Humbled Perspective

Every now and then I have a moment of clarity that makes all the shit I worry about and surround myself with seem so selfish and irrelevant.

My day started off 4 am, and I dragged myself to the bathroom for the hygiene ritual. Afterwards, I made an espresso that should come with a warning label. I turned my cheesy little computer on and started thinking about the debates I was having online the day before on numerous blogs, and how today is the day that I am going to convince all the assholes and moonbats that don’t see it my way that they are seriously misguided. That thought gave me just as much of a jolt as my espresso.

I fed my little Pug named Flea (his personality and appearance is that of the bass player from Red Hot Chili Peppers), and I set up the coffee machine so my wife can come downstairs and simply push the button to get her java whenever she’s ready. I started preparation for her lunch at work, and my sons breakfast, and I turned on the TV to see if there was anything blowing up in the world.  By that time Flea is done eating and is doing the doo doo two step with that desperate look in his eyes.Right around then, the sun started coming up and the Great Dane in the garage (Ruby) started whining because she needed to make an offering also. So I put on the both dogs’ leashes and off we went. After both dogs did their business, I started looking for cans in the trash. And in my neighborhood they are plentiful.  I live in a townhouse complex, and the residents here are, for the most part, overly materialistic people who waste at a sinful level. My harvesting of recyclables  does a number of positive things. First, my dogs get some really cool snacks. Second, gathering recyclables gives me ammo against liberals who think conservatives dont care. Third, the money from the recyclables is taken to the food bank and used to buy food for the homeless. The food I buy is distributed personally, or dropped off at local churches. While I drove to the church, I was thinking of the war, our borders, what I’m going to make for dinner, and why the driver in front of me won’t move up so I can turn right at the intersection. What a jerk! Doesn’t he have any sense of responsibility for those behind him? The light changed and I crept forward with my right wheels rubbing the curb to get a look at this idiot, who still hasn’t moved to the center of the intersection as most people turning left on green would. I looked and I found that this “jerk” was an old lady, riddled with Alzheimer’s, who could barely keep the cell phone next to her ear due to her head shaking. While I had sympathy, I was outraged that this old lady was even allowed on the road. I rolled down my window and told her, “Ride the bus! ” Afterwards, I quickly went back to thinking about all the little debates I had going on in cyberspace, and what I could say later on when I got home that will put these miscreants in their place.

I arrived at one of the churches that I drop food off at and there was a guy in the parking lot setting up a barbeque chicken fundraiser, with five 30 foot long barbeques and tarps and tables all over the place. He looked at me and says, “You can’t park in here, buddy.” I said to myself, “Buddy?” Hmmm,  I bit my lip and changed the upcoming phrase to “I’ve got 50 pounds of food I’m dropping off for the church, and I’ll just be a couple of minutes.” He said he had 200 pounds of chicken around the corner and needed the space. I figured that since I was on church grounds, I should really refrain from hitting him with dead chickens, so I parked across the street. I grabbed my 50 pounds of canned goods and started to cross the street. As I got to the church parking lot I saw that his dead chickens had still not arrived. I thought to myself, what a fucking asshole.

I got to the distribution center inside the church, and by now I had left every bit of compassion and composure I owned on the curb outside. As I walked through the door, the place was packed with the homeless and the less fortunate, all of whom had no consideration for the guy with the fifty pound box trudging down the hallway. By the time I waded through the crowd and got to dispensary in the back, I was ready to blow. I dropped of the box and the church ladies all said thanks. As I turned around to leave I found myself  standing face-to-face with a man that was screaming over my shoulder at the church ladies, asking if he could please have something to eat right NOW.

Within a few seconds, he had one of those huge king-size Snickers hanging out of his mouth and was practically drooling on me while chomping it down like a starving dog. The feeling of guilt that came across me was mind numbing. Here I am, surrounded by all these things every day that I take for granted, and I drive down the street and act like the whole world should acknowledge my presence. I bitch and get myself all worked up over things that are of no real consequence in the end. I was no longer thinking about the blogs or the idiot in the parking lot or the old lady at the intersection. I looked at this guy and his Snickers and the pain in his eye’s and had to leave, because I had started crying, overcome with remorse and guilt. As I got to the front of the church, I saw the old lady I was screaming at earlier at the intersection arguing with the same guy in the parking lot (who still had no chickens, by the way). He told her the same thing he told me, and that I would show her where to park.

Yeah right… The chicken man was on my shit list now. I went up to the old lady and told her I was sorry for screaming at her earlier. It turned out that at the intersection, she was on the phone with the church I just came out of  so she could get directions to come get some food. Needless to say, now I really felt terrible. While we were talking, the chicken man came up behind me, mumbling about his chickens. I snapped. I turned around, got in his face, and said “Look motherfucker, this old lady has been driving around town all morning trying to find this place because she’s hungry, and all you’re worried about is your fucking chickens! I don’t mind so much that I had to walk across the street, but if you make this old lady do it, I will get on the phone and have 20 of the ugliest, meanest men you’ve ever seen come down here and piss on your chickens!” I told him that the old lady is parking right where I stand, and that I was going to take the old lady into the church, directly to the front of the line, and then put her food in the trunk for her when we were done.

Like a cold Chihuahua he agreed.

Once I get home, as I walked through the door, I looked at the computer and none of the comebacks I planned for my enemy bloggers mattered anymore. I sat down with my two dogs, held them close to me, and quietly cried. Not out of guilt anymore, but out of gratitude.

I still can’t get the guy with Snickers out of my head. His world was dependent on one simple little thing at that moment, and getting that thing made his day. The gratitude and pain in his eyes as he gobbled  down the snickers is what brought me that moment of clarity, one that I really wish could be brought to so many other people who worry about all the senseless things we feel are important.

Put it all down today and go search for someone that needs a moment of clarity, even if it is just a snickers bar.

{ I still go after moonbats}

Soul Searching Among the Stars

I’ve never been too keen on organized religion and all the indoctrinated beliefs that the church has crammed down peoples throats from the time they could spell the word “God”.  I was always the kid in bible study that pissed of the Pastor by asking the questions that always challenged the religions  theory.

I was too young to have any appreciation for spirituality or the quest for the pearly gates. I was a lot more concerned with getting into our Pastors daughters pants. Which was really the only reason I went to church anyway.

Promises were being made that if we followed the word of God and the Ten Commandments and asked for forgiveness on occasion, we would go to heaven.

As a little boy, the picture of Heaven that was programed into my mind was the one where me and all my dead freinds and family were sitting on top of a cloud with halos around our heads. This was kind of trippy because everyone I knew at that age was still alive except my little sister that died of heart problems when I was 8.  Will my little sister  still  be 5 years old if I die tommorow ? My second question was “If I die tommorow, is  this all the company I’m going to have till everyone else dies 50 or 60 years from now ? No disrespect to my sister,but we did use to get on each others nerves. I love her and miss her. But I clearly remember her  telling me at age 4 ” Micky, you’re a pain in the ass.”  Besides that who can listen to all those harps playing all the time ? Is’nt there any Three Dog Night,  Creedence Clearwater or Rolling Stones ? No Bullwinkle cartoons , no Underdog ? And what about  pizza and cream soda ?  Heaven was starting to sound like it really sucked, I didnt care how peaceful everyone said it was going to be. To a 12 year old, that kind of peace sounded pretty boring.

Around 13 and 14 I started the ole” hate the goverment flower child thing”. You know… The Age of Aquarius and all that free spirit crap that was just an excuse to be dirty, grungy and have multiple sex partners and be in a perpetuating mental fog . The lack of constructive thinking in those days could definately breed an active imagination. Which might be the reason for my upcoming interpretation of heaven. The feminist were running around saying God was a woman, the Black panthers said he was black, and the hippies said Jesus was a stoner. And then there was the Jesus freaks. They were the worst of all. They turned Jesus into a vegetarian wearing blue jeans and beads. And they were all dressing and trying to look like him. They also told the world that dope was Gods way of saying HI !

As I made my way through the 60s and 70s my concept of Heaven changed according to what kind of misery I was going through at the time. Or how high I was at the time.

 I drank and used drugs every single day from the time I was 14 or 15 up untill I was about 35. Between the ages of about 23 and 25 I had become a full blown alcoholic/addict. I would wake up at night every 2 or 3 hours for a drink; If I didnt have that drink I would go into withdrawls, convulsions and shaking fits. I always had a beer some where near.

All the years of snorting, shooting and drinking had caused my esophogus to rupture one day. By the time I got to the hospital I was bleeding a quart of blood into my stomach every 2 hours and then puking it across the room, projectile style. I remember the nurse at the end of the bed being all pissed off when I soaked her from where I was laying. I had a tube up my nose going down to my stomach so they could pump ice into my stomach to slow the bleeding. The only problem was that I was bleeding from my esophogus, not my stomach. And the pressure from the tube only made it worse.  So now I was puking ice and blood.

My blood type is A-pos and the hospital only had a couple pints on hand. They said they had more on the way via helicopter.  As soon as they ran out I took a dive for the worst. Then the chopper arrived.

Just before I lost conciousness I was looking at the clock on the wall in a small area with curtains drawn all the way around my gurny. It was just me and the clock. When I opened my eyes again and saw that the clock on the wall  had moved a couple minutes, and I didnt remember those two minutes. I panicked, I knew something really bad had happened.  I took one of the deepest and quickest breaths I’ve ever taken . I remember the sound I made till this very day. It was like someone had been holding me under water trying to drown me , and I had just broken free and made it to the surface. I looked at the nurse and I said ” what happened ?” she told me that they lost me for a while, but now I was going to be alright. In other words , I was dead for about a minute.

In that space of time {they say it was about 45 seconds} I didnt remember anything. No white light at the end of the tunnel, no familiar faces… just nothing.

So where was this calm? Where was this bright light at the end of the tunnel that so many said they have seen during their decsent ?    When I came back I had no such illusions or feelings such as the ones all these once dead people were talking about. As matter of fact, I was scared. The first thing I said to myself when the nurse told me what happened was ” Thats it ?!”

I don’t know…                 Maybe I just wasn’t dead enough.

Since then I.ve been very fortunate to have gotten a good grip on my addictions. I’m a married homeowner for 13 years now, with a 12 year old boy. My wife is a devout Christian that is a firm believer of every single word in the Bible. I have always questioned certain parts of the Bible. And when we both have debates over some of my questions we usually dont speak to each other untill the nexy day. At one time the debate { arguement} got so loud the police came to my front door asking if everything was alright. They said that the neighbors had complained that we were fighting. The officer asked me what the problem was , and I told him ” Oh , we were just talking about religion.”  He didn’t beleive me and asked to see my wife. When she confirmed my story and saw that she was O.K. the cop looked a little irrtated.

I dont think the end times are coming anytime soon at all. My wife on the other hand see’s it coming in the very near future. She is always trying to convince me that the scripture’s say this is so.

One night the debate was about Heaven. My wife has always held the description of heaven that is taught in the bible. I myself still had no real firm picture in my mind of what heaven would be like , so I had to reach deep into my imagination to come up with some plausable contradiction to her view. What my immagination and quick tongue came up with sounded pretty far fetched at the time. In time, that concept that I came up with has actually started to sound pretty credible to me. When my wife heard this concept she asked me if I had started using again, and if I would give a urine sample.

I will now tell you the readers this concept that has my wife so worried about me.

My concept begins with a combination of the book of Genesis and some creationism, theory and science facts.

I believe that Jesus is the son of God. And the only son of God that has or will ever walk the face of this planet.

But what about all the other planets in this universe ?                              I often ask myself about the possibities of another planets similar to ours that would have human life on it. Is it that far fetched to think that there is life other than here on earth. After all, the odds of this being true are literally astronomical.

Heaven could very well be my own planet. Infused with the soul that my body eminates upon death. The planet will be a living breathing testament to all I’ve learned while living on this planet After my soul is released from this vessel that carried it to my death. God would plant that soul in some young blooming planet, still forming in the same manner this earth was 4.5 billion years ago.

God is warming up a planet for me right now. And when that planet is ready to have me, God will take my soul and give it to that planet, and at that point the first signs of life will appear on that planet. And the evolution of man and the planet will take place much like it did on this planet. All growth in any form will be influenced by the individual characteristics of my soul. If it is Hell I am condemed to the planet will be hot and miserable and remain that way untill blows up. If am worthy , the planet will progress much as this one did and be lush and hospitable

It will be my planet, and God will of givin me free will to raise it the way I see fit, with the ten commandments as a template for spiritual evolution. At one point in the planets history when it appears that mankind is slipping into the hands of evil, I will make an appearance to spread the word of God. I will be born to my planet in the same manner as everyone else. And I will spread the lessons of Jesus that I took to my heart in my previous existance.  No virgin birth, and I will be mortal. I never understood why Jesus had to be born of the virgin birth. His teachings are the greatest gift God could give us. Virgin birth or not he was still a beautiful man and I love him just as much no matter how he got here.

I won’t claim to ever be Jesus in any way or form, and I’m not even suggesting I could come close But I believe my purpose on my planet would be to steer it in the right direction using the lessons learned from my time on this planet.

Just think. There could be billions of planets throughout the universe undergoing  this same kind of transformation and birth right now. Each planet being the child of a soul raised and nurtured and released from here on earth.

And it very well could be Gods plan to make sure that these planets are so far apart that they could never pick up a clue from each other as to whats going on. This is why life on another planets has yet to be discovered. Could God of set things up this way knowing it  would be physically impossible to ever travel far enough to find one of these planets ? And when man does reach a point in history where it is possible for anybody on any one of these planets to visit each other as casually as we drive to the market, will that be some major turning point in the grand scheme of things? We will all be able to share our discoveries and concepts derived from countless generations of man from thousands of millions of civilizations.

 We could maybe apply everything from everywhere and be a race that would finally be able to conquer disease and war and hate. And the bonus would be that we will of finally discoverd the true meaning of God and Man.

I dont think the end times are near at all. I think man has a long way to go before his real potential will even begin to show.

This concept is just that, a concept.

I dont belive that heaven is a concept. I do believe it exists as a real place of peace that Jesus describes.

But the descriptions have always been vague, so I thought I would add my feelings which are based on a lot of unanswerd questions in my life.

Happy travels my fellow souls !