JenellYB

That's always hard, even when you know it's best. And the economics is a real consideration especially as they age and have more problems, and in practical budget considerations in many cases. But after 14 yrs, there's going to be an empty spot for awhile. I am presently coming to acceptance that my 1 yr old cat is gone. I last saw her Wednesday evening. She had her own door, her food hasn't been touched since then, I've walked the highway daily, fearing she had been hit, but nothing. No neighbors have seen her. The awful thought is the wildlife here, with only an indoor dog, things come up near at night...we have many coyotes, wolves, bobcats, and at least one dark phase couger I and neighbors have seen within only a few hundred yards of my home. I put my 18 yr old cat down 4 yrs ago, this one is the second I've tried since then...both rescued stray kittens, I didn't go kitten shopping! The previous one was killed on the highway at 2 1/2 yrs old. I have to think I gave them a better life for at least longer than they'd have lived had I not taken them in. But....resources...I have only a small SS income for now....I sank more money that I could really afford into both of these, with spaying/nuetering and vaccinations alone, and the previous one also required surgery, when I found him, an aggressive old tom had ripped his belly open, baring his intestines .....I just can't do this again, both the emotional and financial...no more cats... But what do I do when the next abandoned one comes along....My horse is now 20, and my dog that was my late sister's, 10...sofarboth are healthy and strong, but...those years do tick by....with my own health now not that good, I've begun to be concerned should they out live me... Pets bring so much love and companionship, but also complications, to our lives. Jenell

I really don't mind sharing my precious water resources with local wildlife, I really really don't...BUT... I've realized that besides just being unattractive, the various dark shades of bird-poop permanent stain on the inflated top ring of my "easy-set" swimming pool seem to be, whether by their chemical composition or the effects of dark colors... absorbing more heat from the sun or both, seem to "melting" the plastic itself, which isn't real helpful trying to keep it aired up. I also do not appreciate that many insects that have reached the end of their tolerance of this cruel world see that inflated top ring as their own Golden Gate Bridge, from which to leap to their deaths. As I use the pool net daily to skim off their little dead bodies, I encounter an occasional one still struggling desperately on the surface, and assuming it may be having second thoughts about this, I scoop up those as well, flicking the net to send them to dry ground so they can dry their little wings and continue their life after all. However, I realized this morning my assumption may have been wrong, that those struggling, that I so kindly rescue, may entirely want to end their lives, and do not appreciate my well-intended interference. This afternoon I was attending my usual daily salvage and rescue operation with my net, flicking a fair number of survivors onto dry ground to reconsider their continued existence. One particularly unnappreciative hornet proceeded to flick the water from its wings, then immediately fly up and sting me on the arm. I am no longer quite sure what to do with these survivors.

For sure, Myron...so much, so much, that we just can't say to any one else, but we just so need to tell somebody that will just listen, not judge, and care. I am reminded of something I read about Mother Theresa...she had spoken of conversations with God,,,she was asked "What do you say to God?"She thought a minute, responded, "not much really..mostly I just listen..." Then she was asked, "And what does God say to you?" to which she responded, "not much really...mostly He just listens."

Thanks for sharing that, Bill. You give an excellent example of the at-once reliablity and unreliability of personal experience as away of knowing. It is culturally acceptable, even encouraged, to "talk to God." But to claim God has talked to you, that you have engaged in interactive conversations with God, pretty much relegates you to either charleton out to get attention and make a buck, or in need of serious mental health evaluations. I, too, have 'heard', literally a voice, with my ears, not just some passing novel thoughts in my head, a few times in my life. In began in early childhood (around 5) and has been more or less frequent at variouus stages of my life. I learned early not too tell, to keep it 'our' little secret, between He and I. I've formally studied psychology now, including mental illness, and in that context studied deeply how what I've experienced could be a manifestation ANY form of mental illness, and it just isn't there. The most signficant distinction is the nature of 'the voice'. in both tone and content. The "voices" of any and all kinds of mentall illness are characteristiclly negative, hurtful, demeaning, dysfunctionaletc. NONE are ever noted as being positive, encouraging,comforting, genuinely instructive and helpful, whether in dealing with practical life matters or matters of greater understanding. I do not mean to suggest this happens a lot, on any regular daily basis or anything like that. And more often than the conversations, the "voice" speaking in my waking state, they are far more often carried on while sleeping, in dreams that are vivid and memorable in detail. The "voice" as I've experienced has been male, in contrast to yours being female. Could that be related to the concept of anima and animus, each of us are "completed" by the features and qualities of the opposite sex? The "voice" I've heard I've come to feel, think of, as having a personality unique to Him,even though at various times He has seemed as Father, older Brother, comfortable Companion. Learning to verbally respond, talk aloud, to and with that voice, or the source of it,even when I do not hear it, was awkward ot first, I felt, as I suppose is normal, what kind of idiot am I talking to someone I have no reasonable reason to believe is actualy "there"..or "here", or whatever. It is hard to get to the place,psychologically, in which YOU trsut there is an "other" involved, that you are not just senselessly rambling to yourself. But doing so definitely increased both the frequency and depth of the "conversation." The responses to what I talked about, questions I asked, are not always returned to to "hear", but unfolding in events over a short span of time followiing them. An interesting element of the "personality" of this "voice" in my own experiences has been His sometimes annoying, but amazingly productive, use of answering my questions WITH questions...that when I follow up in seeking out the answers to questions thrown back at me, I discovered for myself the answer I had sought, rather than just having it handed to me. Its along the principle that we cannot find the answers until we know the questions. Now, just who or what am I "hearing" and conversing "with?" A truly separate entity from the Spirit realm? My own unconscious "Self", some part of my own mind splitting off into a role of "other?" Or something involving connection with some greater shared consciouusness? I don't know. Does that matter? I don't think it does. At now almost 63 years old, and having and engaged in communications with this "other" since about 5 yrs old, andhaving found "Him" or "it" or whatever, to have been invariably positive, helpfull, kind, compassionate, caring, accurately "knowing", and truthful, I have built up a deep trust in it. How anyone else might or might not experience something like this, I can't say anything, really. It's such a personal experience, and the very nature of that leads me to think it would have to be for any other, and very personally "tailored" to their personality, experiences, and world-view. Jenell

That we are hard wired to find agency and intentionin whatever happens....random chance? Well, rationally, intellectually, I have to agree with this. But, there are still singular experiences in my life that push that to the limit... As I have noted elsewhere, personal experience is at once both the most reliable and most unreliable of the various ways of knowing anything. As long as we take care to honestly test our own consclusions drawn from experience, it can be most reliable. At the same time, our senses and perceptions and minds can and do play tricks on us, deceive us. And no matter how solidly grounded we feel in what we've experienced and the conclusions we draw from that, it is of value only to ourselves and perhaps one or a few other personal witnesses, others have no sound reason for accepting our say so as true or accurate. Random chance is even itself an easily deceptive concept. Most people tend to confuse random chance with statistical probability, resulting in flawed observations and conclusions. In experiments in which the actual results of a number of consecutive coin tosses were recorded, mixed up with made-up sets, and then presented to subjects with instructions to pick out the sets that represented real results of real sets of coin tosses, they invariable chose sets that most "looked random", by conforming to the statistical outcome potential of any single coin toss, 50-50. In reality, an exact 50-50 result in a set of consecutive coin tosses is no more statistically likely than any other possible combination. An exact 50-50 result is just as statistically rare as a 100-0 or 0-100 outcome. In fact, ANY exact combination is as rare as any other. If placing a bet on the outcome of such a set of consecutive coin tosses, your odds of winning the bet are no better whether you choose 50-50, 100-0, 0-100, 60-40, or 75-25. I know all this. And yet.... When I was 12, my sister 9, she and I were playing in a field along with some neices around the same ages as we. We agreed to a race along the top of a recently mowed levee bordering an old, then dry and unused irrigation canal. Being one of the older of the group, and at that age, long legged and fast, I was, as usual, soon rather easily out distancing the others. My sister screamed, very convincingly, "Jenell! Snake!" I immediately looked down to see that, presently in mid-leap, my foot was about to come down right on top of a large cotton mouth water moccasin, laying coiled in classic cottonmouth "waiting position", head resting upon coiled body with mouth gaping wide, its namesake white mouth interior exposed and ready to strike.....I did the only thing I could, twisted my entire body hard in mid air, throwing myself sideways to land hard on the rough stubble covered ground, continuing to roll away further as I did so. I was hurt pretty bad...seriously wrenched back and hip that I ever fully recovered from, as well as nasty punctures and scrapes from the coarse stubble. My sister was at first laughing, then turned remorseful when she realized I was really hurt. A good deal of confusion prevailed for several minutes, as she confessed to having called out the warning just to scare me, try to make me break my stride, slow me down, while I was crying and trembling at the near-miss and thanking God she had seen the snake and warned me in time....the snake that she hadn't seen and didn't know was there. I had to locate the snake after the fact to prove its reality to her and the others. She and I talked about, revisited some of the unexplanable events like that from our childhoods, in the recent years she stayed withh me before she passed away. She and I and that little group of our neices personally experienced/witnessed something that would forever affect out faith, and yet.... You have no reason to believe such an incident ever happened, to know whether this story just came out of my imagination, or my real memories. And I still don't know why someone somewhere else is bitten by a poisonous snake, and I wasn't that day. Jenell

Yvonne wrote" I, for myself, cannot believe in an interventionist God - strictly speaking. The example I like to give is two people praying for two different families during a catastrophe, one family is wiped out, the other is saved. Would God play favorites like that? I wouldn't think so. To throw out my favorite question, what would that say about God? Having said that, however, I don't think we can really say for sure if God does or doesn't do this or that. It is a mystery, as is most of what we can say about God imo." I think a lot of us have struggled with this one, some resolve it better than others, some not at all. As Bill shared of his sister when she lost her baby, she struggled with "Why would God do this? Why would God let this happen?" When my own grandbaby was suddenly killed, and at many other times of tragedy and grief, even hard than asking such question one's self is being bombarded with them by others. I think the bereaved in general exercise admirable restraint in not slapping people for things said, perhaps well meaning, but inherently cruel, more often than they do. Two ideas here are troublesome...."Why did God do this? Why did God take my baby?" I agree with Bill, the worst kind of responses are such as God needed a new angel or some such drivel. (one of those tempting to slap moments) This idea that God "did this" terrible thing is to me abhorrant and disgusting. Equally so can be the question, "Why didn't Got intervene to prevent this?" So, what? God maybe just likes some people better than others? He would intervene for someone else, but not for me? Or you? Following the recent tragic outbreak of tornadoes in the SE of the country, killing record numbers of people, the classic 'pick and choose' characteristic came up in a number of tv news reports and interviews with survivors...why did it demolish this house, killing occupants, but leave the house next door untouched? Survivor emotonally told their stories of near-disaster, and often part of it was that they believed it was prayer that 'saved' them...as the house disintegrated around them, they prayed, and God placed His sheltering hand upon them. Are we really to believe that every survivor was praying, and every person that died,was not? Do they really believe no one dies praying in a disaster like that?? I can't accept that view of prayer. And I can't accept that when disaster strikes, people get hurt or die, its because somehow they were more pleasing to God. The babies of a lot mean people that do a lot of bad things do not die, and the babies of good loving caring people die, like my grandson and Bill's sister's baby. I accept that such events are just part of the environment within which we've been granted this occasion of a life. Who dies, who doesn't, in a tornado or tsunami of earthquake, isn't a 'pick and choose' thing on God's part. It just is part of our natural world. Does God ever intervene, to change the course of events that if played out uninterupted, would have led to someone's harm? Yes, I do believe that happens sometimes. And I dont know why it does or does not happen in any event. Sometimes I think we all have experience 'near-missess' that we may not even know about. Such things as for 'just a feeling' we take a different route to work than usual, and we avoid a deadly multi-car wreck that happens on our usual route. Coincidence? Some instances can be hard to dismiss as that. Sometimes, I think it may have to do with that "connection" we talk about here, and how sensitive to listening for it and how responsive we are. I recall an incident that was so startling in that way that others were 'made believers' in this idea...I attended an AoG church a while a few years back. One Sunday evening after services, I engaged the pastor in a conversation about this very thing. he was dismissive, even rejecting ofit, to him it didn't fit his 'magic God' concept....if God wanted to intervene, He would do so directly, not dependent on us to actually carry it out at some 'unconscious suggestion.' He had mentioned during service that he and his family were leaving that same night for a one week trip to San Antonio to visit relatives. (we are located NE of Houston) They were going home only to change clothes and toss already packed luggage into the car. An hour out, almost through Houston, his wife began to obsess about not being sure she had turned off the back yard water faucet she had left running to fill their dogs' large tub. The more he tried to reassure her that she probablyhad turned it off, the more adamant she became. They finally turned back, got home to find their house filled with smoke...thankfully the fire dept was called and arrived in time to prevent major damage. Turned out a chunk of mortar had broken and been dislodged from bricks as the rear of their fireplace, and coals from the fire they had enjoyed earlier in the evening had sifted through the crack, and had begun to burn the wooden studs behind it. Surely had they not returned as they did their house would have been engulfed and lost before anyone noticed and reported the fire. His eyes we filled with tears and wonder as he related the incident in service the next Sunday, He even thanked me for telling him what I had, when I did, and that he saw what had happened as the Spirit proving to him the truth of this kind of thing. And, oh yeah, btw, his wife HAD turned the water faucet off before they'd left. Why does that happen sometimes, but not at others? I cannot begin to know that, at least for now. Jenell

Learning that mistakes are learning opportunties.

Another aspect of this question of 'does God answer prayers.' There's an old country song that goes along the line of "thank God for unanswered prayers." Our perspective on our own needs and that of others is inherently flawed...we just don't have all the pertinent information to really know what is for the best. We often misunderstand what the true need in a situation really is, may be seeking an answer that is actually going to send more problems than it solves. We have no nice, handy crystal balls through which to look into future events. This can be so for ourselves, or when thinking to intercede in behalf of another, when we really don't know what that other would really want or choose for themselves in a situation. I've seen a few situations in which others sought intervention in the course of events, through both intercessory prayer as well as overt actions, for someone out of their own self interests and feelings. Several instances have involved some famiily member(s) insisting on aggressive medical treatment and interventions that the patient themselves did not, would not, have wanted, had even expressed rejection of either verbally or through a written living will. When those interventions "succeeded" the person that had expressed willingness, readiness to die, and aversion to a prolonged quantity of life without a certain level of qualiity of life, were put through weeks, months, even years of suffering they wouldn't have chosen for themselves. Sometimes, a person chooses for him or her self such agressive treatmennts and heroiic measures, only to regret having made that choice later as prolonged suffering bears heavily upon them. I have thought I needed or wanted things, that whether I got them or not, I later realiized hadn't or wouldn't have been such a good thing in the long run. Some of those experiences have helped me to become more accepting of the way things work out differently than I'd have planned in my life, and to neither feel such strong desires for something as to hurt for them, and/or to more easily let go, not suffer extreme dissapointment when things don't go as I'd have liked, to accept it may well have been for the best. One experience of that which stands out in my memories is of events as they played out when I thought my husband and I had found our most perfect dream home for ourselves and 4 children, as we sought to buy our first house. Absolutely every piece of what we felt we needed and wanted was met in perfection in the first home we attempted to buy. We, especially me, had fallen into absolute love with that property. We signed a contract and put up earnest money, entirely confident of approval of financing. We were stunned when told our application had been denied, and a second potential buyer's contengency application was already being processed. It turned out that an error somewhere in the process in which a mistake had been made by someone typing in my husband's SS number had brought up 'credit problems' that weren't even our own! But it was too late, the back-up buyer's application was already being processed and approved. I CRIED, even grieved, heartbroken, over losing that house! But within 6 mos, that property that had never been flooded before, suffered extensive damage when 4 ft of water overflowed it from a nearby creek during a massive hurricane, and within 5 years, the peaceful wooded natural setting around it had been transformed into industrial complexes and construction business compounds! A succession of similar 'near-misses' in other things i thought I wanted or needed in my life has brought me to an appreciation of how often we can thank God for unanwered prayers. Jenell

Thinking about that "connection", Joseph, perhaps that would be a good topic for another thread.

Good thought, Joseph. I do think sometimes "answers to prayer" can come through guidance if we are open to percievingit, and open and willing to be responsive, to act upon it in what way we can. That it may seem "indirect' in that it came through our own responsive action or another's, does not mean it did not come from God, the Spirit, the Greater Consciousness working through that. I know I have become personally uncomfortable offering up a prayer, or agreeing to pray for someone, when there is something I could do in the matter, but am not willing to do. It makes me feel kind of like I'm just tossing it to God, "here, God, you take care of it, I'm too busy/too inconvenienced or whatever..." It makes me feel insincere and shallow. It makes me feel, what if I was made aware of this need BECAUSE I am the one that could help, could be "the answer", and I shirked that call? Certainly I've had experiences, that go in both directions, my learning of another's need I was able to meet, as well as having requests for prayers for me strike the right ears and heart, those that were able to answer mine. I have experienced and witnessed occasions in which one person spontaneously shows up with the answer to another's prayer of need, that they didn't even know about before hand. Once many years ago, I was very young, had 2 babies to care for, my husband only able to find a low paying part time job, we were barely surviving...we were living in a cheap, run-down old house we rented unfurnished from something of a "slumlord" that owned a row of such old houses along the same block. Our old refridgerator had quit, it was hot summer, no air conditioning, and I had been struggling to keep milk, formula, opened baby food,and other perishables in an ice chest for nearly two weeks. Oh, Lord, was I praying for a refridgerator! Then the landlord came to our door, we'd said nothing about our need for a refridgerator to him, and he wasn't the nice friendly helpful sort of guy you'd ask for help anyway. And he told me tenants in another of the houses had moved out, and left an old, ugly, but working, refridgerator...and thought he'd ask if we could use it before he had his maintenance man haul it to the dump! Prayer answered! I've experienced and seen that many times, sometimes my need met, sometimes I met the need of another. In consideration of a "greater consciousness", a "shared consciouusness", this could be at work without our even knowing it. Jenell

Joseph wrote: "To me, and in my experience, effective intercessory prayer is the realization of connection with the whole where there is no separation, time, or distance, or natural law limitation and when that connection is made the answer to the issue is present whether it be an at peace with the issue, an inclination or word for action or an unction with power that is able to declare and see the evidence of that which cannot be seen but will certainly manifest itself. (yes, in the last part as in the supernatural though perhaps one day it will not be considered as such)" This presents a very interesting aspect of the nature and "power" of intercessory prayer that I feel truly goes beyond present concensus of realilty that we've touched upon elsewhere within these forums...that of what is now generally considered "supernatural", the hocus-pocus of proclaimed psychics and ESP just as much as within religious community perceptions/interpretations of such things being of communication with God through prayer. I've mentioned else where my experiences that seem to me an ability or capacity to actually percieve beyond rational senses, something of emotions and events in others' lives. And that my view on those things are that some natural phenomenon that human technology and science simply hasn't dsicovered yet. Now if there truly is a vast "shared consciouusness" beyond our limited individual experience of consciousness, that at least at somme times and under some circumstances, can facilitate intercommunication between individuals and other elements of this "shared cosmic consciousness" we might at times become aware of, then this does open the way for "real" effects of intercessory prayer. If one of us in our state of prayer or "constant prayerfulness" as well as the recipient toward whom and in who's behalf we have sincere concern and love and desire to lend support, or even hold any strong feelings annd thoughts in the oppositve direction, of despising, jealousy, hate, etc, then it would seem to me possible that both ourself amd the recipient, whether consciously or unconsciouusly, may participate in some level of communication of thoughts and feelings. That others in close connection may be "sending out" or "radiating" any particularly sincere strong emotion, feelings, toward another, might by this have a very "real" effect on another. Whether one suffering difficulties feels loved, supported, cared about, or the converse, criticized, judged, rejected, abandoned, by others, in their difficulties, might certainly be at least in part ones internal response to what others are "sending" in their direction, invisibly, without open verbalization. I think most of us can think of times, experiences, when in complete contrast of what others may be expressing only, at odds with their words, behaviors, actions, the sense they really felt quite differently toward us, that those outward indicators are a false front, a facade, for very different true feelings. I think many of us have also experienced this in different contexts, say, when we have come into contact with a seriously passive-aggressive person. The classic example is the too-sweet, too openly affectionate, too obliging, too self-depreciating, too humbled sweet little old lady that for some inexplicable reason makes you feel like there are shards of glass penetrating the mind and emotions as when you are near or in contact with her, or the outwardly benign, non-threatening, even seeminly friendlyand helpful person that sets your intuitive alarm bells ringing at high decible levels. Young children are far more sensitive to this than most of us as adults, and this was a point strongly stressed in context of a course I took on child maltreatment and abuse, whether physical, emotional, or sexual. Parents and other adult caregivers need to be more aware of this than they generally are. The child's sensivitivity in this regard, is often not only disregarded, but their natural intuitive self-protective instincts dulled and eventually disabled as parents actually scold them out of embarrassment, or even inconveneince, telling them to stop acting like that, quit being a baby or acting silly, or accused of just throwing a fit to get their own way. Likewise, by the same mechanisms, might our sincere, genuine feeliings of love, care, support, for another, be truly, actually, really, conveyed to that other through some as yet unknown and understood channel. To be experiencing the love, care, desire to support, coming at one from many other people might indeed feel like being bathed in a kind of Divine Love emanating from a "supernatural" or "higher power" source. Jenell

Bill, sounds like your observations and thoughts on prayer as it is often presented in church and religious communties, as well as some of the problems with that, and your perception of what prayer itself is or may be, as well as what it may be TO anyone, are quite close to my own. I especially agree with what you allude to about "need to fee in control", some seeming to need to feel they have, or at least have the potential for, controlling God and events beyond our normal human range of influence. There is no doubt many events in life leave us feeling powerless, that causes a natural frustration, for which there are more or less healthy and functional/dysfunctional ways of trying to deal with that. Confronting our ultimate helplessness is a hard part of attaining toward psychological, emotional, and spiritual maturity. Unfortunately, it does seem some very dysfunctional perceptions and responses to that inevitable psychological challenge have become deeply entrenched within not only the structures of doctrines within organized religion, but personal traditions handed down within families, religious communities, even the general culture at large. I have had to try to learn, keep present in mind in relating to others, that you challenge or threaten the illusory sense of security, power to control, at your own risk of what can be some pretty angry and desperate attempts to defend and maintain that illusion. The most compelling aspect of this, for me, my own reactions to my awareness of this problem, has always been the downright cruelty inherent in such a position at the very practical, personal human level of experience. It is all too easy a side-step from the ambiguious matter of whether one's prayers being answered, or not, is "God's will" or choosing to do so or not, to (enter the need to feel in control factor) that of if your prayers are ineffective, it must be your own fault, or the fault of the one you are praying for in intercessory prayer, because if you were "doing it right" or "in a right relationship with God", or with enought sincere faith, your prayers would have "succeeded" in changing God's plans, inciting God to intevene in the natural processes in the situation. "Prosperity doctrine" is pretty much generally regarded with disdain within most religious communities, yet it is widely accepted by those using cognitive copiing devices, Ego defenses, to avoid recognizing and confronting its presence among and within the group and accepted religious tradition. Through a number of difficult situations in my own and others, often loved ones' lives, this conflict has repeatedly strained, and in some cases, ultimately ended some of the personal relationships with family members, friends, aquaintances, that hold such views in this as I find cruel and destructive. Such conflicts over the 5 yr course of my younger sister's illness and eventual death to Ovarian cancer in which I felt both my own and my sister's faith and "obedience" and "right relationship with God", even our very state of "salvation" were under constant attack by some members and even whole small family groups within our larger family, resulted in some of them failing to attend her funeral, or even send their condolences. For not having been running here and there to every so-called miracle faith healer, such as the infamous Toronto and Brownwood "revivals, we had not really done all that we could have to "save her life", even to intimate or outright state that as evidence she nor I "really wanted her to get well." A few years before that, while attending a church service not long after a horrible family tragedy involving the sudden accidental death of my 5 week old grand son, still very raw over it, the preacher, an Evangelist visiting to conduct a "revival" actually worked into his sermon a "sermon illustration" of a family that had fallen out of regular attendance and relationship with their church, who had ignored their pastor's "warnings" that God would punish them if they didn't "get right with the church", suffered the sudden illness and death of their infant! That stands as one ofthe most horrible church experiences of my life, as feeling utterly ripped apart inside, I made my way out with the greatest difficulty, unable to even speak, probably apprearing as something of a drunk staggering outside before puking in the parking lot, then sitting for many minutes in my car before I was able to drive away. What was even worse than such a horrible thing for a preacher to say, was the look of rapt attention with heads nodding in aggreement across the expanse of the congregation. I know I am not unique in having recognized that, and perhaps one reason I am often more open about my "Progressive" kind of religious perspective if that I would hope to be an example to show others experiencing that same kind of recognition and pain caused by those attitudes, that there ARE Christians that abhor such things. At the time of that experience for me, i did not know that, felt very isolated in my grief, and yes, anger...no, the better term, rage, at the "God" image I was at the time very much in the process of rejecting completely and permanently. An aspect of this to me that is so contradictory to my perception of faith and God image is that even within those religious communties, at the same time, there are doctrines and traditions alluding to the need for that tate of "brokenness", of having actually come to realization of our true state of utter helplessness and powerlessness, in coming to true relationship with God, through Christ. But it seems that has gone terribly awry with the insertion of the idea that once having done so, the reward is to gain power to control events in our lives through controlling, being able to command, God, through "right behavior", "right beleifs", and commitment to an irrational faith in the "power of prayer." And ultimately of course, the ultimate power is held only in the hands of those promising to help us learn and know how to do that. There is no other designation for those kind of attitudes, in my mind, but the lowest and most inhumane and cruel response to the suffering of others. Jenell

To me, prayer is not about asking God to change the course that lies ahead, but rather to grant to me, as well as any other involved, the guidance and support to travel it as well as I (or we) might. The path I traveled as companion to my sister a few years ago when her daily life journey came to be centralized around cancer treaments and coping with the devastating effects of her illness for five years was one on which we both relied heavily on that "source" of our faith, to sustain, strengthen, guide, at times, just keep us taking the steps we had to travel each day. To us, for us, God, or whatever any would name that source of strength and guidance, got us through it as best we might have. But to many others engaged in the concept intercessory prayer as asking God to change the reality that was, God "chose not to answer" our (their) prayers. Jenell

I must admit this is something I am not at all clear on, either...the difference, the distinctions, between "fundamentalist" and "Evangelical". Can someone or a particular religious community be one and not the othher, or the other and not the one? Now "Pentacostal", I think I'm clear on...it designates those that believe in a "second" baptism, the "baptism in the Holy Ghost (or Spirit)", as something that might later for some that have recieved "just the basic" water Baptism of salvation for having accepted Jesus as savior. Jenell

Exactly, Harry. You have come that full circle I refer to toward the end of my post, by having rejected the dual-reality concept returned to a one reality position. Jenell

I think some of the issues here go back to the concepts of a duality, two 'realms', the one the material that is access able to our senses and reasonable to our minds, and the other the immaterial or 'spiritual'. If we remove the idea of such duality or reality, aparant conflicts at least change in nature or dissapear. A point I encountered in Dr. Mitchell's Science and Religion course was that primitive man had no concept of a "supernatural". Primitive man accepts all aspects of his environment and reality as natural, even those parts he didn't understand. Of course, those parts he didn't understand were a primary root of primitive man's religious thought, as he tried to put what he experienced as somehow 'real' but not accessable to his limited physical senses. As Emile Durkheim posited in his classic work, "The fundamental elements of religion", all of man's basic level elements of religion were grounded in what he termed "the real." Primitive man was responding to real challenges for survival and ability to adapt to his reality. Thus arose ideas of spirits and gods at work influencing the physical reality as Man experienced it. But to that primitive man, those things he didn't understand weren't 'supernatural', they were simply part of the 'natural', an extension of the natural that he could observe with his physical senses. Primitive man did not think he had to know and understand something in a rationalsense in order to accept the reality of its existence. This of course is also the orgin of the God of the Gaps that has persisted in many religions. The concept, or idea of, a "supernatural" (beyond natural) actually arose out of the emergence of the ages of reason and science. Being grounded in what is accessable to our senses and mental reasoning abilities, science and reason created the duality of two realms, the natural, that could be observed and examined by our physical senses and rational minds, and that which could not, being the supernatural. It then evolved that one was considered within the scope of science and reason, the other, of religion. This divide moves science and reason into "scientism" when it is decided that only what falls within the scope of science and reason is "real", relegating any other to be dismissed as "not real", which of course relegates anything religious that doesn't meet that "real' status as therefore non-existant. Whereas that not understood is in religion attributed to the God of the Gaps, while in science and (faulty)reason is simply dismissed as existing at all. Now, the reason I just preface reason with 'faulty' is that sound reasoning does not arrive at such a conclusion. Sound reasoning recognizes that just because we lack evidence of something, doesn't mean we can conclude it does not exist. Sound reasoning recognizes that there is a vast unknown, and that we simply can't know what it is we don't know. So with sound reasoning, we actually come full circle back to primitive man's concept of a single reality, which embraces both the known, what can be understood, and the unknown. All is natural. What is called supernatural is merely what of the natural we cannot access with our present means of observation. Jenell

post edited, some how double posted. Jenell

Hmmmm...yes..interesting point. If we dissolve the apparant dualism of mind vs matter and likewise all apparant dualities of realities, so that there is but one reality, some of it more or less accessable to our present limitations to comprehend. Yeah, I like that. Jenell

Mike wrote: "I think the matter/mind issue is at base not a scientific one. It is really a meta-physical question." I'm going to challenge you a bit on this point. In the matter of the "mind-body" question as some in the mental sciences are exploring, there is evidence to support the theory that if mind can be determined to affect body, the reverse of what we already accept, that body can effect mind, then we may be looking at mind as something that has existence beyond simple the manifestation of body (brain) processes. Phenomenon such as the placebo effect is already well documented, yet still not fully understood. We know that what effects the brain affects the mind. Damage the brain, and certain functions of body and mind are affected, usually in a negative way. Touch specfic points in the brain with a probe, and the person experiences physical sensations and mental images. It has also been observed that in gifted people, parts of the brain corresponding to the elements ofthat gifting, be it music, art, intellectual gifts of many kinds, are found to be larger, more developed, than in 'ordindary' people. This has also been demonstrated in a reverse manner, in that when the brains of many people were physically examined, by researchers having no personal knowledge about the deceased person's life or interests, and areas of particularly greater size and developmment than average were detected, they were able to predict with significant accuracy the kinds of special talents, interests or gifts that person had been observed to manifest in their lives. Simlilar studies using non-invasive techniques such as fMRI and CAT scan imaging, were also succesful, though to a lessor degree, in making the same predictions. But research into the opposite effect is showing promising results as well, which are most valuable to those working in rehabilitation therapy with brain injured patients. A person with here-to-for little to no interest or experience in music or any of the arts, whose brains physically show no particularly advanced development in the areas of the brain important tothose activities, begins to engage themselves in learning that activity, will acually demonstrate increased development in those areas of the brain. Those involved in scientific study are well aware that we cannot always observe something directly, but often must do so by indirect means. A theory is set forth, based upon which hypothesis are formed, and experiements devised to attempt to support or discredit the hypothesis. Its a trial and error process. Theories must be revised, hypothesis adjusted, and expereiments restructured. Consider, now, what Jesus said ofthe Spirit, that like the wind, it could not be observed directly, but only in its passing, as the wind moved the branches and leaves of the willows. In this matter at hand, we can directly observe the body, the physical brain. Advancing technology is making it possible to even observe the physical processes of the body, and the brain. But mind is a different matter. If we theorize that mind is something that exists apart from, beyond, the mere physical processes of the brain, then we must look for evidence of that existence through indirect observations. In this mind-body matter, the reductionist position, that mind is nothing more than the sum of the emergent processes of the physical brain, point to the obvious, that if the brain is damaged, so it the mind. If the brain is damage is extensive enough, as in massive trauma, or a disease such as Alzheimers, the mind and cognitive abilities deteriorate accordingly. However, others posit that whatever elements of mind that is apart from, beyond physical brain processes, may not have deteriorated along with the brain, but for the physical brain being damaged, it is no longer a fully functional "channel" for the mind. Think radio or tc waves, as analogy for those elements of mind beyond the body...if the radio or tv is damaged, it may lose capacity to recieve and process radio or tv waves, but those radio and tv waves are still there, unaffected. A phenomenon that is largely anecdotal, because there's no practical way at present to predict it or study it directly, is the never the less well documented phenomenon of a patient in state of coma, or advanced mental deterioration, that despite massive damage to the brain that seems to preclude any kind of normal function, suddenly and usually very briefly shortly before death open their eyes, "come to their senses", and speak with what seem a fully rational mind. Many doctors, nurses, and hospice/nursing home caregivers have observed this phenomenon so often, they know to immediately notify family and loved ones to come asap, if they might take advantage of it for last words with the dying loved one, a loved one that may not have been able to speak to them in many months or evenyears. This phenomenon is well documented, but totally lacks any rational or biological explanation. The only one I can think of, as many do, is in that late stage, about to leave this life, the mind DOES have the power, the capacity, to overcome matter. Btw, I hope the occasional 'run-ons' of words as I type aren't too distracting, my space bar is about worn out on this laptop, and I don't always catch them all upon proofing before posting. Might say my space bar is getting pretty spaced out.....but just as with a dysfunctional brain, my mind does it's best to overcome the dysfunction of this space bar. Jenell

First, this guy is obviously stuck on reductionist thinking. Second, as that by it's very meaning and definition, "science" can only address and examine that which can be objectively qualified and/or quantified in the material reality. To attempt to extend any knowledge established through scientific method to draw consclusions or make statements about any possible non-material reality is a departure from science. Third, basic to sound reasoning, logical process, is that negative cannot prove a negative..i.e. a lack of evidence of the existence of something cannot be validly used to prove that something does not exist. Fourth, scientific method can be applied only where something can be detected, observed, measured, quantified, qualified direstly or indirectly by material means. For the advances in technology in many fields of science, we are routinely able to observe, measure, qualify, and quantify many phenomenon that once seemed beyond human means to observe. Many scientists are delving deeply into the big question, what is "mind", and the questions that hang from that, such as seeking to understand the questions involving the "mind-body" phenomenon. Until now, most efforts in science have been focused on the outer reality, now as Man has developed the means to explore even outer space, the new frontier in science is that of the inner space, of the material reality (think quantum physics, string theory,etc) and of the human mind. I believe science has longbeen and will continue to move into what was once thought to be beyond human ability to materially observe, measure, quantify, and qualify, into what once seemed apart from or beyond the material reality...I think just as in the individual human process of individuation, in which the unconscious is brought into consciousness, so is the human race moving toward bringing the previously unconscious into present consciousness, the previously aparantly non-material reality into the material reality. What you say about this idea of scientism seems to me, as noted in comparing it to religion, a knee-jerk reaction to a kind of fundamentalism, as a defense, a line drawn in the sand, so to speak, by those who feel their present beliefs and very concepts of the nature of reality, are being challenged, threatened, by advances in the very science they profess to embrace. That is what fundamentalism is, basically, whether in religion or science, or even nationalism or other social arenas where rapiid changes challenge the old ways of thinking, of being. It is to draw a line in the sand (but from the fundamentalist's viewpoint, write in stone) the present state of knowledge and belief as if it were "the final word" on any matter. To make sancrosanct the present way of knowing and being, daring any step beyond that line, into new ways that threaten to dismantle the old. History is on the side of those that defy the line in the sand, that push into new realities, that dare to cross that line. Jenell

For demonstration of the comparative effectiveness of talk and debate VS more acts of kindness and caring, in this issue, I share this true story of someone I know. Having met the parents of two brothers who were my son's friends, one of which is openly gay, I would never have suspected their religious background and the effect of their own son being gay on that. The parent had been lifelong active participants in the fundamentalist Pentacostal commuunity. The father was a Pentecostal preacher and had pastored several Pentecostal congregations, and was in fact an active pastor at the time his son, in his teens, "came out" with his homosexual orientation. I do not know all of what that family went through in that crisis, I've never asked and they do not talk about it. But the outcome was the family leaving the Pentecostal faith, and the father leaving religious ministry. Now, as active in Pentcostalism, especially in the role of preacher/pastor, there was not likely any argument for acceptance of homosexuals that hadn't been heard a thousand times over, and rejected. This man PREACHED homophobia in a classically homophobic community! It was love and kindness, for their son and what he was going through as he struggled to accept and openly confess his own homosexuality that turned the hearts of those parents. Jenell

As Joseph M said above this, "Rather, it seems to me less talk and debate and more actions of kindness and love will go further to persuade others that perhaps their view was wrong. And if not, so be it. it seemed to work for me." Neon, I think the example you give of your mother is more an example of it being less talk and debate and more actions of kindness and love at work. Consider that your mother wasn't watching or listneing to talk and debate about homosexuality, or the right or wrong of it, but watching a personal story from the lives of a same-sex couple parenting a child. As also noted, someone actually knowing or having a loved one that is homosexual are far less likely to be homophobic...it is much easier to condemn and hate those we csannot imagine being like ourselves in any way than to condemn and hate those we love and care about, those we have gotten to know, and therefore, have "humanized." But I don't think talk and debate, arguing for or against, the right or wrong of it, and the basis for that opinion one way or the other, does anything to build bridges, and does a lot of increase antagonism. For good or ill, media in our society has tremendous power to influence and bring social change. The increasing openness to portrayal of homosexuals and same-serx couples as real people thaty can be kind and caring and "like us" (from perspetive of those negative to them) is so much more a powerful influence than mere talk and debate. All the talk and debate in the world probably wouldn't have brought about the adjustment you observed in your mother's views on the matter, but touching her heart and conscience by showing her an example of a loving same sex couple parenting a child, particularly an example showing someone she may have already admired, such as Elton John, in that capacity was effective. Jenell

I think I understand Bishop Spong's statement, and that it's pretty much the same thing I've come to myself on this matter. When someone wants to bring it up and try to bait me into arguing it, my response has become along this line" "You know, I'm 62 yrs old, so don't you know I've heard every so-called "biblical" argument and bible verse quite you might come up with, plus some even you probably don't know, at least 62,000 times in my life....and I have no doubt you've probably heard every counter-argument point I might bring up... you aren't going to change my mind and I'm not going to change yours.... so let's just not go there." Jenell

I have too many to list, lol! Different songs for different occasions, situations, moods.....John Lennon's "Imagine," yes, definitely there. But then, just a lot of songs from the classic folk era of the 60's and 70's...Bob Dylan, so many of his had an elemental message...even Peter, Paul, and Mary, Odetta....a generation of true prophets for those with ears to hear, I believe......and one especially relevant to my own most personal level faith, "You raise me up..."... Jenell