Let The Good Times Roll - Part Two

P.S.  While on the subject of, in a word, God, I feel drawn to comment on something that came up for me during my recent holiday away at my (immediate) Family Reunion.

By way of a brief background: I have been invited by one of my nieces - I'm sure in conjunction with others in the family - to consider moving to their area (if not into her family's home proper, in a 'Granny flat' in the basement), in my potential dotage; to say, in my advanced years.  (I am now an old man, of 80 years of age.  Don't feel it  - & according to a number of the Family's direct comment, don't look it - but presumably I soon will, as I start the downhill slide.)  I have been touched by the offer,1 which has included as well the research by said niece and her husband that has uncovered the fact that in their (small) town in Utah I could live in a comparable studio apartment to my current one for almost one-third of the price of life in So Cal.  And it's not as if I am that attached to living near the ocean in my waning years.2  Plus the fact that there has also been a concern of mine about the recent installation of a nest of wi-fi antennas that has gone up in the next block over from mine.3  So, I have been willing to look at the offer.

But I will be turning it down.  For one reason in particular.

A religious one.

Long story short: the Family is very into the Mormon religion.  Which I read my way out of years ago.  And really have a hard time with people who have such a strong belief system (and not only Mormons in this regard) that everybody who doesn't believe what they do is wrong, simply wrong.  No question.4            

When I left university, early, many years ago, at the beginning of my search in earnest for capital-t Truth, I wrote my Freshman English instructor what I was up to;5 and he wrote back, telling me, first of all, that he was not surprised to hear it; and then gave me a bit of avuncular advice.  It was from Calderon, he thought (as I recall the name); and was a quote: "Of all sure things, the surest is to doubt."  

     

My take on that bit of life wisdom, considered early on in my search for answers to life: To have a part of you separate from the scene, observing it; taking in the larger picture, as it were.  Not getting so sure of yourself in the moment that you can't move, if the occasion calls for it, with more information coming forth.  

I think the Mormons need to move from their so-sure-of-themselves take on 'the Family'.  In any event, not being a fellow believer, I would be 'the odd man out' in their circle, up there in Utah, and it  could be both embarrassing and difficult, for them, and for me. 

So, I'll be passing on the offer.  But thanks, in any event, folks.  You have been a good group to have in my life; as I pass through it, and on to other destinations.

To, that is to say, and first of all, the Family of Man as a whole.  

And then, beyond.

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footnotes:

1 To clarify: In the early childhood years of my nephews and nieces, I lived with my brother's family for quite a few of those growing-up years for them, and was rather a substitute father figure for them, as my brother was away a lot on the road, trying to raise money for some movie dreams of his.  So I was very close to them, until my sister-in-law remarried, and we went our separate ways in life.  Except in our hearts.  And returning now to live in my old home town, in Southern California, I was 'within reach' of  doing such things as going to said Reunion.

2 Sometimes days go by without my going down there, with my legless beach chair, and standing with my feet and rolled-up pants legs in the water for a while before settling down for some just-before-dinner reading in the sun.  (I spell that aspect of my retired life with a short walk to a nearby park, for the same sort of late-in-the-day sunlit catching-up on my reading.)   

3 Too long a story to go into here.  Just to note that the EMF emanating from this sort of thing is known to have not only some adverse physical effects on humans (like cancer), but mind-control effects as well; as the federal government under Obama & his Merry Band of Marxists looks to consolidate its hold on the nation, in the far Left's arrogant attempt to turn it into a socialist 'paradise,' simply part of a region of a New World Order (the North American Union touted as well by the previous administration; from the fascists' point of view for the same sort of outcome, only with them in the driver's seat), where the individual is made subservient to the state.  Not for me, such a scenario. 

     But to go into that further is to go into another story from this one.

4 And with unwillingness even to look at the issue.  For example.  The Mormons believe in a concept whereby the soul is pre-existent, and chooses what family situation to incarnate into.  But they don't carry that concept to a next step - of the fact of reincarnation; for which there is CONSIDERABLE evidence in our time - because they have such a strong belief system that families are 'sealed' - in ceremonies in their temples - together, as they appear in their current incarnation,'for time and all eternity'.  

     Not subject to a Wheel of Rebirth - now a prince, now a pauper; now a male, now a female; now of one race or religion or nationality, now of another - for purposes of learning.  Growth.  And ultimately, Enlightenment: the whole Purpose of the exercise, in the 3D (illusory; to say, not permanent; ephemeral'; timeful) realm of duality, seeming separation, polarity.   

     There are family units of souls that incarnate together.  But they rotate the roles; now the father of one particular soul, now a child of that soul; and so on.  Not just for karmic reasons; but getting 'seasoned,' in all the roles that people play in this realm.  For - as I say - that particular purpose; and outcome. 

     Life has meaning.  But not just in and of and for itself only.  It is a means to an end.

     Not to get caught up in.
     And certainly not to be 'sealed up' in, 'for time and all eternity;' in an attitudinal result of an over-identification with the soul's current physical vehicle.  Which is such a small part of what and who we truly, and totally, are.  Which involves Higher Selves, and multi-dimensional selves, and a whole host of identities.
     Until we get to Unity.
     And - possibly - beyond even that stage, of spiritual evolvement.
     It is all for being open to finding out.
     On the Path of Love through it all.

5 For whatever reason, we hit it off well; and at the end of my Freshman year, he quietly asked me to stay behind at the close of our last class for a moment,  in which he gave me a gift - and I mean,  a gift.  It was a collection of the poems and meditations of John Donne; and was dedicated, simply, to me, "from his English instructor, June 1953".  That book stayed with me through many a sale of my library over the years, as I stripped back to basics, and went out on another leg of my seeker's journey through my life.  At the time - when I had had my 'spiritual experience' that caused me to drop out of school, during my third year - he had moved on to another place of learning, where I traced him down through my university's English Department records.