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

Like Father, Like Son [ Post # 16 ]

Oh, family dynamics. Aren’t they interesting? We all have different relationships with our family members, don’t we? In this blog I am going to write about my relationship with my father, something I never thought I’d be writing about, but here I am doing just that.

I’ve mentioned my father a couple of times in previous blogs. About him trying to thwart my dream of being a pilot and my desire for a college education and him standing up for me when my high school counselor said I couldn’t take English Literature class because I was not “college material.” Well, upon deep reflection, I realize now that my father and I did have some things in common, even though I did not realize it in my childhood. We did not have a great relationship, maybe, but I did learn from him at times.

My father was a writer at heart. He was a journalist most of his life. He was a newspaper reporter and eventually a columnist. He even wrote his memoirs which I only discovered a few years ago. After moving his family from Michigan to California he was a Hollywood correspondent for the Lansing State Journal, writing a column for years as a movie reviewer and a reporter of the Hollywood and celebrity scene. I wish I had kept his columns as I’d love to read them now to remember how he wrote. Oh, well, bottom line, he was a writer.

He did not enjoy having to cover gory murder and crime scenes as a reporter, but other than that, he loved his work. He was always writing. So, now that I’ve started blogging (the modern day version of him writing his personal newspaper column), I realize somehow I have the same urge in me that he had to write about stuff ( life, observations, opinions, etc.). It didn’t hit me until now that we had that in common. I guess I did pick up his interest, desires and motivations and talents (?), well, don’t know about that.

Although he did send us kids to church and Sunday school in my early years, he was not what you would call a “religious” man. He liked church because the minister was a big football fan and talked sports a lot. As for the religious part of church, I don’t think he was much interested. Not a big believer in God, as I saw it. I guess you would call him an agnostic.

Eventually, when I became a more religious person in my teen years, he probably had problems with that. And then, when after college I went on to seminary to prepare for the ministry, well, that definitely confused him, I’m sure. He probably also had a problem with me since I did not grow up to be an athlete and a strong sports fan. It’s not that I didn’t try. I did play football as a kid in the neighborhood and played little league baseball for a short time. But I was never that good, and sports was a big thing for him. I did go to a lot of sporting events, high school football games every week, Angels games (he loved the Angels and hated the Dodgers and had frequent contact through his writing with Gene Autry, owner of the Angels). But I was never the fanatic sports fan I think he wanted me to be. When my nephews came along years later, he was thrilled as they all became fanatical sports fans.

He sensed I was different, I’m sure, but that’s the way it was. You can’t be all things to all people. But, somehow, I did pick up this writing thing. During my elementary school years, I started a neighborhood newspaper which my dad occasionally helped me with. I enjoyed that, even going out and getting local merchants to pay to advertise in it. I remember in college, I had to write a letter to my draft board when I lost my college deferment and needed them to reinstate it. My college roommate was very impressed with my writing skills at that time when he read my letter.

So, like father-son relationships, there were good things and some not so good things. He was never warm and close with me but he was helpful at times and never cruel or abusive (except perhaps verbally). He could cuss and swear and unfortunately that trait was picked up by me and I really struggle with that to this day.

I’m okay with all of this. This was life in my family. This was my relationship with my father. It could have been better and it could have been much worse. I survived and I went on to create and live my life. It has been a good life and I am grateful for all of it. In the long run, it’s all good. Good lessons were learned along the way.

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

Tolerant No More! Shy No More! (well….) [Post #14]

Tolerant is an interesting word. It’s defined as “to put up with,” usually. Or, sometimes to be “open minded, liberal, broad-minded, to endure,” etc. It can sound good, like toleration is good, a good thing, a good trait to possess. Yes, that’s how I’ve viewed the meaning of the word over the years. But, you know, I’m beginning to not like the term so much anymore. The deeper I go in thinking about toleration, the more I begin to dislike the word.

My whole life I have been taught to just “tolerate” everything. Tolerate abusive people, even family and loved ones, bad teachers, bad work environments, bad co-workers, bad bosses, incompetent “experts” and “professionals,” etc. You get the idea. To live a good life, just tolerate almost everything. Get along and just put up with whatever. Sounds good? I’m not sure that’s the best strategy to live the good life.

I think that I have tolerated too much over the years. I’ve played the game. Yes, I’ve gotten some of the “goodies” as rewards for going along and playing the game. But I think it’s time to step up the game and move beyond toleration. There’s a higher level than toleration. I want to see people live and function on a higher, more evolved level than toleration. Do you want people to just tolerate you Or do you want people to like you and love you? And if they don’t like you, let that be. But to be tolerated? Not really what I want. I certainly don’t want to tolerate awful, nasty, mean, cruel people. I’m tired of tolerating people’s sh*t and sh*tty attitudes and behaviors. And in today’s highly charged political climate, especially. I will not engage with some people who are a bit out of control of their anger, in my view of things. Tolerate hate and hate talk, no way! I will set “my” boundaries; you set yours if you want.

This brings up a connection of sorts to another aspect of life for me. Ever since I was a child, some people always thought of me as shy, a shy person. My brother-in-law, especially, drilled into me his opinions of my shyness as well as his perceived shyness of my two siblings. I won’t argue with that. As he saw it, the three of us were shy in comparison with others. We were definitely more introverted and shy than most people. More on the introverted end of the scale than the extroverted side. My point is that being a bit shy and taught to just tolerate everything in life probably didn’t move me along on the fast track to good emotional and psychological health in my early years.

But decades have passed, we’ve grown and moved on and accomplished things in our lives. At this stage of life, however, being somewhat introverted and overly tolerant of way too much crap in life and the world is not a good thing for me personally. I now realize that I need, I must, be more definite and adamant about setting boundaries on what I will allow into my immediate personal environment, or what you might call my “energy field.” So, yes, maybe I am becoming more intolerant of things that I used to give a pass to. So be it! I see this intolerance as being a good thing. I’ve learned my lessons from the past regarding being shy, introverted and tolerant and too accepting of sh*t.

I’ve lived a long and very good life. I’ve make mistakes. I’ve lived with not the best people at times and for way too long. But hey, that’s how life goes, right? At least I’ve survived and grown and transcended the muck to find a new freedom in life by being true to myself, my truth, and my God.

So, toleration is not my favorite term or preferred way of life. Like me or love me or don’t like me, that’s up to you, but tolerate me… hmmmm.

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

Traveling the World [Post #10]

I am a very lucky person in that I was able to realize my dream of traveling the world after finishing my education.  I had decided that that was what I wanted to do as I drove away from Chicago, leaving seminary in 1972.

In 1973 I started my airline career and after six months I took my first  trip as an airline employee and  literally went around the world.  We had an around-the-world flight at the time and I jumped on board for a three-week journey heading east, averaging three days at each stop along the way.

I went with a friend from work that I didn’t know well, so it was quite an adventure.  Our first stop was Portugal.  Our first night there I discovered that he did not care for foreign food.  I thought well, this will be interesting, traveling the world and trying to find American food everywhere we go.  Like, what’s the point of going around the world and not sampling each country’s cuisine?  Oh, well, on we went.  We visited Italy, Greece, Israel, India, Thailand, Taiwan, Okinawa, Guam and back to the U.S. through Hawaii.  All in three weeks.  For a twenty-five year old, that was quite an introduction to the world.  It’s one of those things you are glad you did when the opportunity presented itself.

I of course learned a lot regarding the different cultures and people that make up our world.  Learned some history.  Learned that traveling the world with someone you hardly know can be interesting.  Learned a little about sexual addiction as my friend found a hookup (female) in almost every port.  Yes, quite an education.

After that big trip I traveled a lot.  I would take a few extra days off every month or so and go to Europe for short stays.  I also traveled the U.S. a lot.  It was a lifestyle I really enjoyed in the early years of my career.

When Terry came into my life we kept up the pace of my travel bug.  Fortunately he loved traveling also.  We did trips to England, Scotland, Iceland, as well as much domestic travel.  It was nice to have a travel companion and we traveled well together.

I’m so glad I did all the traveling I did when I was younger as I would not want to travel like that now.  Times have changed so much.  Flying was not the hassle that it is now with crowded flights and cramped seating.  In the old days it was much more comfortable and I was often able to travel in first class.  Oh, well, I’m glad I took the opportunity when it was available  and I had lots of energy to go, go, go!

At this point in life I do not have the same interest or energy I had back then.  I’ve seen a lot, done a lot, and really have become a homebody in a sense.  We still like to travel but enjoy car trips and train trips more.  A five-hour plane trip is my limit these days.  Hawaii makes a nice break from routines twice a year and the beauty there is as good as I’ve found anywhere.  We also have our other favorite places to visit like Sedona, Branson, Charleston, Edisto Island (S.C.), Savanna and others.  We also try to see a new place every year.  But the pace has slowed.  Lots of places I haven’t seen, but that’s fine with me.  I’m glad I started early with this travel thing.  Life does change.  Life’s been good.  I can’t imagine what life would have been like if I had never done the traveling I did do.   I’ve lived my dream and I am living my dream, just the pace has changed.

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!” 

  


Posted on

Why I Love Funerals [Post #8]

Well, that title probably got your attention.  But there is truth in that statement.  Let me tell you why I love (good) funerals.  Now, I know funerals are very sad events.  At the last funeral I was at, the best friend of the deceased started his eulogy with the statement that “funerals suck!”  And that is true.  Of course funerals suck.  But there is a sense in which I love funerals.

At most funerals (and at memorial services) I get to hear the deceased’s life story.  I get to hear stories of their life that I would never hear otherwise.  It is my last chance, usually, to find out very interesting facts about the fascinating life they lived.  I happen to love people’s life stories.  After all, we never really know most of the people in our lives.  We know very little, usually, about our friends.

So I sit there and am amazed by what I learn as people share their experiences and knowledge of their dear, deceased loved one.  I am sad that it takes a funeral to learn about my friends, to really know who they were.  As I see it, by then it is too late to appreciate their life and let them know.  I guess it’s better than never knowing the stories, I just wish they had shared more of their real selves while they were alive.

Which brings me to today, and me and my writing, blogging, and speaking.  Several years ago, while visiting my nephew in Florida, he handed me a book.  The book was my father’s memoirs, an autobiography.  My father apparently typed out these pages of his life story a long time ago, but nobody knew of this until my nephew found them among boxes of family “stuff” after my father’s passing.

My nephew had these pages printed up in a book and gave a copy to family members.  What a surprise!  I never knew much about my father and reading the book filled in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge of him and gave me an appreciation of what he lived through.  And that got me thinking, Maybe I should do something like that, get my stories out there, out of my head and into the world, or at least out there for my friends to know.  I thought about it, realizing, yes, we don’t know people and their life stories until their funerals, and then we don’t know very much, usually.

The problem is, writing your memoirs or autobiography can be a daunting project.  I was interested, excited and committed, but it is too easy to procrastinate to just write the long story of one’s life.  I realized I might never get very far with the project.  That’s when the thought of internet blogging came to me.  I realized I am not a “techy” type person and probably couldn’t handle writing a blog, but doing some research I discovered even people not computer savvy could do it with a little help that was available.  So, I plunged in, and here we are. I realized that besides my life stories, there are other subjects I could write about.  I have lots of ideas, so there is always something to write that might be of some interest to someone.

I have a little public speaking/preaching  background, having been to seminary.  I enjoyed that and I got some good reviews.  But that takes a lot of work in preparation, plus I have to seek speaking opportunities (sell myself, etc.), and then the audience is usually rather small, and who is going to remember anything I said a few days later.  I find it easier to sit down and write and when I do, there is a written record to come back to if I or someone else chooses to.

So, that was the genesis of my blogging project.  I like having good conversations with people.  I like really learning about people. I want to know about people before they die.  I say, let’s be more open with our lives, that’s my wish and desire.  We get too hung up on the unimportant things in life.

Wally