History is a continuous story of war and killing.  Look at religion, another continuous tale of wars and atrocities.  

Looking over my life, I do not recall actually hating anybody.  There were a lot of people I did not like, people I did not see as good or nice people.  But “hate,” I don’t know if I would say I hated anybody.  I do recall one time when a supposed “friend” all of a sudden decided he hated me.  We were co-workers and I thought good friends until one day in casual conversation I mentioned I was gay.  Kaboom!  He flipped out and started screaming at me how I was evil and God was going to kill me.  God was surely going to kill me, no question about it.  I deserved to get AIDS and die, and soon!  Wow, I did not see that coming.  He hated me ever since that moment.

Now, I grew up in an environment of hate.  I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s, in an all-white area of Los Angeles.  In my immediate environment I was taught that we hate Catholics, Jews and ni**ers.  I did not understand this attitude, so of course I was called a ni**er lover by family members.  I, of course,  was confused as I did not understand this concept of hate that was so natural in the people in my environment.    I guess I was the proverbial “black sheep” of my family and environment.  Over time I’ve been labeled a communist, un-American, bleeding-heart liberal, etc.  Wow, all because I was not hate-filled in my attitudes and thinking.

So now, here we are in later adulthood, and it just doesn’t change much, does it?  Look at the world, look at how people are treating each other. Turn on the news.  I was at the grocery store recently and two people were going at it, screaming awful, nasty things to each other.

So, how do I handle the people I hate in my life.  Well, for starters, I don’t feel that I hate anybody.  Really, I mean that.  Can’t stand some people, that’s for sure.  I find some people awful, disgusting, even evil, but I would not say I hate anyone.  I think hate is a line I will not cross.  I find hate to be too destructive and harmful and dangerous in my life.  My getting worked up and hating people is not for me.  I’ve got enough to do making my life work out how I want it to be.  I don’t have the energy to hate and be distracted from all the good in life.  I will let karma and God work out dealing with the awful people in this world.  Really… as they say, “it’s not my job, man!”