Category: Spiritual Experience

Last week’s episode of LOST was very sad in many ways. I love all the press about this final season.

From ew.com comes this:

When I asked her how she prepared for Sun’s final Island moments, Kim told this story: “Right before we started shooting, [director] Jack Bender took me aside and told me about story that he read a long time ago, about this woman who was missing her dead husband, and how she had this beach ball that he blew up before he died. Every day she took a little breath from the beach ball. And that really got me right into the emotional core of where I needed to be to play that scene. Can you imagine that woman, taking that breath little by little every day, just to feel her husband’s presence?”

I kind of know how she felt, that woman with the beach ball…

Recently, I was wearing one of my sister Sherry’s robes that I had not worn before. An unused tissue was in one of the pockets. I held it to my nose and stroked my face with it, hoping to get just a little of her presence.

From Andrew Sullivan comes this…

From his article on the subject:

It’s difficult to take oneself with sufficient seriousness to begin any sentence with the words “Thou shalt not.” But who cannot summon the confidence to say: Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or color. Do not ever use people as private property. Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations. Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child. Do not condemn people for their inborn nature—why would God create so many homosexuals only in order to torture and destroy them?

Be aware that you too are an animal and dependent on the web of nature, and think and act accordingly. Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife. Turn off that fucking cell phone—you have no idea how unimportant your call is to us. Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions. Be willing to renounce any god or any religion if any holy commandments should contradict any of the above. In short: Do not swallow your moral code in tablet form.

My daughter is using reduced time on the internet as a Lenten practice. While I don’t really participate in the season of Lent, it seems like a good idea anyway. As my son said on FB, “Lent is like a New Year’s Resolution do over. So one starts out the year with a resolution to eat healthier, but then is eating Krispy Kreme’s by the end of January. But then Lent rolls around and eating healthier for 6 weeks sounds so much more doable than for a full year. And hey, you get to binge on peeps at the end of it.”

So, I’m going to try it. As I responded on my daughter’s FB entry, “Yeah, think I will join you. I’m going to do it in honor of my father too. He used to read the Dallas Morning News in the morning and watch Walter Cronkite at suppertime and he was pretty well informed. So, for me, once in the morning, once in the evening after work and that’s it! Can I do it? Yes. I. Can.”

Before I Die . . . ‘As in the case of love, no man has lived until he has felt sorrow.’ by Edmund N. Carpenter, II

The following essay was written by Edmund N. Carpenter, age 17, in June 1938 while he was a student in Lawrenceville, N.J. Carpenter would go on to win the Bronze Star for his service in World War II and to a civilian career as an attorney. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he became president of Richards, Layton & Finger, a law firm. He died on Dec. 19, 2008 at age 87 and is survived by six children and 15 grandchildren:

It may seem very strange to the reader that one of my tender age should already be thinking about that inevitable end to which even the paths of glory lead. However, this essay is not really concerned with death, but rather with life, my future life. I have set down here the things which I, at this age, believe essential to happiness and complete enjoyment of life. Some of them will doubtless seem very odd to the reader; others will perhaps be completely in accord with his own wishes. At any rate, they compose a synopsis of the things which I sincerely desire to have done before I leave this world and pass on to the life hereafter or to oblivion.

Before I die I want to know that I have done something truly great, that I have accomplished some glorious achievement the credit for which belongs solely to me. I do not aspire to become as famous as a Napoleon and conquer many nations; but I do want, almost above all else, to feel that I have been an addition to this world of ours. I should like the world, or at least my native land, to be proud of me and to sit up and take notice when my name is pronounced and say, “There is a man who has done a great thing.” I do not want to have passed through life as just another speck of humanity, just another cog in a tremendous machine. I want to be something greater, far greater than that. My desire is not so much for immortality as for distinction while I am alive. When I leave this world, I want to know that my life has not been in vain, but that I have, in the course of my existence, done something of which I am rightfully very proud.

Before I die I want to know that during my life I have brought great happiness to others. Friendship, we all agree, is one of the best things in the world, and I want to have many friends. But I could never die fully contented unless I knew that those with whom I had been intimate had gained real happiness from their friendship with me. Moreover, I feel there is a really sincere pleasure to be found in pleasing others, a kind of pleasure that can not be gained from anything else. We all want much happiness in our lives, and giving it to others is one of the surest ways to achieve it for ourselves.

Before I die I want to have visited a large portion of the globe and to have actually lived with several foreign races in their own environment. By traveling in countries other than my own I hope to broaden and improve my outlook on life so that I can get a deeper, and more complete satisfaction from living. By mixing the weighty philosophy of China with the hard practicalism of America, I hope to make my life fuller. By blending the rigid discipline of Germany with the great liberty in our own nation I hope to more completely enjoy my years on this earth. These are but two examples of the many things which I expect to achieve by traveling and thus have a greater appreciation of life.

Before I die there is another great desire I must fulfill, and that is to have felt a truly great love. At my young age I know that love, other than some filial affection, is probably far beyond my ken. Yet, young as I may be, I believe I have had enough inkling of the subject to know that he who has not loved has not really lived. Nor will I feel my life is complete until I have actually experienced that burning flame and know that I am at last in love, truly in love. I want to feel that my whole heart and soul are set on one girl whom I wish to be a perfect angel in my eyes. I want to feel a love that will far surpass any other emotion that I have ever felt. I know that when I am at last really in love then I will start living a different, better life, filled with new pleasures that I never knew existed.

Before I die I want to feel a great sorrow. This, perhaps, of all my wishes will seem the strangest to the reader. Yet, is it unusual that I should wish to have had a complete life? I want to have lived fully, and certainly sorrow is a part of life. It is my belief that, as in the case of love, no man has lived until he has felt sorrow. It molds us and teaches us that there is a far deeper significance to life than might be supposed if one passed through this world forever happy and carefree. Moreover, once the pangs of sorrow have slackened, for I do not believe it to be a permanent emotion, its dregs often leave us a better knowledge of this world of ours and a better understanding of humanity. Yes, strange as it may seem, I really want to feel a great sorrow.

With this last wish I complete the synopsis of the things I want to do before I die. Irrational as they may seem to the reader, nevertheless they comprise a sincere summary of what I truthfully now believe to be the things most essential to a fully satisfactory and happy life. As I stand here on the threshold of my future, these are the things which to me seem the most valuable. Perhaps in fifty years I will think that they are extremely silly. Perhaps I will wonder, for instance, why I did not include a wish for continued happiness. Yet, right now, I do not desire my life to be a bed of roses. I want it to be something much more than that. I want it to be a truly great adventure, never dull, always exciting and engrossing; not sickly sweet, yet not unhappy. And I believe it will be all I wish if I do these things before I die.

As for death itself, I do not believe that it will be such a disagreeable thing providing my life has been successful. I have always considered life and death as two cups of wine. Of the first cup, containing the wine of life, we can learn a little from literature and from those who have drunk it, but only a little. In order to get the full flavor we must drink deeply of it for ourselves. I believe that after I have quaffed the cup containing the wine of life, emptied it to its last dregs, then I will not fear to turn to that other cup, the one whose contents can be designated only by X, an unknown, and a thing about which we can gain no knowledge at all until we drink for ourselves. Will it be sweet, or sour, or tasteless? Who can tell? Surely none of us like to think of death as the end of everything. Yet is it? That is a question that for all of us will one day be answered when we, having witnessed the drama of life, come to the final curtain. Probably we will all regret to leave this world, yet I believe that after I have drained the first cup, and have possibly grown a bit weary of its flavor, I will then turn not unwillingly to the second cup and to the new and thrilling experience of exploring the unknown.

“The opposite of good is not evil. It is indifference.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel

-by Robert Eller-Isaacs

For remaining silent when a single voice would have made a difference,
we forgive ourselves and each other other; we begin again in love.

For each time that our fears have made us rigid and inaccessible,
we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

For each time that we have struck out in anger without just cause,
we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

For each time that our greed has blinded us to the needs of others,
we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

For the selfishness which sets us apart and alone,
we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

For those and for so many acts both evident and subtle which have fueled the illusion of separateness,
we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

The 4 Horsemen of Destruction:

1. Arrogance
2. Ignorance
3. Greed
4. Jealousy

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It’s getting to be a tradition for her to pick a theme and preach several Sundays in a row during the summer. Last year it was Harry Potter…this year it’s “Children’s Lit for a Grown-up Faith.” Yesterday’s covered the book Because of Winn-Dixie and it was marvelous!

I especially liked the handout that featured these interesting questions:

If you had to describe yourself to someone, what ten things would you say?
When have you felt cared for by someone else?
Do you think there are any actions that are unforgivable?