[rd42]

I've always been the cliche "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual" kinda of person with the belief that there was some omnipotent loving power of some kind. The faith in that idea carried me through some rough times but as the PD progresses I find more anger than solace in the thought of a God, Yaweh or Universal power allowed for the existence PD, ALS, MS, hate, fear you name it. "This too shall pass..." yeup, when I'm dead, that's really comforting . The mental tools I developed in my youth to deal with stress are not equipped to address this. I've brought tooth picks to a sword fight. It's not one day at a time, it's half a second at a time. And another problem, I'm five years in on this life without parole BS, my life is in good shape and I'm already whining this much?!

On the flip side sometimes I think of this as balance for some intensely wonderful times in the future. Imagine what the opposite of your PD experience would be for a moment... it would be freekin' amazing!

Why are there so many bastards in the world? ...to balance out all the good people?

If you don't look at things as a duality does life just become bland?

I'm not sure if I'm doing anything more than venting or looking for wisdom from the sages here. Please spout out anything you want, I like getting responses to posts

[reverett123]

OK. I'll give it a go. These are truisms that I use to get by.
1) Despite the Laws of Thermodynamics, the evidence of my eyes tells me that the Universe is growing more complex with time. Every step since the Big Bang has been to greater complexity.
2) There is far more future than there is past. If the forces in #1 hold true (and all the evidence that we have indicates that they will) then the endpoint is maximum complexity. MC essentially requires that everything, and I do mean everything, be connected in every possible way. Not one molecule overlooked.
3) On the scales we are talking about, we are looking at a self-aware Universe that has transcended both Time and Space. Don't snort. Our puny science has already done so on paper. Extrapolate that by a trillion into the future.
4) Since that being has stepped outside the framework of Time and Space, that means it is Here and Now as well. And since It is driven toward Maximium Complexity, It desperately wants us to join up. It needs us in order to be all that it can be. Call it Love.
5) Now rewind a minute. We are finite beings contemplating the Infinite. We are never going to see the Big Picture in its entirety. Easier to put the oceans in a tea cup. But we can see bits here and there.
6) Either God is or is not.
7) Doing the math I find that the odds of myself and the Universe to have been a matter of chance to have a very low probability. I find the odds that it was formed by a super-intelligence to be impossible to detemine. So I have to choose between an infinitely small probability of no God and an unknown probability of a God. No contest. Infinity is a very tiny thing.
8) If God does exist, then It is either Good, Bad, or Insane. If God were evil the world would be much worse. Insane? That's atough one but I think we would know. Add in the act above that God is incomplete without us and needs to be complete and I vote God is good.
9) So what gives? Why do I have PD(cried Job)? If God is all powerful, why does It allow us to suffer? Answer- The only way that our lives canhave any meaning is if God takes a hands off stance. It set the Universe to running and handed each of us the keys and told us to be careful. God weeps with us and laughs with us. If it were otherwise the difference between infinite and finite would sweep us away. We suffer so that we may be.
10) But God doesn't give up easily and It does love us more than any Mama Bear loves her cub. God has one last, wonderful gift waiting for us. I callit the Happy Ending. When we have drawn our last breath and slipped the bonds of this universe, God and every being that will ever be is waiting with open arms. Everyone we have ever cared about is there and no one ever leaves but by choice, and hey that do always return. God has shared our lives and will return the favor.

That's my story and I don't debate it. See #5 above. But I will offer this for you to reject or accept as you see fit- I have witnessed things that the only explanation for them is action of a loved one who has already passed. Not once but dozens of times. I am pretty hard headed about such things, but I am totally convinced. I don't expect anyone to believe that. I don't rally care because eventually it will become clear for us. But if it does bring you peace to think it true, I am happy to have shared it. Peace. God waits.

[bluedahlia]

I was born and raised Roman Catholic, but I use logic to dictate my conclusions. Rick is right. Balance is logical, For there to be the imperfect (us), there must be the perfect. Is it God or is it our next transition. I think it's a combination.

In science matter changes....We know what happens to our bodies, but what about our spirit? Our individual uniqueness. Does that change into something else as well? Maybe that's the meaning behind the resurrection. Maybe we do become pure consciousness when we die, and ultimately, truly connected. Wouldn't that be a trip.

Science and religion can reconcile. All that's required is a lil logic, and some free thinking. I haven't studied all religions, but I think if we extract from them, the teachings correlate.

But I still hold on to Woody Allen's quote. I'm not afraid of death, just don't want to be there when it happens. hehe!

Parkinson's does suck though.....BIG TIME!

Edited because I suffer from a condition called CRS (can't remember *****) and called Rick, Ron. Sorry Rick.

[rose of his heart]

Without an appreciation of duality, life does not BECOME bland; it just SEEMS bland. As I wrote the other day, it may be worth trying to lay down our arms now and then to let our contradictory emotions and realities peacefully coexist. As I wrote the other day, duality really is the new black.

If you had seen the ER team extract a splintered toothpick from my son's heel last month you would realize what a powerful weapon you've got in your hands! Treat yourself to a whole box of toothpicks. Just think what you might build, protect, decorate, annihilate...

Hang in there and keep up the good fight,
Rose

.

[paula_w]

Robert,

My brother sent me some books by Gregory A. Boyd that have changed my thinking and helped me to understand and cope with my disorganized and sometimes misguided perception of my "religion."

He presents it as two Kingdoms - one is the Kingdom of the World, the other the Kingdom of God. In the first there is a bloodbath, sickness, toxins, greed, all the things we see in the world kingdom come from evil of some nature and no governments are exempt because we all do it to each other. So do the religions, because each of us thinks the other is wrong.

The other is of course peaceful, there is power in servitude, power in not firing back, not dumping toxins into drinking water because it isn't the right thing to do, etc. etc. i agree with Rick that it is love, but there are many definitions of love.

It's easy to see which is winning for now. My faith is knowing there is another kingdom and the command is simple, 'Follow me.'

Our religions, including Christianity, are becoming political rather than spiritual.

I don't know if this helps or how you would define your faith, but one suggestion is to read, learn, discover and define your spirituality. It can be the most powerful tool you have.

peace,
paula

[Bob Dawson]

Amazing. All of you.
I am especially surprised by Rick. That's the most comprehensive count-down I have seen in a long time. Many years of reflection and awareness went into observing and absorbing that. The references to Job and to how it gets all gathered up and becomes love are rare to hear.
I gotta try some of that current blend.

[Bob Dawson]

From my blog: (the text is just to entice you into the video. You must see the video even if you don't read the blurb:

ONE

Nature; numbers.

Every hair is counted, like every grain of sand.

Albert Einstein said that nothing happens until something moves.

Albert Einstein could listen to music and visualize it as a mathematical formula.

Albert Einstein could look at a mathematical formula and hear it as music.

And he announced to the world that it is all the same. Everywhere. All the time. Everything.

Energy is the same as matter. It’s the same thing, at a different speed.

And there are laws that cannot be broken, at least within the universe as it now appears to us. For example, nothing can go faster than the speed of light. Nothing. Not ever. Because the mathematical formula could not be made to work. Time would have to stop.

Albert Einstein flunked math and physics in high school, and never set foot in a science lab in his entire life.
And, phooey on you who believe that God just throws the dice; the theories of random consequences and indetermination. Einstein said it loud and he said it clear: One plus one equals two. And so on and so on, on down the line to infinity of numbers, but in terms of speed, never faster than the speed of light. Change the formula, and the thing falls apart. One plus one equals two. Here. Now. Around the world. Everywhere. In the past. In the future. Change any number anywhere and the conclusion of the formula will be faulty. It’s a law of nature.

If that’s not enough to be a unifying concept of the universe, I don’t know what is.
MUST SEE VIDEO;'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGeOWYOFoA

[paula_w]

This doesn't explain infinity[ like anything could!] but it helped me to have this visualization which I saw on a science program i believe - just a tv program, forget whch one.

Picture "God" sitting on top of the world at the North pole ,looking down on everything. Visualize the longitude lines as being time. All time can be seen, which doesn't predetermine what you do....that's up to you, but God knows what you will do because he sees all time.

Bob, that is an amazing video.....time is math, music is math, light is math...and i flunked math yikes.

[lurkingforacure]

The first time someone (a rather perfect someone, by the way) died after a lengthy, horrible, and futile fight with cancer, I was lost. How could such a wonderful person be made to suffer so? For that matter, why in the world would a baby, infant, child, get luekemia or be blown to bits? It rocked my world, as they say.

I read "When Bad Things Happen to Good People". Written by a rabbi (no, not Jewish, everyone asks that) it walks you through his own struggle when he and his wife learned their two year old son had a disease that would age him prematurely and cause his death before he became a teenager.

The rabbi wondered why him? He was a man of God, dedicated his life to serving him and helping others in his name, why in the world would his son be stricken? It's a fascinating analysis and debunked, at least for me, many of the notions I held about the world.

One being, no one is being punished for something they did. That would require you to believe God is vindictive, which I choose to believe he is not.

I don't want to spoil it for those who may read the book, but suffice it to say it is very similar to Rick's post here. I have actually read this book many times, whenever I feel myself becoming ungrounded. It's a short book, although it took me a very long time to read it because you are thinking very hard as you read through it. I hope it offers some help here to whoever might need it.

[harley]

one thing i have always had a hard time with is trying to make sense out of the un- understandable. the ambiguity becomes frustrating but with with an analytical mind i drive myself nuts trying to decifer the mystery. before i know it, i am stuck in the middle of a labyrinth of thought crying "olly olly oxinfree" (or however ya spell it.)

Patience is difficult to learn and something you never ever want to pray for because there is only one way to learn it. that is by going through so many things that you HAVE to learn it. you have no choice in the matter. either you figure out what patience is, or you keep getting more piled on your plate untill it runneth over. iff you dont get it by that time, the end result usually becomes a complete mess and YOU have to clean it up anyway.

nothing is harder for the parkie mind than trying to stand in line at a bank, wait for a doc appt, or being put on hold on the phone listening to some horrible muzac that my dog wouldn't even howl to. (scuze me, i am a musician). every time i go through some stupid little adversity, my mind screams AAAARRRGGGG then my body goes nuts. afterward, friends and family is left picking up the pieces. they have figured out how essential it is to be quiet in their ponderings of what could have set mom off and are close to graduating magma cum laude in patience with the patient.

god is amazing. he must have one sense of humor. i cant imagine doing what He does without having to chuckle once in awhile. i dont watch much tv, but what would really get my attention would be a bad reality show starring the brady bunch, jerry springers guests and the guys from orange county chopper all stuck on the titantic. i can turn off the tv as the ship goes down, its a good thing God doesn't.

i am discovering something that helps me with patience without having to pray for it. that is by having faith. by saying from the beginning, "God. i cant do this, will You please take it over for me? ahhhh, yes. faith. whenever i begin to lose even just a tad of it, my plate fills up, i fall under its weight.. and pray for patience. God is teaching me. i think i will listen more for His voice instead of the brady bunch singing that awful muzak.

quick quote.. author unknown

religion is for those individuals trying to avoid going to hell.
spirituality is those of us who have already been there.