Category: Religion / Spirituality

Posted on

Letting Go [Post 36]

A very hard skill to learn, perhaps the hardest practice or skill to acquire in life is the “art of letting go.” If one can truly learn to let go in life, one can live a better life, a good life, even a great, joyous and happy life. Not being able to acquire this skill can wreak havoc emotionally and psychologically and mentally for one’s entire existence.

I feel very fortunate that I have been blessed with this ability as as innate part of my psychological makeup, or so it seems. Of course I’ve been hurt, I’ve been through some really dark periods, perhaps abused and abandoned at times. I’m not denying deep hurts in my life. But, I have been able to, with time and personal inner work and occasionally assistance from others been able to heal my wounds and move forward. Healing and moving on has saved me much mental turmoil and allowed me to live a freer, fuller life. I’m so glad I am not a clinger, a hanger-on to both bad and good experiences. I feel one of the great teachings of Buddhism is to not have attachments, to not cling to desires.

Now, I know what I just said can be easily misunderstood and often is in our culture. Desires and attachments and clinging and greed are big things in our society. They are normal, most people would say. But, I say the more you can eliminate these habits, the better off you will be.

Lets take bad experiences. We all will have bad, hurtful, even tragic experiences in life. Just gonna happen. They can destroy us if we can’t move through them and find some way to heal from our wounds. Death is one of the hardest experiences to go through. No one can avoid the horrible feelings of losing a loved one in death. Well, except for the psychopath or sociopath personality. I’m talking about normal people.

Some people get stuck at that point. They have experienced the gut-wrenching experience of having a loved one die, gone completely and forever from this earth. We feel we’ll never get over the loss and some people never do. I’ve come to believe that may be true. In fact, I believe that it may be true that we never really “get over a death of a loved one,” but we can “get through” the loss and have a great deal of healing from the experience over time, often a long time. On the other hand, some people never recover from a tragic loss, they are permanently damaged. I saw that in my mother, when her father died when I was a little kid. She went off the deep end, as they say. She went mental and never recovered, just got progressively worse over the years until her death when I was twenty-five.

We all have to let go of loved ones, like our parents if we outlive them. Those times with my parents (above), gone forever.

I have experienced the death of loved ones and friends as difficult times. I have grieved. I have eventually gotten through the grieving and moved on in life, not forgetting the loss, but accepting it as part of life. I certainly don’t mean to minimize the depth of hurt or the sometimes long process of healing. What I’m saying is that I don’t get permanently stuck in a bad mental state.

Now, besides the death experience, there are lots of times during our lifetimes that we have to “let go” of things and experiences and periods and phases of our lives. I’ve had to let go of my first experience of having a life partner. It was a sick relationship as I see it. It was bad, psychologically and emotionally. It was very unhealthy, as I see it now. I have had to let go of friends that were not good for me in my life. Friends and acquaintances who were mean, nasty, crazy, unbalanced, etc. Haven’t most of us? Not always easy. Not pleasant, but such a relief once we have done it and healed from our “sin” (mistake) of picking the wrong people to have around us in our perhaps more “needy” times.

Loved my flying days. Fulfilled my dream, but those days are in the past.

I have had to let go of some loves and pleasures of my life. I relinquished my wonderful “hobby” of piloting airplanes, my childhood dream come true. I thoroughly enjoyed the many years of flying, but the time came when it was too expensive and I didn’t have the time to keep up with all I needed to do to keep my licenses current and active. Yes, I have friends that don’t understand how I could give up that great love in my life, but that’s okay, they don’t have to understand me. I just knew the time had come to “let it go .” I did what I had to do at that time in my life.

I had no problem retiring from my airline career. It was mostly a great experience, my thirty-three years as an airline employee. I had picked the right industry and field of work for me and really loved it. But after my time there, I easily let it go. I know some friends that have a very difficult time retiring, adjusting to a new lifestyle, but not me. I had my great time working and it was time to go, time to begin a new experience of being “retired.” Yes, it did take a time of adjustment in some ways, but my head was good with it all. I let it go!

Looking at a different aspect of letting go, I’ve also had to let go of some assumptions and dreams, expectations and promptings of society and friends that were not right for me, in all honesty. I had to give up the assumed role in society of becoming a “family man,” getting married (heterosexually, of course), and having children, you know, that whole experience. It was in my twenties that I realized that dream, that picture was not going to happen for me. That was not the path I would want to choose. I had to let go of that expectation. I had expected that after college graduation I would follow the plan and become a stereotypical family man with all the trimmings. There was a different path awaiting me.

The good times. Playing charades with friends. Temporarily gone but will return.

So, life is a lot about living true to yourself, enjoying the good times when they come along, not grasping to hang on to them (yes, the good times), and also experiencing the dark or bad times and also not grasping and holding on to them, also. The bad times, I feel, must be worked through, doing whatever work one must to get centered again in life, grieve, and move on. Always working to be emotionally healthy, balanced, authentic, joyous and happy, that’s the formula for living a good life, as I see it. Not resisting what reality is staring you in the face right now, this moment. Handle it, heal it, and move forward.

Now, as I write this, the world is going through a complete upending of everything, with the virus affecting the entire world. Talk about “letting go!” We are being forced to let go of so much, all at once, almost everything which we consider a normal part of life. Living freely, gathering in groups, socializing, going to events. traveling, going to restaurants, whatever. Everything we took to granted as just a part of everyday life. We have had to let go, period. Not much choice involved. Just mundane shopping now involves dressing up in protective gear and avoiding people.

That final “letting go,” letting go of life, everything we were, everything we dreamed, all our loves, at least on this earthly plane.

So, of course we will all have to experience that final, grand letting go of all time. The letting go of life on our death bed or wherever. Yes, I know in our culture we avoid all thought of this final release of all we are, all we have been, with no hope of anything more in this life, on this planet. All of life. Adios, farewell, and all of that. The big release, letting go. How do you feel about that? How have you handled that thought? Will you handle that thought with the time you have left? Personally, I have had two experiences in my life where I faced my death. I mentioned them in previous blogs. I have a feeling those experiences will resurface in my final hours or minutes in as vivid a way as they did previously, except this time I will know that “this is it, for real.” Perhaps there was a reason I had a dress rehearsal for this event many years ago.

To sum this all up, letting go is a good skill to have as we navigate through life. A difficult skill for most of us, an impossible skill for some of us. It will affect how we live our lives. It will affect our deep serenity and happiness and joy in life, I believe.

I believe in enjoying life, the good times, such as a helicopter tour of Kauai, Hawaii, above. But I say don’t cling , hold on the the good times in an unhealthy way , enjoy them and let them be fun memories.

Wally

Posted on

Different Personalities, Spiritualities, and the World’s a Mess [ Post # 34 ]

Life is basically pretty simple, if you look at it that way. At least the basics of life, as I see it. First off, this world is made up of quite an assortment of personalities. Billions, actually. Everyone is a bit different and many are very different, some extremely different. Thinking about it, I’m amazed we get along at all. We often don’t. Hence the fighting, conflicts, violence, divorces, killings and wars that we have in the world. Of course it’s all very complex, but our different personalities are at the core of it all, as I see it.

Besides the range of personalities we also have a plethora of spiritualities, or if you prefer the term, religions. We have official, well defined religions and we have many individuals that have their own beliefs or spiritual feelings. We all, I think, individualize our belief systems as we all see life differently. Some just accept an established religion as is, some believe parts of organized religion but reject other parts.

For example, I know several “good Catholics” that believe Catholicism, yet have problems or disagreements with certain “Catholic” beliefs, i.e. abortion, homosexuality, papal authority or infallibility, only one true church, etc. So it seems no two people have the same exact religion or spirituality. Wouldn’t you agree?

So, back to our personalities.How do we get along and to some extent accept other personalities in this complex and diverse world? Personally, I’m amazed that we do get along as well as we do most of the time. I guess enough of us have flexibility and openness and compassion to hear each other out and decide to get along or tolerate or sort of agree and accept others in this world. Truth be told, there are a lot of people I don’t care for or really like at all. That’s just the way it is. I have no guilt about not liking some people, even though they may be good people, not bad people. There are many mean, nasty, vicious, intolerant, hateful people. Stay out of my world if that describes you. I have no time for you.

As to religion, I have more toleration for the many different religions in this world. As I see it, religion is our attempt to make some sense out of life, to have something to help us deal with the mystery of existence. Different people choose different religions. It’s as simple as that. Many, if not most people choose the religion they were brought up in in their childhood. Others develop a religion or a spirituality of their own as they grow up and mature in life. Some claim to have absolutely no religion (hence, atheism), but I see atheism as a religion in a sense, especially after spending a few years in the atheism camp of believers in atheism. They definitely have their strong, often inflexible beliefs in the nonexistence of God in any sense.

So, we have these many different personalities, ranging from very good to very evil, from very easy going and compatible to very difficult and impossible to deal with. We also have all of these religions and spiritual paths, some or most, perhaps, very loving and helpful to people coping with life, and some rather harsh and perhaps abusing and violent in the extreme. So, what is the result of all this mixture of personalities and religions?

My perspective is that the result of all of this is that the world is a mess. It really is, as I see it. Yes, the world works, you may say. Many would debate that statement. A case could be made that the world does not really work, not for everyone. You could point out all the problems and suffering in the world. No disputing that. So, perhaps the world works for some people, but certainly not for all.

So, what do we do? How do we create a world that really does work, that works for everyone? There are people that say they have the answers. There are people that say they feel they have a call to “save” the world. There are groups, there are cults, there are religions claiming to have the answers, the solutions to this dilemma. Well, that does not seem to be so. Look at history. There have been horrible periods in world history,and there have been better periods, but always, mankind has been fighting, warring, manipulating and controlling the world’s populations. As I see it, it all depends on individuals. We each have a part to play in keeping this world somewhat sane and “less messy.” It’s that simple. How we live each day, each decision we make, each conversation we have, each action we take affects the world at large. Enough good people will and do make a difference in making the world a better place. More bad people and it gets messier and more evil. Well, that’s not very profound you may say. Well, perhaps, but that is the way the world works. Good people, heroes, saints, sages, teachers have kept this world growing and evolving. they have saved life from extinction and we must be grateful for that, for those people who have stepped up and done their good work they had to do. The exciting thing is that we can be a part of this group of extraordinary of people by how we live our lives. By how we live our lives every day, every moment. Every action we take is important. Are we contributing to the good of the world? That’s the question we need to ask ourselves. That’s how we need to live and be.

Postscript

Once again, after I wrote this blog and let it sit before publishing it, world events have occurred pertaining to my blog’s subject. The virus situation exploded and the world has turned upside down it seems. People’s opinions and feelings and anger are extreme as I write this in late March 2020. The world is experiencing something we haven’t experienced in this way before in our modern age. Many people are making this all about politics, downplaying the situation saying this is all just a conspiracy and hype by the media and liberals and democrats to affect the 2020 presidential elections. Wow. The whole world is doing this just as a political ploy it would seem by their logic. Wow. I really can’t say much more than that now, just wow. I will stick with science, facts, what I observe and know using my intelligence. This is a very unusual time. People are revealing how they think. They are revealing their ignorance, their rigid, fixed political beliefs, at the risk of life itself to prove their point. I still have hope for humanity, but it is being tested to the extreme.

Wally

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