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Best Analogy of the Existence of the Invisible God I’ve Ever Heard

By Patrick Morley

Even though we can’t see him, we believe in him.

My daughter-in-law sent me this story by Hungarian writer Útmutató a Léleknek:
In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”
The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”
“Nonsense,” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”
The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”
The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”
The second insisted, “Well I think there is something, and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”
The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover, if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”
The first replied, “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”
The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”
Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”
To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

I am not preachy and I dont flaunt my religion but I liked this analogy enough to add it here.

Hunting

Hunters.

You know, I get it. I truly do. I understand about the stalking of the prey thing. I've even done it.

Its not for me but I get it.

What I don't get...

What I don't understand is why do you hunt what you hunt?

You can hunt wild boar in the American South because there are an invasive species that needs to be culled or else they take over. Plus they are dangerous. Cool. knock yourselves out.

Or

If you need to hunt down a rogue tiger or elephant because they have endangered the populous. OK sure. I got your back on that one.

Even if you are hunting elk, antelope, deer, pheasant, etc. That's fine because the hunters that hunt these normally eat them too.

But walking into a lions territory and gunning him down. Nah that's not cool.

How would you like it if you were sitting at home and someone kicks your door down and says “ill give you to the count of 5” and then hunts you down and kills you just to have their picture taken next to your cold corpse.

Why kill a giraffe? Thats like going onto a farm and shooting farmer Joe's cow.

There is no sport in killing a docile animal.

There is a difference between killing a deer and a giraffe. The deer is going to be eaten the giraffe is purely for the sport.

As for elephants, that's just wrong. Clear across the board, its wrong.

I would rather see you give a 9mm to another human and then you can hunt each other. Now that would be sporty. That would be worth the picture.

Hunting a grizzly bear with a Bowie knife? Go for it. Hunting anything with just a Bowie knife is cool by me. That shows you have stealth and patience and endurance. Shooting a grazing animal from a football field away just shows you have a strong pocketbook.

I don't see it as sporting unless the animal has the same chance that you do.

Evenly matched.

A sporting chance as it were.

Watch for motorcycles

My nephew Andrew had just gotten off of work and was heading home. Home was just 2 blocks away and he was crossing an inersection on his motorcycle when he was struck by a young lady in her truck.

He fought a valiant fight for a few hours but eventually succumbed to his injuries. He left behind a young son and his wife of two weeks.

He was my first "son" and I do miss him greatly.



 

Getting Old

My wife just loves all those murder and mayhem shows.

CSI, NCIS, law and Order.

Anything that has someone getting shot and or dismembered is fair game for her.

She will literally turn on NCIS and leave it there for the entire weekend.

Dude. I just can’t take it anymore.

I used to like those shows too but guess I am just getting old.

All of the blood and the bashing and the rapes and the racism and the scores of dead bodies.

It is just getting to be too much for me. I already know how horrible man is and can be

I don’t want to escape TO that I want to escape FROM that.

Maybe that’s why I like my fantasy so much more.

It’s further removed from all of this “ripped from the headline” crap.

I’d rather watch a dragon burn 2 scores of village innocence than watch Thomas Gibson climb into the head of this week’s neo-Nazi pedophilic serial killer.

I’d rather watch this week’s villain freeze dry the Flash then watch Mark Harmon get his man

I’d rather watch all of the biters and geeks in the Walking Dead get smooshified in various ways than watch Vincent D’Onofrio hunting for a crack head Jesus freak

Like I said, just getting old.

Death of innocence

I can recall the first time I ever really thought about the future.

It was back in 1980 and I was in the 6^th grade. There was a meteor shower that night so my sister and I were laying out on the sidewalk in front of the house watching the skies. We lived in a small town in California then so of course it was a beautiful night.

As I lay there staring up into the black sky with its millions of twinkling stars my mind started to wander.

I thought about going into the 7^th grade when school started up next and my sister was starting High School.

Then it started to snowball in my head

Then in just 2 years I would be in High School and she would be a Junior

and then she would be a senior and graduating and then moving away

and then I would be graduating and...

It got to be too much for me.

I couldnt handle it.

It was just too big for my eleven year old mind to handle.

I got scared.

I started to cry.

I dont mean sniffles I mean full on no sound coming out bawling.

I ran inside the house to find the only comfort I knew.

Mom.

I needed my mommy.

She was in the bathroom.

I pounded on the door. “Mooommm!” I yelled “I (sob) need (sniff) you”

“What!” she hollered back through the door “what wrong”

but I didnt know what was wrong.

I couldnt put into words what I was feeling.

I didnt even know what I was feeling

I needed comfort.

I needed reassurance.

I stood there nonplussed.

How do I say that I am scared of the future? How do I vocalize that I am scared of growing up and leaving everything I know right now behind me.

“nothing” I finally managed to get out, holding back the sadness in my voice as best I could

“never mind”

“ok well just go back outside then, I'll be out in a minute”

so I went back outside

and I lay there staring up at the vast cosmos without really seeing it.

My sister asked me if I was ok.

“yeah, I'm fine” I replied

but I wasnt.

I mark that moment as the starting of the death of my childhood. Now I know it is not nearly as catastrophic of a childhood decline as some but that was mine.

poppins

Disney

Man I love Disney.

Warning you now that I have drank the Disney Kool-aid here so if you have a hate on for Disney well there are 500+ other posts on here you can read.

Like most children I was raised on Disney and the very first movie I ever saw at a theater was “Pete’s Dragon”

I would say my least favorite would have to be Bambi. Still a good story but just something about it never really clicked for me.

        Sidenote: It’s rather odd that when you do to Disneyworld or Land and see the characters walking around, it amazing how fast their movie becomes a favorite.

For my absolute favorite, wow that would be like picking a favorite kid. I really like them all, especially anything after 1963.

Aladdin is just spot on for action and humor but a lot can be said for “The Apple Dumpling Gang” and Dean Jones in “The shaggy D.A.”

“Escape to Witch mountain ranks right up there with “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and I am not even going to touch of the Kurt Russell string of flicks.

Even Donny Osmond killing it in Mulan with “I’ll make a man out of you” is just stupendous.

But there is one movie that rides over the rest.

The pinnacle of all Disney flicks

The one with the silliest of words in it that everyone still knows 50 years later

Mary Poppins

Mary. Freakin. Poppins.

This movie is practically perfect in every way.

5 Oscars and 2 Grammys and is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time.

When people say something is timeless this is what I think of. You can watch this at any time and at any age and still enjoy it. This is what started my sincere admiration for Dick Van Dyke and I cannot picture anyone alive or dead who would be able to just kill as Mary Poppins that Julie Andrews.

I’m not going to go into great detail here obviously. At the very least you can read about it on Wikipedia.

If…no. WHEN Hollywood decides they need to “reboot” this then I will be done with movies.

Now if you will excuse me I just took a spoon full of sugar and I am off to go fly a kite because I love to laugh.

tiny things

It’s the little things

There is a lot in life to enjoy. It doesn’t all have to be doom and gloom. There are little joys that you can experience every day.

For me my joys are rather simple:

• I live for my children’s laughter. Nothing can make me grin faster than hearing them laugh.
• My wife doing a small thing for me. Like the other day I mentioned that the apples we had were mushy and I do not like mushy apples so on the way to work she stopped at Quick Trip and picked me up a package of crisp apple slices.
• Hitting every green light.
• Not being able to breathe because your nose is stopped up so you dig into your proboscis and latch on to dried snot chain and as you pull out this monstrosity you can feel it leaving your sinus cavity. Ok that may be a bit uncouth and gross to some but you take your joy where you can get it.
• When you take a drink and you can feel the cold going all the way down.
• Warm toes
• A really good poop and when you wipe it comes away clean. Oh come on! Everyone poops. I just happen to be the guy talking about it.
• A really long episode where I just destroy everyone in my Trivia Crack queue. I really like winning but I try to be careful at how hard I beat people because I want them to come back. I really have a brain full of worthless information. Funny side note is my daughter does the same thing and blames/credits me for filling her brain with trivial knowledge.
• 3:15PM – let me elaborate. In everyone’s life, especially at work, there is that one time of the day that just crawls by. For me it about 2:20 to 3:10 and yeah I’ve narrowed it down to that close of an approximation. That is my time of the day where the clock just stops and starts moving backwards. Once I get past that roadblock it is just smooth sailing.
• A good nap. I have this rule that if I am going to take a nap on any given day then I have to be asleep before 3:30pm. Any later than that and I run the risk of interfering with going to sleep that night.

Then there is one of my rarest of joys.

A good night sleep.

  I know for a fact that there is a feeling you can get where you wake up and feel rested and invigorated to start your day. I have felt this elusive animal less than a handful of times at best in my 46 years on this planet but I know it is out there.

So what do you consider to be your joy?

Tell me below.