Odd thoughts...

...from an odd person?

I've been contemplating the stuff we've been talking about, and trying to relate it to stuff I think about(odd person that I am).

Like quantum physics, postmodernism, and the idea that we create our own reality. I get that (I think), but it seems to me that we either believe that we truly are the center of the universe and all the players in our game are our creations, too; or we see ourselves as connected to those others, who are each involved in the creation. And, we are all also part of the natural world, even though too many of us do not recognize that connection. So, as we and the world around us go about innocently and blindly creating, we cannot help but bump into other entities who are blindly and innocently doing the same. Add to that a few misguided souls who either really do think they are that center, or who know better but just don't care, and we get this soup where one person's stuff starts interfering with another person's stuff, and both are in the middle of Nature's stuff, and somewhere, some people are going to have to deal with this thing we've been calling adversity.

As far as Nature is concerned, we can look back to quantum physics to get that, too. It's like that butterfly that flaps its wings in Africa and sets off a chain of events that leads to a hurricane in the Gulf. Or, it might bee, too, and is likely a bit of both, that unusually cold winter in Canada cries for something to balance it, so that need for warm air pulls that hurricane into the Gulf, to send enough warm air far enough north to compensate. The same is true for those tectonic plates that keep shifting and creating earthquakes. The thing is, these natural events are doing what they are supposed to do. It is not their fault when too many of the human population happen to have settled in their wake, so to speak. and, at least lately, it seems uncanny when those natural happenings which are just doing what they were intended to do, in one way or another manage to expose the worst of what can happen when too many of the aforementioned misguided souls who think that, being the center of everything, they are more important than all the lesser beings who happen to get in their way, contribute to the adversity, even the destruction of so many of the blind and/or innocent ones.

So, we don't, each of us, create the whole of reality, even of our own reality. But we do, I think, participate in the co-creation of the whole of it.

And that is where our power lies. Once we get that, we can contribute to a positive creation for ourselves and everybody else, since everybody else is a part of the same whole that we each are only an insignificant part of. An insignificant part that gains significance and value and purpose and meaning when it sees the reality of the connection.

Ann

Ann,

I love your thinking processes.

Ann,
have you ever read the book, "Book of Secrets" by Deepak Chopra?
Much of what you say is expressed in this book. I happen to be reading it a second time. Too much information to absorb in one reading.

Abe, It's been awhile since I read any of Chopra's books. I've heard of that one, bur haven't read it. I have read Michael Conforti's Field, Form, and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature, and Psyche or Paul Davies, God and the New Physics. They, too are to much for one reading. An interesting take on postmodern Christianity by John Caputo called What Would Jesus Deconstruct? And one that might not a ppeal to you so much: Women's Ways of Knowing, by Mary Field Belinki.I keep them near my desk and thumb back thorough them a lot.About a month ago I started a thread called "Comments on Quotations," based on the book, The Art of Original Thinking: The Making of a Thought Leader by Jan Phillips. It's a free ebook on applying these ideas toward creating sustainable businesses that focus more on cooperation than competition, and are still showing strong profits. I happened on it while I was googling something else. You might find it especially interesting.

I am grateful for the Joseph Campbell Foundation's forum, Conversations of a Higher Order. We got into a discussion of my last blog there. Would share here, but it's "Associates only." There's no fee - you just have to register.

Mostly, these days, it's more a matter of putting ideas together from different sources, and journaling about them to see what I come up with. It's all part of this notion I have that it's time to take my writing in a new direction. the journals help me see where I might go.


Ann

Dear Ann,
Perhaps we are all God.

Maybe, we are the creation and the creator.

Love,
Betty

Betty, I think you're onto it.

Ann

Betty,
we're all part of the source and no one can prove otherwise.

I am not God.

Well, why the silence? The doctors say it--why can't I?
I know , You are thinking what I always think. You never thought I was!

Alice, may I continue to look up to your courage and honesty and humor even if you are not God?

Ann

Cool post, Ann.

Dear Alice,
I am not God either. I think sometimes that God creating man in his image is really the way it is. We are His reflection

It is like looking in to a pool and there is the reflection of the heavens and the earth. Looking in, man sees himself as well. One with heaven and earth.

I imagine it is the way that primal man discovered that he was part and connected to what he saw in the pool . . . . the heavens, the earth and himself.

I do not see God as some powerful diety looking down from up 'there', but rather part and parcel of each of us. We look out our eyes and see heaven. We do not need to die to go there. We are there.

Love,
Betty

Once again, Betty has the answer.

Quote :

I think sometimes that God creating man in his image is really the way
it is. We are His reflection.

I wonder if part of the problem is that we sometimes get it backwards. There is a saying that I believe: The problem is not what God has done to man, but what man has done to God.

Maybe we got confused and create God in our image, instead of the other way around.

Ann

Ann,
I think you're right. Man has created God in his image. An example are the pictures of Jesus. He is shown to be fair skinned with brown hair that appeals to the western man. There are artist descriptions that reflect a better likeness showing a man with dark skin, dark hair, a large nose - rather swarthy-looking. Since no one had a camera, the pictures people worship are created for appeal.

I agree, Abe.

I also think God is far above my understanding or explanations.

Some of us reflect God, some do not. I think reflecting God is a great goal. Many Christians claim to do it, but fall short.

Odd is the new norm of this weird age we live in.
I aspire to be odd.
The old norm is out the new norm now takes its place.
Odd has strange mystical powers that baffle scientists around the world. Religious leaders cannot cope with the odd movement because it is mistakenly labeled as blasphemous.
Odd is often labeled quirky, but quirky is odd in a covert state.
The full power of odd has yet to be discovered.
Oddness is not shameful.
Oddness is a noble state of being.
Those who are not odd often ask one another “Do you believe in odd?” This question often gets muddled with religion by holy men who in turn campaign to irradicate the oddness in our world.
This forum is filled with odd.
I believe in the one true odd.
In the end times we all will be judged by odd.
Odd bless you all.

Dear David,
I love your wit. I love your poem, and I loved "Odd bless you all". You do have a fine mind, and a beautiful way with the humor of words.

Funny how posts on forums go. Here you write a lovely piece of work and who do you get to respond? ME. Not that I am nobody, or nothing, and perhaps I am a bit odd, like Ann, but, you know odd people do not mind being odd. they do not mind it in other odd minds, either. I loved your poem.

Love,
Betty

Betty Fasig wrote:

Funny how posts on forums go. Here you write a lovely piece of work and who do you get to respond? ME.

Now that is odd!

You are always so clever, David.

There was me thinking that I was odd; I guess I'll just after stick to being queenly.

Shelagh it is always a pleasure meeting the odd queen or two as one goes about ones daily duties.
As odd goes you are now promoted to the honorary position of right royal odd bod number one. (better than being a number two)

I think we have a new forum title: Members Behaving Oddly.

You want odd? I'll show you odd! Me! I could tell you about astral projection experiences, what I later came to believe were UFO/alien contacts.... But no, I'm too skeeeeeered to go there.

Seriously, I agree with the thinking of several of you folks. 'Tis said we are all part of the ONE, though it's often hard to remember this.

2006 international scientists conference
"Wisdom
and Science in Dialogue: The new
Planetary Consciousness where
scientists[/size][size=12]concluded that
consciousness
exists outside the brain and that we
need to spread
the awareness that we are all profoundly
interconnected.

http://www.victorzammit.com/week3/

(Looks like I didn't quote that stuff right.)

*_*

I have hesitated coming to this thread, but here goes. Thinking of an afterlife has been part of my existence since my diagnosis with an incurable life threatening illness. Of course, I also believe in miracles, and also chronicity of cancer and other diseases, as well as medical science which not only works on cures but comfort and quality of life.

I have a strong belief in spirituality, in the "holy ghost" part of the trinity along with the father and son. But the afterlife puzzles me and frightens me. I've had long discussions with my brother-in-law, another cancer patient. He believes it will be beautiful, greater than we can imagine, involving all the people we have ever known.

I am such a doing person. I think, "What will I do?" "Where will I be?" and the greatest mystery to me is time. If I am to have eternal life, what will I do with all that time? And what about the fact that to God there is no time, that it is something humans have developed to bring order to a disorderly world.

A few months ago I was very ill. My family came with food, cleaned the house, cried and said good-bye. I heard voices and felt taps on my shoulders. I went to sleep and did not expect to wake up. But I did and my health improved and continues to do so. The doctor said it was not an upsurge of cancer but a serious infection. The voices and taps on my shoulders ceased and now I am continuing to improve.

But the afterlife is still a troubling mystery to me. I know I need to surrender and envy my brother-in-law's joy at what will be.

I am truly odd, quirky, and wouldn't change that in any way. I have an unquenchable desire to figure things out and learn. I continue to do so.

Love, Carol

Carol, do you remember our old PAMB/AS friend, Ron Kruger, and his book, A Higher Good? I really felt, when I read it, that it resonated with my personal feelings.

Ann