Have you ever thought about it that way? In spring, we get to jump forward in time (albeit only an hour), and in autumn, we get to relive one hour of our lives.
Doesn’t that seem strange?
We are culturally hypnotized into all agreeing to play this time game. It’s a form of mind control, isn’t it?
I wonder what other mind control games we play every day…
Of all the pictures that Google presented to me, when I searched for a provocative image of ‘abandonment’, this is the one that resonated.
It hearkens back to my childhood of feeling like the outsider.
I’m not looking for sympathy here, just a little understanding.
As I have documented throughout my posts here on WordPress, I never met my biological father until I was almost 25.
My conscious thought was that he had died when I was too young to remember. My unconscious thought was that I wasn’t good enough for him to stay around.
This thought still has roots, unfortunately.
But what makes me ponder this uncomfortable feeling is the fact that my children have similar issues with me. And my mother never knew who her biological parents were.
We are not alone, even though we may be solitary with our experience.
John Lennon’s mother died when he was still young. His father had run away to sea. He became a rebellious youth as a way to punish the world. But he also channeled his angst into music and art. His son, Julian, does the same.
Knowing that I share this memory with them, and others, helps me live my life to the best of my ability.
Kelly Clarkson has been a prolific songwriter since her American Idol win in 2001. As we saw before, Because of You was written about her mother. But she also had a real issue with her father: abandonment at age six!
It took having a child of her own, and being in a stable relationship, to give her the strength to tackle her feelings about him in a song.
The following video is the moment when she performed it for the first time for the world on the American Idol stage. The emotions spill out…
Kelly Clarkson wrote and recorded this song in 2005. It’s been on the airwaves ever since. I always presumed it was about a romance that had gone wrong.
Wrong. It was about a relationship that had gone wrong.
This week, on The Voice, a young contestant, Abby Cates, chose this song for the Knockout round. Well, you could have knocked me out.
This song was written about Kelly’s mom.
This was one of Rob Rudd‘s favourite albums. And the reason I’m highlighting its catch phrase today is the dream I had last night.
In the dream, I experienced a sensation similar to what I can only describe as pulses of awareness: consciousness that blinked on and off.
The idea behind this sensation was a process by which other members of a team of spies could recognize each other. Every time we went through a pulse of awareness, another person was introduced. Another piece of the puzzle was solved.
It seemed to me that we were all being carried on a vehicle of some kind, like a bus. In reality, the planet Earth. Hence the link.
Trump has declared war on the mainstream media (MSM) by calling them the enemy of the people. What he really means is that they seem to have made him their enemy and this is his way of hitting back at them.
The mainstream media are the Fourth Estate. The other three are the Clergy, the Nobility and the Common Man.
It would appear that the task of the mainstream media is to call out any abuse of power by the Clergy or the Nobility on behalf of the Common Man. Therefore, by definition, the MSM cannot be the enemy of the people.
Somewhere along the way, the MSM have become somewhat complicit with the Government, at least on the surface. In the last 75 years or so, newspaper editors were willing to look the other way if asked to ignore some picadillo on the part of politicians. But the price was co-operation between the ones in power and those editors/owners. This cozy arrangement was maintained until Trump came to power: then the ‘dogs of war’ were released on them. Why? Because they didn’t sing his praises.
Now, two years down the road, we ae witnessing a fully divided country that doesn’t even pretend to be ‘united under God’. A new Civil War has been declared.
So how can we keep a sensible balance in the world? By finding the middle way between the Left and the Right. That’s where we bloggers have a duty to speak up when we see inaccuracies, exaggerations and blatant lies (as in ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’).
It’s not a easy place to be. If you call out liberals, you’re a right-wing reactionary; if you call out conservatives, you’re a left-wing revolutionary. You can’t win for losing.
But the ‘job’ seems to be God-given: if you are aware, and you can share your insights, then it is foolish to ‘hide your lamp under a bushel’.
Most people don’t read my posts. I know that. I could probably say the most outrageous things and no one would bat an eyelid. But to not write is not an option. I feel the impulse too strongly to ignore it.
And, maybe, just maybe, one day people will discover that what I wrote actually made sense. That what I wrote was my Truth. That’s really all I can hope.
Today, I’d like to take aim at the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution.
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
I don’t pretend to know everything about this amendment, but the Wikipedia article, highlighted above is a good place to start, if you want to understand the motivation behind it.
Now, something that was important to a new country in the 18th Century may no longer be applicable to 21st Century life. Except for the obvious, of course: the people want to feel that they have some protection against their own government.
So, who are The People? This is where everything gets a bit muddied. In the original US Constitution, The People would be white adult males. And their country of origin would most likely have been England. Everyone else would have been an immigrant, in their eyes. Again, the obvious needs to be stated: these white folks were also immigrants.
The First People is the name by which some of the Native tribes knew themselves. Their land was stolen from them. Maybe, that is why the White Man (in the present) is so worried that his land will be stolen from them by the Newcomers. Hence the need for guns and rifles.
The latest massacre in Pittsburgh has earned the condemnation of Jews everywhere. It’s not the first time that such a thing has happened there, but the killing of worshiping Jews in their synagogue on their Sabbath, just because they were Jews, seems to be a step too far.
If it were more Blacks, Whites or Muslims at their worship who were gunned down (and there have been plenty of those), the World and his uncle would have said, “Oh, well, such is (American) life!” But this has a Holocaust feel to it (at least in how it was reported in the mainstream media), and in a country that has a Nationalist as its President, Fascism is beginning to rear its ugly head again.
Maybe the solution to all this killing mayhem is to find a way to restrict arms: we need to keep them away from one ‘race’. We need to take them away from White Men.
Using the Gematria code, as shown above, one can get to the truth behind the shortest Bible verse (John 11:35)
The total adds up to 1743. “Jesus” on its own is 888 (see above). When the digits are added together (for the whole phrase in Greek, or just his name) the result is 6.
This demonstrates that Jesus is fully human. It is only when you add “Christ” does he become a 1 (the Godhead).
John had hidden (in plain sight) in his Gospel the humanity of Jesus.
In terms of a miracle, this is a big one. It may have been the final straw as far as the Jewish leaders were concerned. There was a lot at stake here.
When you read the Gospel of John, chapter 11, you get a distinct impression of a first hand report, with commentary added later.
Two things stand out: Jesus was angry; and Jesus wept.
We don’t get that many glimpses into Jesus’ emotional state. If you take the Gospels at face value, Jesus hardly ever lost his cool (except when he overturned the temple merchants’ tables in his “Den of Thieves” moment). This one was different.
Some have speculated that he was upset by the lack of faith in Mary and Martha. But that doesn’t fit with the narrative. Some others have decided that he was angry with Death itself. But if he knew he was going to conquer it, why would he be angry?
No, I think the reason for his anger was the mourning Jerusalem crowd that had followed Mary out to meet him. He had wanted to have a private moment with her before he performed the miracle. He wanted to explain why he had delayed coming to her, after her brother had died. He didn’t get the chance.
The part of the story that has been expunged was that Mary was very ‘special’ to Jesus. Some have even speculated that they were married. Her upset at the death of her brother, Lazarus, would have been very moving, especially to her ‘husband’. In other words, he was weeping with her.
The world has tried to justify Jesus’ tears by saying that he was sad for the death of his good friend only. That just doesn’t make sense, since he was going to ‘raise him from the dead’ for the glory of God. No, this was personal and private grief for upsetting Mary.
When a family member dies, the remaining members mourn their loss. It is the most natural thing to do. Even Jesus felt their loss. That puts him head and shoulders above the false image we have been given of him. He is really just like us. And we can be just like him.
Amen.
Some movies don’t make sense, at least, not until many years later. Vanishing Point is one such film. You need to think of the car as a vehicle for the soul to understand its meaning.
Kowalski is a car delivery driver. His sole task is to pick up a car in one state and deliver it to another within his own time frame. (Now, read that again, metaphysically.)
Barry Newman as Kowalski
Kowalski thinks he’s indestructible. But to accomplish this feat, he relies upon pills. Because he doesn’t get much sleep, he has some very strange encounters. But, hey, this is the early 1970’s: everything was strange then.
There is a sequence in the UK version of this film that has Charlotte Rampling meeting with Kowalski just before his final ride. She represents ‘Death’, but because her part was cut for the US version, filmgoers didn’t get the hint, and the ending appears as a complete mystery.
Where the two bulldozers are parked on the highway is the vanishing point of Kowalski’s life. Without a doubt, he dies there. But his last look was with a smile. It was as if he knew he would get through to the other side unharmed. (Read that last sentence metaphorically, again.)
We all place so much emphasis on avoiding the end that we miss the (vanishing) point.
