One Thousand Shells and a Million Ocean Waves

I've been to the ocean twice in my life, once when I was too little to remember and once this last summer. When I was too little to remember (about 5 or 6), we went to the ocean to collect the final clue at the end of a treasure hunt for real buried treasure that my aunt had hidden in a box beneath the sand. I think she created all the little golden trinkets within the box, and I wonder now where they have gotten to, because in our family, we never throw things out.

I don't remember very much about the ocean other than the a snippet of the crazily sharp cliff rocks, a glimpse of the expansive ocean, and a large dead crab that convinced my 6 year old self that I never wanted to set foot in that monster-ridden water. About four years ago, I decided I wanted to go back, mostly because I'd forgotten what it was like, and had heard it was fabulous. 'Going to the Ocean' was something I put on my 'to do list'. The one most of us write at some point in our lives listing the things we want to accomplish before we die, unless we only have one thing on that list which is: to write that aforementioned list.

There are about 35 things I've written on that list, and some have been able to be crossed off. It's one of the most exciting experiences to go over that list and pre-live those experiences, and cross off others. But I find that the more I go over my list, the more I add to it, as though each thing I've done previously adds two items to the list, and at the rate I'm at... well, I will never finish. I've acquired a driver's license, but now I've added to the list that I want to go on a spontaneous road trip, and that I want to travel to Egypt. I've gone skiing, but now I want to go snowboarding, and skydiving. I've been accross Canada, but now I want to go to Peru and to Austrailia. And more than dreaming, I hope these goals will come true. Interesting though isn't it, how the more we do in life, the more we want to do. Like going to the Ocean.

Although I can now officially cross it off of my 'to do' list, I feel the need to put 'Going to the Ocean' on the 'Things I should do again sometime' list. Last summer at the ocean was spectacular. When we first got to the beach, I noticed a shell on the ground and thought 'This is beautiful! Unique! I should keep this!' As we continued down the path to the beach, more and more of these little shells lay scattered about our feet. I eagerly picked up shell after shell. Once my feet touched the sand though, reality stole me from my 'lucky me' mindset as my eyes rested on the thousands of little black shells that littered the beach like unwanted waste. I dropped my thoughtful collection and only picked up the most significant, unique and precious ones to take back with me as tokens of remembrance... including a couple sand dollars, random bubble seaweed, and of course, some small dead crabs. Apparently I couldn't get around that lovely... dead... smelly... piece of the experience, so I decided to take some home with me.

The waves, the starfish; the driftwood, the sand... Another expereince to check off my list. And now I've added to my list again. To travel to more beaches around the world, and to dance on the beach as the sun goes down. My list will never stop growing, for as each chapter of life's adventure draws to a close, somewhere two more chapters have just begun.

The Parable of the Prince

There once was a prince who was not a boy of fondness, but never purposely unkind. One day as he passed by some shops, he pocketed a few apples from a seller’s cart. On the way down the street, a man from the crowd remarked to the prince “Sir, a friend of mine has been stolen from in unfair trade. This is against the law, what would you have me do of it?” I think you might know the man.” The prince looked at his fellows, and turning back to the man, shook his head and replied “I know of none. Yet I know well that it is not me.” and after a salutation, carried on his way.

Down the road the group of friends stumbled into a cart, causing it to fall and spill produce across the road. “Come now, let’s off to the town fountain. So as not to make ourselves in the way of these people.” The prince remarked. Once there, a man at the fountain said, “Prince, I know of a friend who turned away from me when I was in need, this friend having already taken substance of me, and then no return whatsoever in my need, Sir. Is this not an unpaid debt? What would you have me do of it?” At which the prince looked upon the man and then to his fellows. “I would not know, Sir, yet I know well that it is not me.”

Wishing to make less of himself so as to avoid any others in the crowd, he led his group to the library. Surely here no one would make a nuisance.

Yet here a man lay on the steps leading up to the library, badly bruised and sore. The prince was decided and went on in. “Someone else will help the man. Royalty has no place aiding simpletons.”

As fate would have it, a man approached the prince and begged his audience alone within the library. “Sir, I sorely need advice. My brother lay dying in battle, and cried for help to a passing medical officer, yet the medical officer after seeing my brother’s status said ‘it is not my place to help someone of lower rank.’ My brother is now dead. I feel the medical officer is to fault. What would you have me do of it?”

At this the prince feared the man knew his heart and ran from the library. His friends and the man on the steps, were no where seen, neither cart of produce nor the apple stand.

Suddenly he fell forward, people laughing at his disgraceful appearance. A mob of thieves took to the jewelry on his fingers and wrists, and stole from his person as he vulnerably lay on the street. After they let him alone, he stood and began to make his way home alone, bruised and sore.

He was almost to the castle when he saw the man from the street who now he recognized as the same from the fountain and library. Wondering how he couldn’t have noticed him as the same fellow, the prince sat down exhausted by the road and looked up at the man. “You are right, Sir. Harm has been done to your robbed friend, and as debt unpaid to you, and yet again to your brother as he lay dying. And I have done these things. What would you have me do of it?”

The man looked down at the prince, dirty clothes, bruised and tired, and beckoned him. “Come and see what has been done.” And together they walked up the last of the way to the castle.

The man with the apple cart, stood before him. “Sir, I apologize.” Said the prince. “I have taken of your stores and thought only of myself. What would you have me do of it?” The man smiled and shrugged “Perhaps you are mistaken. I have come to the king to sell of my stores. Some other apple seller perhaps? I know well that it is not me.”

The boy stood puzzled, and yet saw the man with the produce cart that he had overturned. Turning he said, “Sir, I know that I ought to have helped you to get the produce back into your cart. It was a debt in effect for I had caused it. And now what would you have me do of it?” The man smiled and shrugged. “This cart has four wheels, Sir. The best four wheels in the town. They have never tipped for I would have known it. Perhaps you are mistaken, for I know well that it is not me.”

Perplexed and confused the boy found the man that had been left upon the stairs of the library. “Sir.” The boy said humbly. “I have deep need of forgiveness from you. I have wronged you deeply. I could have caused your death, and I know I must have caused you great sorrow. What would you have me do of it?” The man smiled and shrugged. “Surely I would have remembered being close to death? Perhaps you are mistaken, for I know well that it is not me.”

The boy turned to the man who had thrice questioned him. “How, Sir? How is it done?” The man held out his hands for the boy to see. “When you understood your own pain, you understood theirs. I have felt your pain and I have felt their pain. I have healed their hearts. This is my gift. What would you have me do of it?”

Belief Prison

I was sitting outside, beside our foggy glass picnic table, basking in what was probably the last of the summer sun when some sort of tiny flying bug flew randomly over to where I was and underneath the table. After zigzagging around a bit as though it were searching for something important it had lost in at the beach, it suddenly (like bugs do) zipped upward, obviously expecting to keep the upward momentum. It hit the glass again and again and again, trying to fly up. It bounced a rough full circle around the underside of the table, eventually stopping to clean itself.

I’ve seen this natural phenomenon over and over where the stupid bug doesn’t understand that simply flying over and up would have much more effective results. Sometimes it needs to fly down, over and up, which yes, is a bit too complicated for an insect, but if only they could wrap their infinitesimally small minds around it, there wouldn’t be so many dead wasps and other insects trapped in windows, bug traps and empty upside-down peanut butter containers.

Many people (if not all) in some aspect or another are like that little bug. The glass is like the beliefs we hold about the universe. If we believe something is so, so it is. We say to ourselves that it is so, and it is so. It is our own beliefs that may set us free or imprison us. The insect didn’t understand the glass, and most of us don’t understand the invisible obstacles and walls that hold us from accomplishing the amazing. We can’t see clearly through the glass, because our beliefs of the world are skewed. As always, we see the world the way we believe it is, because of past experiences, and ‘that is just how it is.’

We can’t tell exactly what is on the other side, yet we faithfully continue pummeling with all our weight against the glass surface, sure that there is something of worth on the other side worth wrecking ourselves over. Maybe it’s all the pummeling and brain damage the little bugs receive that make it impossible for them to connect the dots that going around or under would save their lives.

For us, it is hard to keep trying after failing again and again. We can choose to give up and curl into a ball to die like most insects do, or fight for a way out of our self-imposed belief prison. And yes, if we keep fighting while holding the same beliefs then we will have the same experience, and probably receive brain damage.

We all have those grudges, insistencies or stubborn tendencies to live certain ways. We insist on slamming up against the obstacles we could so easily get around, if only we could wrap our minds around the simple changing of beliefs. It would save us most frustration and give us time in the long run.

Sometimes, we can hazily see what’s out there but we run away from it, believing the sight to be false, and we don’t want to trust in the false, right? So we curl up and die. Just joking, we don’t die, but metaphorically speaking, we kill off faith, hope and the belief of something better. The part of us that says “try, live, and learn.” So we give up. And that is the worst thing to do in this life. That coming from one who’s given up too many times.

If only we could see, that moving over a little bit, adjusting our belief, allowing room for the unknown, we would fly out from beneath the glass, and become free.


"Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe." - St. Augustine

The Universe: Explained

I am about to explain the universe... So listen closely children...

I have here my thoughts on everything. It may have one piece missing (maybe....), but I think this is it, the explanation of the universe. At least as I see it. My perspective. Me.

:D

There are three substances that make up the entire universe: energy, intelligence, and truth.

I did not include matter, and matter is all around us. So obviously there is more to the list, right? Well, frankly, no. We are taught in science class that everything physical around us is made up of particles. And it has been discovered that somewhere deep within the particles (when we reach in far enough with the microscope) we have quarks, which are made of energy. This discovery implies that everything solid, and everything we see, is made of quarks and essentially energy.

Energy also encompasses thought. Thoughts are in fact energy which can affect the world around us. It’s as though our thoughts go through a transformation instantaneously after we have made them, and they become energy. A great example of this phenomena is something many if not all of us encounter, which is this: when one of us puts a lot of thought into a project or spends all day learning at a seminar or at school, more often than not, we feel fatigued, as though we have used a lot of energy. Which is true. It uses energy to think, not just to stay awake.

But if there were only energy in the universe, humans, animals and plants wouldn't exist because it would be like a whole bunch of cars without drivers. There has to be some kind of intelligence that drives the energy/matter, in order for anything at all to happen. And let me tell you, anything would happen if we left the universe to fend for itself with only energy/matter and intelligence. So what else are we missing?



Laws. Without law, order and consequences, there would be absolute chaos in the universe, so there would need to be laws, which I’m going to simplify as truth. Truth is that when we jump, we fall down; when we do good, we feel good; touching hot stoves, will get us burned. Truth/law exists already, we don’t need to provoke it or conjure it to see it. It just is. Truth unexplainably just is, in the same way that we just are. It’s there, we’re here, and we are left struggling to understand the beginnings.



And let me just quickly mention the second level of truth. The first level is the experiences that we can identify logically (ie: jumping, and falling back to the ground, if we get hurt, it takes time to heal). The second level of truth is greater than the first and is recognized by God. It is on this second level of truth that the first can bend. God grants us miracles of total immediate healing, removing guilty consciences, and bringing loved ones back from beyond the veil, all of which defy the first law of truth that we have come to basically understand in this world. Healing takes time often left with scars, our guilt is a natural consequence of doing something against our better judgment, and death is total; according to the first level of truth. There is a greater truth that God lives that can bend the smaller laws to allow things to happen according to his will, when we believe strongly in something.

So, to briefly re-cap:

Energy is matter:

Intelligence drives matter,












and Truth keeps Intelligence and Energy in line.











These three pieces that make up the universe are so sure and stable, no matter how much lying, covering or ignorance there is concerning them, they will still be there at the end of it all, when our bodies join the dust, and the dust turns to crystal. In fact, these three pieces will be the reason why our bodies turn to dust, why our spirits won’t, and the reason the dust turns to crystal at the end of it all. They are unfaltering basics of the universe that govern the path of the whole universe.

Did I lose anyone?

Conciousness

According to science, there is no proof that I am conscious. Nor you. I think that is crazy, but I understand where they are coming from. All I can really deduce, and all I can really trust is that I, myself am conscious because I, myself am aware of myself. But as for everyone else around me, they may be robots, or a simulation of my brain, something I've made up altogether. An odd and ugly thought. It's one of those things one ought to have faith in. Let me explain why we ought to have faith that those around us are conscious.
No matter what way you look at it, by evolutionary standards or creationist standards, life would be impossible if this were all a simulation of my brain. They say that life evolved rather slowly, and from single celled organisms, and were that true, how then did this simulation of the brain come to be? It would mean that everything around me was fake, only brain waves, and signals to the brain. According to their own theory, life doesn't evolve like that. It’s ‘survival of the fittest’, not ‘let’s see how complicated we can make this’.

Doesn't it seem a bit far fetched? Even if your brain can wrap around it, and some how prove that it’s not impossible, it’s still not worth believing in because it would mean that I'm alone and worthless, and so is EVERYTHING else. And that would pretty much make me into a little ball of wetness that curls up into a corner and die. If everything were worthless and all in my head then there would be no point in living.

The question of consciousness is raised, and I believe it's harmful, to question everyone else's conscious existence, for what are we left in this world NOT to question? Where is there anything to trust? I want to be happy in the same way that I want to be warm after being cold, and if I'm constantly worrying that everything including the ground under my feet can't be trusted because we can't prove that it exists, then what would my life be? I would metaphorically be cold all the time. No warmth. I'm sure I would freeze to death. I choose to believe that we are conscious and aware, so that I at least feel warm. I choose to have faith that I and those I love exist.

Midnight

It's 11 o clock right now. I have never had a midnight snack-habit before. I never had a pattern of going to sleep with the stomach’s insistence of extra at 12 am. I don’t wake at the appropriate snack time to raid the fridge... Of course, I never get to sleep before midnight these days so how could I?

Still, there is something I have discovered recently in late-night snacks that is oh so delicious just before bed at roughly 12:00am. Postum and honeyed toast. It’s just enough to keep my belly from complaining through the night. Postum is something that I’ve advertised to a few people while saying it’s a “coffee substitute” which is true, and yet it has no affiliation to coffee. I assume that people who drink coffee must like the taste of it, and I like the taste of Postum, so I guess that counts as a similarity, but not an affiliation. And mmm… Sure does taste yummy. It’s a comfort food I suppose. Like ice-cream to other people, this is my yummy.

Why am I talking about Postum? Because Postum makes me happy. I don’t know the proper pronunciation of the word... Post-um… post. Um… To post something where everyone in the world could have it. And um…

Having this warm mug of not-hot-chocolate makes me think how the world would be different, were everyone to have a warm cup of something non-addictive and healthy just before bed. Something warm that politicians would sip just before they tuck themselves in, just to give them good thoughts and dreams. Something for all the children in Africa young or old who don’t have much food. A nice comfort knowing that at the end of the day, their bellies would be filled. Something for the people with radical views of the world, who want to destroy things to get their points across to everyone. Perhaps with just a little mug of warm Postum and a piece of honeyed toast, the people of this world would take time before they fall asleep to look out their windows as they sip warm Postum and eat the toast, staring up at the moon and stars, or across the darkened city, lit up with little dots of yellow light. Maybe they would gaze at the faces of the little ones around them having already fallen asleep after their own warm Postum. Perhaps, just maybe the thoughts thought would be a good kind of different, and people would see the light in the world; of stars, of the moon, of city lights, and lights in each other’s eyes.

Maybe, just maybe, I can hold onto this naïve thought, and believe the world would begin to realize that there is hope still, and that there is time to love and care, time to be loved and cared for, and time to sip warm Postum from a mug at midnight, staring out the window just before we turn out the lights.

Well, now it’s midnight. Cheers!

Corn

On Friday I was sitting at the computer listening to a humming popcorn popper in the kitchen. None of the kernels had popped yet. It’s the same popper we’ve used many a time for precisely what we (I and some friends) were about to do: watch a movie. Videos and popcorn go well together, I think. I often find that one without the other is always missing that… that… Kodak-catching-you-off-guard-stuffing-your-face moment.

Did you know that to make popcorn it requires a specific kind of corn? I mean not any kind of corn would do. You can’t just pluck any old wild corn cob from a field and stick it in the microwave. No, no, it must be of the flint strain. Even so, I considered plucking the cobs of corn from the stalks as we ran amuck through the field last Friday. And no, we weren’t trespassing or stomping down corn stalks to make absolutely amazing geometric shapes that you could only recognize from high in the air. We were racing through a corn maze as an activity to welcome students back from the summer break.

We had it figured out by the time we got there, that the best way to guarantee our finishing was to only take lefts, and when we hit a dead-end, turn and take our next left, and by so doing, we would theoretically end up at the goal, which was the tower. There were a few set backs, including which was a darkening sky, rain that made it cold, and slippery muck underfoot which was a result of the rain.

At first I wasn’t looking forward to the self-imposed torture of shivering to death in some distant, dark, dead-end path of the corn maze. After all, didn’t they teach us in elementary school that if you’re lost, to stay put? What crummy instructions in dark, cold corn maze. Let someone find you. Bah!

In short, I wasn’t looking forward to it at all, and was seriously considering waiting in the car for my comrades to finish, but after the other three took off into the first set of winding pathways through the corn, (key in pocket), what was I supposed to do, wait alone to shiver and die on a wet hay bale or car hood while the rain drowned any hope of warmth? Of course not! So I took off after them.

After only a short distance of jogging, I found that I started to warm up. The good side was that it was warmer, and the down side was that every step was precarious because of the slippery mud. As soon as I felt confident I wouldn’t freeze to death I decided that I would really get into the ‘left turn only hypothesis’, and immerse myself in the whole ‘getting lost’ aspect of this activity.

(Tip: Try using runners with grip if it’s going to be wet in any degree while going through a corn maze. It gets really muddy. And don’t use your good shoes. I learned that last bit the hard way. My shoes are still outside drying two days later after washing the muck off them.)

There was something interesting about the psychology of other people. It seemed that some people continued thinking that they never really wanted to be there in the first place, and so they went back and tried to help others out of the maze. Or at least that is my take on why others tried to be so helpful. But a big part of my brain kept saying “Doesn’t that… like… completely destroy the whole idea of going in the maze, if someone helps you to get out? I mean… If we went in, shouldn’t we expect to find our own way out?”

Oh well.

Eventually, after a long time of running/jogging/skiing through the muck and turning corners and bumping into people and wishing I hadn’t brought my good pants and shoes, we came to a T in the path where a sign stood that said “EXIT”. It was a very satirical sign staring at me while the rain poured down, because though it pointed left, not right, the tower (the goal of the maze) was to our right. We had followed all the left turns, and here we were, at the end, with the next left leading out of the maze, and no more left turns to lead to the tower. By theory, we didn’t make it.

There is a moral to the story that I’d like to mention. The moral is that we still have to keep our eyes open. Experiments, logic, reason, all of those useful tools are only so good before they fail us if we fail to think, feel and look around. There is something to be said for good old-fashioned gut feelings that more and more often in this society we overlook because we think we know how it works.

Dr. Alan Wallace said “The major impediment to discovery is not ignorance but the illusions of knowledge.” How true that knowledge can get in the way of itself. We think we know best, which gets in the way of actually knowing best. In the same way that thinking that turning left will for sure get us to the tower, I submit that we (including myself) may be wrong in other areas, for instance that corn could perhaps be popped even if it’s not of the flint strain, and that just because people were helping us out of the maze doesn’t mean they necessarily didn’t want to be there. Maybe they just enjoyed helping people. As it turned out, I had the urge once I finished to turn around and help the rest of them find their way. Odd how that works.

I suppose the other thing I learned from this is that some people, as was my case, do not want to be helped, but rather want to stick through things, finding out the hard way that shoes with good grip would work better in the muck than street shoes, and that not just any old wild popcorn can be popped, and that turning left doesn’t always get you home.

Now please excuse me, I have to go turn my shoes over so they can continue drying out.