The Emerald Rose

The simple answer the question deems an interpretation of the question posed.

Do YOU believe in God, his Son Jesus Christ, the “Holy Ghost”,…(Holy Spirit these days.)………The answer for me is a resounding YES!!!, I do!! You would have to be a total fool to say anything else! But I already PROUDLY, confessed to a FIRM, LIFELONG belief in GOD!

After that religion becomes Baskin-Robbins time , 28 Flavors,….which one do you want??

There are “rewards and penalties” to all of them, ……mostly created by MAN, and for man. One man’s “Holy Ghost”, is another man’s “Holy Spirit”, and another’s “Spirit”! (I know there are at least several heresy’s in that comment,….but, I was never shy!!

The “GOD” I know is more than just a “box checker”, a mere “score-keeper”, HE is a loving and caring God! WHY? You ask,….because he created all of us!!

But the better question posed is,……”What are WE?”, and more importantly “WHO do WE think we are?” It seems sometimes we are simply “coup”, (an old American Indian /French term for “souvenir’s ” of a courageous personal, win, or victory.)

But is that all we are in the scheme of life? A “coup” on the scoreboard of “souls”?

It causes me to re-think my own beliefs a lot. Not my belief in a GOD, or “THE” GOD per se, but the structures, and man made definitions of “THE” right religion.

I meditate twice a day, using Transcendental Meditation, and as the Catholic Philosopher Thomas Merton, once said, “What I wear is pants, what I do is live, and how I pray is breathe.” Makes a lot of sense to me!!

I use an electronic meditation timer, but not the final judge of when I start and when I stop, simply a “guideline” so I don’t “space out” or spend hours in a “trance-like” meditation mode, maybe later in life I will just “free-style” my meditations, but not right now.

Now it provides me the “discipline assist” to stay within a framework with the entire “outside” world in which I live as a human being,…..after all there are many times we’d all rather be somewhere else,…..life is NEVER easy.

Some folks are looking for a “GOD” who is an omnipotent being, others a “God” who is crutch, because all they know is here they are and in the end their going to die,….so “can you keep me from dying?”.

But who is GOD, ( or as a lot of folks today do is seek that GOD, primarily because of the lack of ANY knowledge of any real GOD”)? Let me explain briefly for you.

As I write this my Brother-in-law, who was a Roman Catholic “Alter Boy”, along with my little Brother, and assisted the Priest officiating at our wedding 53 years ago, is lying in a hospital, hooked up to a “ventilator”, and who suffered a heart attack during an”alcohol reduction flushing”, ” dry out”over a week and a half ago. Sadly he is almost in a vegetative state in less than five days!

In basic street terminology he is a “closet” drinker, who began to go “over the edge”. He had an episode of “atrial fibrillation” (where his heart just went crazy beating, much like holding the gas pedal to the floor of your car on a highway,…..the result is obviously going to be inevitable! ) . The common term for it is the “DT’s”, (Delirium Tremors). It ain’t a pretty sight, for anyone! When you totally withdraw a “user” from his method of “coping”, the body fights back, as hard as anything you’ve ever seen fighting back! It creates the “ultimate battle” where one party is demanding, but totally unable to reach a level of satisfaction. While the other party, (usually the relatives, friend and families) are scared to death of the “outcomes”.

In his case,….. he went totally over the edge, they had to restrain him, create an “alternative” nourishment system for him, (intravenously feeding and medicating him), and where it subsequently went to , “intubating” him which came his “lifeline” to the oxygen that he needed to live, because his lungs were fighting so hard the battle to breath was beginning to go the wrong way!

So there he lies as I write this, subsequent assessments indicated that there “appears” to be a degree of brain damage (ostensibly from the heart attack) and they are still trying to define the “level of impairment”. Today they advised his wife that it APPEARS a full recovery is not possible, and “palliative” care is imminent, and that means our inner worst fear of “warehousing” him in a nursing homes for the rest of their life.

Sometimes they soften the blow with the word, “Hospice”. I will admit I am more than a little ignorant of the “mechanics” of being in “hospice care”,….the one thing I know is that there is never an outcome other than “DEATH”, that I know of. The Doctors, the hospitals, and “everyone involved” has agreed it’s a “one way” service regardless of how long it takes.

I love my brother-in-law, but there is nothing I, or we CAN do at this point, the fact that we COULD have done things for him for a long time, it’s gone. Now all that we can do is pray for a miracle. Don’t tell me what we “shudder, coulda, or woulda” been able to do,……unless the “Patient” REALLY wants what you do,….it will never matter NOW!

If you simply “turn a blind eye”, or worst case “FORBID” the practice of drinking alcoholic beverages it never works. (I will do the research later for you another day,…but suffice it to say the success rate is practically worse than that of the Bubonic Plague of the smallpox that decimated the “new world” in the 1600-1700’s. It is really an illness that has been apparently for a long while. (But like everything else it was not really deemed a “disease” until the last century, and even then it was “understated”, people with the disease were deemed to be just “drunks”, alkies” or a lot of other derogatory terms. While you never really “die” of it, what it does is stress the other systems of your body until they simply “quit”!!

But back to GOD, HE’s still there, whoever or whatever you believe, but it’s not about YOU!! Get over it my friend!

God is a personal journey for each of us every day.

Just like you and millions of others, “I BELIEVE in GOD “, but as we both know, ….. it ain’t easy in this world today, the “folks” in it are “running amok”, they are educated sure, but also ignorant FOR sure!

“Having Faith” is more than just two words, it’s a “commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and an inner “belief” you must have in “THE GOD”!

Colloquially we simply say nothing, “life’s a bitch and then you die”, or I’m sorry!!

Be glad your still here and seriously, THINK about the entire scenario!

Thank you for reading this,…..it’s true!

-30-

February 19, 2019