Thanks....but that was ancient history for me (not good memories). We live life with the good, bad, and the ugly. Hopefully, the good outweighs the bad. I've been lucky; so far the good has dominated but old age is a bitch. Lately, my brain and I are having frequent disagreements (kind of like putting stuff in your brain for safe-keeping but when it comes time to get it back the brain becomes really, really stingy). All this is getting really complicated because 11 days ago Agnes had a major stroke and was immediately helicoptered to St. Mary's in Saginaw. She is being heavily sedated in order to give her brain time to heal. I'm taking today off from visiting the hospital. I've only managed two nights at home since the stroke. We won't know how much is left of Agnes until she becomes conscious again. Worst case scenario is not pretty (I know she would prefer death over that and so would I). Immediate family only is allowed in to see her. Mathew was here for her two operations, Mika for her second, but both had to return to work. As for the dogs, the last one died about a week before Agnes had the stroke. Mika took the bird back with her, so it's only me and fish now--and a good thing too! Count your blessings because the race between the good and evil never stops.
Take care,
Your old buddy,
Deadwood Dave
Here’s an afterthought to the personal tragedy above, it occurred to me (11-2-12) after I confessed to a friend over the telephone that I do not believe there is life after death. According to my philosophy (yes, it’s still telling me new stuff after all these years) when we die—we’re dead, nothing new there, I know! However, all the pain, suffering, heartache, and regrets….right along with the joys, happiness, love, and the rest of the “good stuff” that makes life worth living, lives on in God. All the events of one’s personal history (in past tense one’s life lived) was/is to God the same as it was/is to a living human being—we are nothing without a history and our history is preserved in God. Another way of saying this is that God and time expand together. But, at the level of humanity—just as our thoughts, words and deeds expand the significance of our human lives, so to do human thoughts, words, and deeds expand the significance of God. To quote Martin Buber, “That you need God more than anything, you know at all times in your heart. But don’t you know also that God needs you–in the fullness of his eternity, you? How would man exist if God did not need him, and how would you exist? You need God in order to be, and God needs you for that which is the meaning of your life.”
Well, that’s about it, except to say that, as my philosophy indicates, there is a right and wrong when it comes to appropriate thoughts, words, and deeds.
Here’s another quote from one of my blogs: God’s logical consistency is connected necessarily to the evolution of everything that we know about the universe, i.e., connected necessarily to all the possibilities of human behavior EXCEPT the behaviors that contradict God’s self-consistency, e.g., behavior that takes life unnecessarily, behavior that causes unnecessary suffering, behavior that does harm to the environment–harm to that which preserves and perpetuates freedom, life, love, and reverence for the God that makes “all possible”.
