Hugs from Jesus
“Do you ever think about joining Ted?â€
“I think about that a lot. There are so many times I think it would be easier to be with Ted.â€
“It’s funny…of course it is not funny. But yesterday I was imagining this conversation. The problem is, you don’t think when you die, you’ll join him.â€
“No I don’t. I wish I did, but I don’t. I have a friend, a fundamentalist, whose little girl died after contracting meningitis. Her friends in the church were so excited thinking of Annie getting a welcoming hug from Jesus.â€
“Nice dream and if that helps… “
“Yes, it helps them cope.â€
But you don’t have that and … “
“Sometimes I wonder about reincarnation and seeing Ted in the next life.â€
“But do you remember Ted from your last life? Do you remember your last life? People make up funny stories from the barest bones of religious beliefs. But isn’t that the problem, Polly? We don’t. Where does that leave us? How does it help us cope? Might be time to change religions.â€
This conversation was as flat as flat as this gray screen. Words without inflections, no attempt to make the other laugh. I had no reply to her last sentence.
“You know of everyone that has ever lived and ever thought about death and what happens after we’re gone. None of them know anymore than we do. Which is nothing.
Flu Update
Matthew is still coughing, but well enough to go back to school, except that he didn’t. Diane is tired but has enough energy to make lists of stuff to be done before the Finlays, et al, arrive tomorrow. Susan had a temp for only twenty-four hours, which meant she had sympathy, virus X and not the flu. Of all of us, she looks the brightest.
I feel like a logging truck rolled over me, slowly.
I have a reply for YOUR last sentence — good line! I only hope you haven’t given me an opportunity to feel what you mean.
Now all we need is for Ginger and Dan and Tricia to take you on challenging the basic premise in HER last line……….
Comment by appreciative — December 23, 2003 @ 5:07 pm
The most profound of my early-adulthood (admitedly drug-facilitated) enlightenments — a gift I was truly grateful for at the time, and take woefully for granted to this day — is the direct experience — as opposed to belief, which I had long enchewed along with my Catholic religion — that the life most believe to be “real” is in fact the illusion.
There is without question a beingness beyond the physical, where the I that speaks imperfectly though this body, is — timeless and immortal.
Polly will join Ted, Flo, Frank, and Bertha, Emerson, and most, I expect, will be surprised as heaven.
Wonderful conversation, Mike. You are a welcome and appreciated tonic to Polly, as you are to us.
Comment by experiencer — December 23, 2003 @ 7:32 pm
Seems you take this illusion a tad too seriously. No?
Comment by questioner — December 23, 2003 @ 8:28 pm
These thoughts of death–do they indicate that the blogmaster has recently been sick enough to wish he was dead? I hopeth not. The Great Blogmaster in the sky is not ready for you.
Comment by rakkity — December 23, 2003 @ 9:43 pm
Nay, nay…I mean, almost.
I’ve no strength to post new, so I popped into my archives. Not very Christmasy.
Today is my first day without a fever, and wow, all I’ve got to say is, there are folks out there who put the welcome mat out (no vaccine) for this scourge? This is my first flu since 1992, when Diane began driving me to the clinic for shots.
Comment by blogmaster — December 24, 2003 @ 6:36 am