Human Existence Is based on Beliefs

Many times people confuse having faith as a belief in a specific religion or theocratic version of creation. Those who reject religion or theocracy claim to live a faithless life. I challenge that premise. I believe everyone of us lives a life of faith grounded in the belief that what we do, choose and pass on is logical and scientific in it's very premise.

The Atheist for example like to say that they live a faithless life but that is not true. Many live a life that is grounded in moral values. Moral values lived in how one defines them. The Mafioso lives a moral life which is one that is grounded in family, do unto others before they do unto you, and even murder is only "business". They seem to be living a life that gives benefits but only to themselves, whomever they define as "family".

Other Atheists live a life rejecting religion as based on a fairy tale we call holy writings but bear no real credence to truth. The fact of the matter is, according to some, religion has committed more atrocities in the name of God than all other institutions that have ever existed. Their life of faith is the belief that there is no supernatural spirit and those that believe in one are duped by those manipulators like Popes, or Imams.

Those who are Theologists sometimes confuse their belief in the religion practiced with the God they are supposed to worship. Religion should be the vehicle one uses to worship their God therefore that specific religion takes a back seat to the Godhead being worshiped. Catholics for example should realize that they are Christians believing in a Triune Deity with Jesus as their bridge to the Father through the Spirit and that they are Christians first and foremost who choose their religion to become better Christians, followers of Christ. Christ always first, Catholicism always second to that. The Muslim or Jew too or any practicing religionist should put the specific religion second to the God they are worshiping.

My argument is that we humans live a life built of faith, belief in something we think we know all about even though we know very little. We go to sleep, lie our heads down and enter a coma like state that refreshes us and makes our life better. We are confident we will wake when we lie down but what is that confidence built on? The experience we have gone through from birth, our mother telling us we "need" sleep but it is through blind faith that we permit ourselves to lose consciousness knowing we will wake refreshed for another day of work, love and laughter. We get into an Air Plane with the full faith, belief that the pilot knows what he is doing and we will safely arrive at our destination. But what is this faith based on? Certainly nothing that we have scientifically proved and in fact sometimes that faith is wasted as the pilot fails us and a crash ensues.

This discussion can be ended by saying I guess we should be more tolerant of ideas that are floated about because each and every one of us lives a life of faith based on beliefs formulated in our lifetime that bear truth and non-truths. Perhaps we all have a semblance of the truth and should do our best to weed out what isn't true and include what is true.

Or perhaps we exist only in the mind of some great giant existing only when he is awake and ceasing to exist when he stops thinking of us. But I don't think so.

          

Be An Easter Person, Resurrected and Whole

How many times have you heard it said about some grouch that "He or she is not a morning person"?  A version of that is the one who arrives home after work and wants silence so he or she can unwind.  They want to keep the people around them under their control because they really want the world around them to mourn their existence just the way they do. They are unhappy about the conditions of their life and want everybody around them to be unhappy too.

Now I realize that there are medical or psychological conditions that may affect some upon waking that can make them feel miserable. But I know those who have some conditions and because of their attitude that it is better to smile than to frown they overcome the pains and help make their world better and the world around them much better also.

There are people around us that require quiet, so much so that they never hear the joyous sounds around them. The sounds of a baby crying suddenly changing to loving cooing as they receive soothing comfort from their mothers. The sounds of a soldier or some loved one returning home after a long and arduous journey elsewhere. The sounds of lovers enjoying their love just by being with one another. The sounds of nature such as the wind blowing through the trees, the birds singing, a dog barking, a cat mewing.

Have you ever sat at a festive table that was without raucous laughter, friendly arguing, loving sharing of experiences that make life worthwhile that was quiet and without noise? If you have been there then you just don't know what it is like to live life to it's fullest as joyfully as you can.

The quiet of the night is good for sleep but the dreams that the Greek God Morpheus sends are full of success and tasting of the joys of life. The one who sleeps without dreams is like being in a coma, or dead but the one with dreams has experienced a sense of loving, succeeding, living life to its fullest. And so it should be for those awake, a life full of dreams, of reaching further than where you are, a joyous existence that wants all to come along and enjoy rather than to be quiet and sulk in despairing loneliness.

So drop those morning grouches and tired and bored human beings and come along the river of life joyfully shouting to God "How good it is!", "How Great Thou Art"!..

    

Love, Family, Rich, Poor

The New York Mets' second baseman Daniel Murphy took off two days from the baseball season, which happened to be opening day of the season, to be with his wife for the birth of their first child and started a brouhaha that is taking on proportions one would have never imagined since this was in accord with the present baseball contract and met with full accordance with his employers. A couple of talking heads criticized Mr. Murphy for taking the second day using some unfortunate language. This started the conversation. But the argument should not be about Daniel Murphy because he a had a perfect right to exercise the option. The argument should be focused on other matters not the least of which is if all this talk says a father should be present to support his wife and love his family shouldn't it apply to all including the very poor who may be working at the lowest wages and would lose very important income needed to feed and support his family?

The job one chooses certainly plays an important role in family life. If family is the most important feature of a lifetime and that is expressed as being with your family during all the important moments which include the quiet moments as well as the most prominent ones then one shouldn't choose to be a professional baseball player because there will be little time for family togetherness much less all the moving around as one is traded from one team to the next giving no chance for roots to take hold. The fact is one shouldn't choose many professions such as the military, travelling salesperson, or even the medical profession. All these careers interfere with family life of togetherness and sharing. However they provide other goodies which may not be available in other professions such as great food, shelter, clothing, education and all that stuff that good income provides.

Life is full of trade-offs. The biggest trade-off is where the effort is made to succeed and the price one is willing to pay for his or her definition of success. The driving force for many is money, power, influence while others look more to the tight knit family unit with the stability of a home, neighborhood, role models.
I knew a young man who declined a very lucrative offer for an international sales job because it would remove him from his family for a good part of the year. He never had the fame, or notoriety connected with successful people but he had his family even though the family paid it's price for this, prestigious colleges were out, but stability was in. Peculiarly many would view the professional man who makes the one time effort like the professional man who is there for the birthing event but absent for a good part of the growing up years as the success while the other one is quietly viewed by onlookers as the not so good one. Somehow I guess it is all in the eye of the beholder. However, trade-offs must always be considered.

With all this conversation over what Daniel Murphy should or should not have done or what those pundits should or should not have said is really diverting one from the real question. The real question should be if the right to be have a real family life which includes being with each other at the birth of one's child then why are the poorest among us denied that right? Just ask the guy who is barely making it if he would be paid if he took time off to be with his wife while she was giving birth and I bet the answer would be no, and maybe even result in the loss of his job if he took that time which should rightfully be his if he so chose. The real question should resolve itself about whether we as a nation concern ourselves with only the high and mighty and let the poor and needy scrape along thinking how lucky they are that we let them live off the crumbs that our society let them have.  Because at the end of the day those that can afford it like Mr. Murphy do what they please to do and those that can't do only what the ones in power let them do.

        

Slow Down You Move Too Fast

There comes a time in one's life when the decision has to be made to slow down or life will pass you by. There is so much emphasis put on succeeding that there is very little time left to just enjoying living.

A child doesn't even have time to be just a child to discover and enjoy his surroundings before he is in Pre-K which is followed by K and then the whole learning process from the best of elementary school to the best of high school to the best of universities. This is the constant pressure to learn the scholastic programs, earn great marks so that the better schools will accept you and perhaps give great scholarships. Between all that studying sports such as Baseball, Soccer maybe Basketball and Football are squeezed in and the real good ones can get a sports scholarship and then go on to the pros.As they age sports leave them and they are so engrossed in having a good time they are sleeping around with anyone who makes themselves available, drinking, smoking crack or Mary Jane, with nothing ever really having much real meaning the only goal is to sate themselves with their idea of success foisted on them by their parents and society as a whole. Everything is moving at breakneck speed all aimed to succeed and make tons of money and before it is realized the guys and gals are nearing thirty then breaking forty and suddenly youth is left behind and middle then old age takes over. With old age comes the realization that their lives were wasted. Maybe they are recognized in their field. Maybe they are financially stable and have no financial worries. Maybe they have great estates and continue to live in the lap of luxury. Maybe they have broken marriages, children out of control, an unsettled mind and body being kept alive by today's medicines and drugs. Maybe they missed the real meaning of life and missed living while they traveled at breakneck speed toward "success".

To all who want to take a moment to reflect I would like to off Gorden Jenkin's lyrics:

This Is All I Ask

As I approach the prime of my life

I find I have the time of my life

Learning to enjoy at my leisure

All the simple pleasure

And so I happily concede

This is all I ask

This is all I need

Beautiful girl, walk a little slower when you walk by me

Lingering sunset, stay a little longer with the lonely sea

Children everywhere, when you shoot at bad men, shoot at me

Take me to that strange enchanted land

Grown-ups seldom understand

Wandering rainbows, leave a bit of color for my heart to own

Stars in the sky, make my wish come true

Before the night has flown

And let the music play as long as there's a song to sing

Then I will stay younger than spring

 

        

The Big Bang Theory

Who the hell knows how this whole world and humans really started but as far as I can understand it all started with a composition of something round that had all the necessary components for life all wrapped up in the basic chemical form and it was hot I mean really boiling. Now I prefer to think that a super power that I refer to as God put this all together and knew what going to happen but HE/SHE wasn't going to micromanage so he/she let this little ball of hot chemicals boil until it exploded with a big bang. But as it exploded it expanded out and is still expanding today ever growing out from it's core to form this wonder we call galaxies. God looked around and saw all sizes of planets, stars and suns. Wow he thought, "Who would've thought that little concoction I cooked up with ever develop into this?".

Looking around he spotted one of the smallest planets orbiting around a super star at just the right distance so that it warmed the planet but didn't burn it up. This little sucker had all the right ingredients for God's next potpourri. He/She played around with different combinations of chemicals which were put into a molding unit but then was encased in solidified chemicals which he/she called skin. There were all sorts of things growing on this planet that were beautiful to the smell, eyes feel and taste.

One of the things he/she created was going to have the ability to think in scientific terms, reproduce  and roam this wonderful place making it better. All sorts of things, creatures were around and He/She had the idea to make what we call man/woman. The molding casks were set and all the right chemicals were put together even the ones necessary to make new ones. He/She ingeniously thought of self containment reproduction based on the exact thing that created and was still creating the galaxies, The Big Bang Theory. The woman would be the carrier. The experiment with the fish where the male carried just didn't have the right feel to it. The male never really adjusted the way all the other species did when the female carried. She would carry the little round egg which would be set on fire by the male and it would explode and expand and keep expanding until it would break out of the encasement and in a short time be able to take care of itself. Of course this doesn't always work out precisely as the offspring of many are never really ready to take care of themselves mainly because of over mothering but this is a better choice of male only fathering. He/She thought that it would be a good idea if there were some limitations placed on them because they would enjoy, at least the male would, reproducing so much that there would be over-population. There was the invention of "planned obsolescence" who many thought was thought of by General Motors but it was really He/She's idea. to keep this world from being destroyed by over-population.

Anyway that's it in a nutshell. Everything starts with a very small microscopic ball that needs to be set on a boiling plane until it explodes and expands and keeps expanding forever. Galaxies, Stars, Planets, Suns, Animals, vegetation everything. Of course if someone or something gets in the way the expansion is stopped, lets say by carbon released into space or what have you and then it is over. No more bang for the buck!

 

Success Can't Happen If You Are Afraid To Fail

Many never attain a goal or goals because they are afraid if they try they will fail. What they don't know is if they don't fail they shall never succeed. Success and failure are really related. They are like a coin with reverse, obverse, heads or tails. The fact of the matter is that there are far greater failures than successes.
There are a number of factors involved in rating an effort as successful or not.

First we have to consider who the monitor is and what the rules are that measure any effort. An individual baseball player is rated a good hitter if he succeeds 30% of the time which means he is failing 70%  of the time. This is the result of computing a batting average. But what is not recognized that the other side of this statistic is the fact that the pitchers who allow a combined .300 hitting average against them are considered
poor, failing despite the fact that they retire 70% of the batters they face and only the much smaller figure, 30% are successful against them. The measure is what finally results in wins and losses of games which by the way says if you win 70% while losing 30% the pitcher is regarded as a super star.

We can play with statistics all day but it is a dry way of facing the fact that m every thing worth striving for in each person's world is worth the try even if it results in failure because very rarely is the failure total and usually there is some success in the try which can be used in another effort which can result in success, probably not total for there is some failure in every success.

Many are afraid to take a chance at loving because of the fear of rejection. But if one never takes the chance of making themselves vulnerable they will never know the sweetness of that first kiss which leads to a loving and caring relationship which for many lasts a lifetime, but if it doesn't isn't it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all (quote the poet).

In many ways Jesus is a prime example of a person who took the chance and seemingly failed miserably but out of that failure actually changed the world. This is true even if one doesn't accept Jesus as the son of god because he lived and became involved and was not afraid of failure, which on the other side of his coin was very successful.

So for all of you who are reading this and have a secret desire to try something that all around you seem to say is foolish because it can never happen say goodbye to that advice and get off your butt and start to pursue your heart's desire without the fear of failure or looking foolish because in the effort to gain your goal any failure will be a building block which will eventually get you to the point where you will be satisfied with your success.

 

Life & Death

He was at the same church which he frequented growing up. The same church he received first holy communion, Confirmation. He was in the same church where some 57 years ago he and his bride said those words which bound them together "Until death do us part.". This was the place that was the start of so much of his life. Yet lately he found himself in the place where so much of his life marked "beginnings" celebrating lives that were ended. It wasn't so bad when the people he knew lived a full life and finally came to that point where they had to say goodbye and enter that great mysterious beyond to start another journey in another dimension. But it hurt when he found himself in that same church mourning the death of someone who seemingly didn't get a chance for a full life as their ending came when they were still relatively young and so much more was left to be done, so many more were dependent upon them. There were children who still needed them, a spouse who would be lost without a partner so loved, so needed for fulfillment.

But upon reflection he knew from the experience of his own life that no matter how much it appeared that there was nothing but grief after a tragedy. Other persons entered a life, other experiences filled the void and if only those left behind would realize this fact the period of mourning would be less and the task and joy of living a new life would soon take hold.

Death separated him from his love and he thought he would never love again but he found that among the living love makes life more beautiful and joyful for those who are not afraid to take the chance. Even among those he knew that left children the child grew into the adult, a beautiful woman, a handsome man, full of hope with their lives before them ready to be lived to the fullest.

The immediate aftermath of death however had to be filled with a period of healing. The hurt inflicted by the loss most always seems insurmountable. There must be enough time to let the healing process take place through grieving. The seven stages of grief are very necessary because without this many would slip into clinical depression and mental illness.The five stages of loss and grief are:

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance

Acceptance has to be reached in order to avoid clinical depression and to go forward with living the life that has been dealt to you. But isn't this true in anything one does in life where a great loss has thrown everything one has planned to go awry? At first you can't believe "this" is happening. Then you are mad as hell at the forces that has caused this situation. After you may try prayer or whatever else seems to have a chance of working. The fact of being alone with your loss lets you to finally accept the fact the loss has happened and nothing can be done to correct that fact so new plans, new jobs, new people and new loves have to be made or you will just dry up and fade away mentally or physically.

It seems that nature is always regenerating itself. Seedlings turn into flowers, gigantic trees, but after awhile all growth runs it's course seemingly dies but it really does not, it actually returns to it's simplest form and starts to grow again in some form or another. What is left behind continues to battle the elements, it's natural enemies or whatever but the struggle continues and only the strong survive until something stronger destroys it and everything returns to it's natural state to regenerate itself into a replicate of what it once was or something different, composed of it's chemicals seemingly left behind.

As he reflected on these things he realized the beginnings his life had in this church and the endings he is involved in as well as his own ending which is sure to come as everything in nature has a beginning and an end seemingly, but is never ending. All creation, whether by God or by forces of nature actually survives in some form or another. Our physicality is immortal then. For those who believe in another dimension, perhaps a place called heaven continues in a spiritual form which is much freer than this physical world. 

The bier was wheeled to the back of the church to receive the Priest's final blessing before the coffin was transported to the cemetery for interment. Somehow he knew that all would heal itself as nature continues to function in it's inimitable way and joys await all those who never give up and continue to have high hopes that we are all part of a universe which will continue to function quite well and that was quite calming to him.