My Heresies

By Michael Jean Nystrom-Schut

In the mind of each person on the planet, a set of notions and ideas of God or gods reside. Some of these systems are basic and simple. Others are highly complex and complicated. Some borrow their God/god notions from authority, or from others they know. Others are much more original - eclectically piecing together many separate parts from multiple sources. No two people in the world experience and translate God/gods in the same way. And this is what makes things so interesting! As I have encountered this wonderful life, I have also bumped up against countless people who were in the position to explain exactly who God was and was not. They were quite sure of themselves, and anxious to impart this wisdom to me. But because I had a mind and heart of my own, this put me on the outside looking in, for much of my life. We all come to a place where we realize we must make our minds up as to what we will and will not do, how we will think and who we will be. As I have encountered them and their God/gods, I have found my own way through this foggy maze, and discovered a modicum of peace and reconciliation in the process. This is the massive task of all of us, as well as why I needed to lay it out to you, in this lengthy, 2-part book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504986465

Michael Jean Nystrom-Schut

Michael Jean Nystrom-Schut is a philosopher/writer on issues such as worldview, philosophy, personal memoir, spirituality, science, psychology, and many other general life issues. He is the author of 36 published and unpublished books, most written while residing in various locations between Central America and Indianapolis, Indiana. Michael now resides in Indianapolis with his wonderful wife, Tanya, their two German Shepherd’s, Teddy and The Bear, along with a large number of other animal, botanical, and biological life.

Book preview

Right up until the time of his passing, Christopher Hitchens could still be found out there, pounding the pavement on the campaign trail for his infamous worldview without God. Some years before he had written a book that pulled out all punches, God is not Great: How religion poisons everything.

And I observed, rather stunned at that, as more than a few fine representatives of Christendom who debated him commented on this particular book, saying in some cases that they actually agreed with much of it…one or two saying maybe even 80 to 90% of his satanic document! I was amazed to hear such a thing, since I too have read the book, in fact, very carefully doing so. What could such an admission on behalf of so many in Christendom possibly mean?

In my ramblings, here, I know better than to wish for the religious or the atheist side of the battle lines to identify with a sizable percentage of my thoughts. They will see similarities no doubt, but they will not agree with most of the overall worldview. That simply would be asking too much and I know it. I rather think that this is because I am not on one side of the battle, or the other, but dwelling in the vast lands of the desolate, moderate middle.

In the playing field of American politics each election year, a parade of conservatives (Republicans?) and liberals (Democrats?), along with a smattering of Independents or Moderates residing in the middle of them all come out to do battle with one another for a piece of the action in the capitol. Likewise, I set up camp in the middle lands of science and religion, of belief and disbelief, of Yin and Yang, of the ground and the air, of even heaven and hell – so that my thoughts and convictions might vie for a bit of consideration.

The diversified commentaries asserted in this book are the result of extensive research years racked up in the experiential life and book labs of my own private domains. So much of what I am saying here, in my heart are responses to innumerable statements and positions issued by countless contemporary Christians about what is and isn’t God, truth, life, reality and such. Just as they are entitled to their opinion – which too often includes the issuance of a one–way ticket to at least their continual rhetoric of hell, not to mention a declaration that if I don’t follow their patented formula I will know a life void of meaning, purpose and real love while encountering life on earth – I am entitled to mine. And I say nonsense to them and theirs.

In expressing my personal counterpoints, I expect a minimum of righteous indignation from Christians who may feel their toes have been trampled from some of my thoughts. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy dodging bullets thrown at me by Christians who want to tell me how wrong I am and how right they are. So, I would hope the scales could stay in balance on this matter. In short, feel free to write a rebuttal, but I suggest we live and let live, while tolerating each other’s right to free thought – free expression.

I have had to overcome guilt and shame throughout much of my life. Plenty of this stems from me personally telling a large number of unsuspecting human beings they were going to hell and that their lives essentially meant nothing without Christianity (not just God) in it. This book is in small part an apology for some of those historical missteps made down through my lives (I use lives as I’ve lead many lives – all in this one Life). It is also for me, a clarification; a catharsis and a declaration of what I honestly think are their many lies and multiple missteps along the way. Much of the energy of my life has been burnt up in an effort to reverse the damage I have done to other human beings in my former state of religious zeal.

How odd indeed that I would see the need to ask God to forgive me for things I did that I was sure were for his cause and in his name. Now think about the irony of that. I have to ask God to forgive me for saying what I thought I was supposed to say to people on his greater behalf? What’s wrong with the picture? Is it not theologically twisted to ask God to forgive me for following his commands? And yet, was I really doing that? Or was I just being religiously influenced through countless influencing factors superimposed upon me in my youth? What about those speaking out today in the name of their God (Allah?). Are they really doing the same sort of thing?

…I could right now be watching the news. I could be out and about, getting something to eat or scavenging at Goodwill or just generally fooling around. I could be taking yet another nap (I do a lot of that these days). I could be walking, or working out. I could be doing laundry. I could be doing just about anything right about now. I could be playing with my dogs – Teddy and the Bear. They are always ready to play! I could be snuggling with my baby in the bed.

Instead, I am writing – again. I am in musty sweats. No shirt. The dogs are playing – with themselves. I am hungry…just a little bit tired as well. Some fat–free milk and those homemade peanut butter cookies I just picked up sound pretty good. There is no working television in the room. I am writing. And it’s just exactly what I want to do. I am writing, and I have been writing – night after night and day after day – for months now. I still have more to say, with less and less time in which to get it all said. But to whom? And what for? We all have to address that.

Well, if you are a Christian, this book may just help you be that much better of a Christian. This is because I hope I will challenge you on many levels as you are given the chance to defend and explain my endless recitation of concerns and doubts. I have thought about plenty of these types of things for decades and if you think you should pursue the questions in your mind and heart, independent of me, then that is what you should do. And do on your own. I am only trying to help the process along. Yet, this is my process; you will no doubt follow your own. Either way, I wish you Godspeed on your continued passage through the Adventures of Life on Earth.

If you are not a Christian, I hope this book gives you strength to be okay with that. I hope it also helps you find places to live in life that are more meaningful and purposeful than your life may have been thus far. I especially hope I can point out some of the fallacies that belong to O.R. (Organized Religion), so that you are not held hostage in your life by much of what has had me in its grips for so long. That would excite me to think this could happen for you.

We all want to make contributions to the world we find ourselves living in. We – most of us anyway – want to leave it better than we found it. I woke up to see myself living this life in a mind–body organism my parents dubbed as Michael so long ago it seems like forever ago now. They are gone now, gone up to heaven I hope, and I am not far behind them in the general sense of time, since we are only here but for a twinkling of an eye and then, well, whoosh –we are not here.

While in this life we get to choose just a little bit about how we spend this twinkle time of ours. What will we do? Who will we serve? What will take up our days, our nights…ultimately our lives?

I have not been snoozing through the lessons that life sends my way. They are legion in number. And I am a happy student of the Classroom of Life, having never graduated or never chosen to do so, but rather, to remain a perpetual pupil. We started learning in the fetal stages of our being and we never stopped processing information and won’t, at least until we finally close our eyes in yielding to death. It’s something that we seem to have to do. It’s something that somehow, we are here for. Why? Well, you got me there. I don’t fully know why? Do I even partially know? Probably not that either.

I have invested so much time in writing these pieces of thought, and yet, as I read them over, more often than not they are discombobulated and fragmented and nonsensical. To be sure, they are the softly–edited, unrefined, genuine–feeling notions of what I sense about plenty of matters of concern both large and small. In other places and at other times I know what I talk about here would have gotten me tied to a stake and burned alive. I would be a common blasphemer…an apostate….a heretic. I am (guilty as charged!) those several things, in fact. I fit those descriptions. However these are my thoughts that come from my lives (I’ve led many lives in this one existence). These thoughts here…they are my heresies. And damn it if I am going to stop sitting here and keep spewing them out onto these pages. I owe it to what is honorable in Life to do so…

At any rate, I am not back in former times. I am here, here in this present, Post–Modern world. This is not then, back when they were burning people at the stake by the thousands. No, this is now. And I am blessed to be able to keep writing and writing and writing – can you stop me? Tens of thousands of words long the writing goes. People have accused me of talking too much and they are not wrong in assessing me as one who has perhaps too much to say for his own good.

I, Michael, am a prolific, obscure writer. Loquacious as I am with words, it merely means prolific with quantities of words. In sum, all it means is that I write and talk too much (and if you’ve read Book One of this, then be warned that this sequel is even longer!) Truth be told is that I have too much to think, too much to say, too much to write – and it overflows from me, so I think, talk, write. I do it too much; there is always too much to say.

My mouth is going all the time but I’ve learned to listen a lot more as well. I have logged more monitoring and listening to Christian preaching and teaching and reading than anyone I know, or have ever met. My nose has been in and out of the bible and other sacred writings for, it seems, my entire life. One of innumerable hobbies I maintain is that of a relentless watchdog when it comes to seeking out dirty preachers and teachers. I have an insatiable curiosity to know and understand and break down things by some human Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Take that last statement for instance. Someone the other day said that the Second Law proved evolution wrong. What blatant oversimplification of reality to say such a thing. It might have sounded intelligent to him, but it was plain stupid to me. Not because I am so damned smart but because I could just see straight through to where he was coming from – and it was, clearly, a bogus comment to make.

…OK. Enough of that, for now – we will get to all of that as we go. See the Science Chapter later on in this book. In my innermost heart I know I am writing because there is some hope that someone, perhaps even at some point much later in the now that is this life, will read something from here, and it will make an impact on who and what they are. It will affect their life – maybe your life. It will change them – maybe you – and maybe even for the good. It will improve a human being and further round out their evolutionary course in life to help them fulfill the reason they are here.

In the end, and as a result, they might love more, understand more, feel more, think more…and they might do it all because I am sitting here…writing and hoping and believing…that it could be so.

If there is a life after this one, it likely will be nothing like anyone imagined it would be. If there is Life after death, the nature of that Benefactor who brought it into being will be a surprise to us all. If there is Love governing the Universe, it is not a love that anyone understands who is alive today.

Take everything else away, and you are left, perhaps, with only love. Considering the vast importance of love to our survival, the most ultimate of all of the ultimate questions might just simmer down into the one about the personal nature of the Cosmos itself: Can, and does, this large, hot–cold Universe/Multi–verse in which we live actually show and demonstrate love to those beings which tentatively while perilously inhabit it?

We might also ask ourselves as to how can we know this, even if it was showing us this love? Some people of religion, and other enlightened human souls down through the whole of time, have lovingly pointed out to us the Reality of Kosmic Love. They have offered their private narratives and etiologies as to how it all came to pass. In the meanwhile, much of the collective skeptical mind has seethed in lethargy along the same path of life. After all, how can we really know there is this Kind of Love emanating from All Places, and germinating inside of each of us from Him, as many say?

The sheer preponderance of scientific and logical evidence often appears to weigh in against the notion of Kosmic Love, and coupled with the personal longings and insufficiencies that we encounter along our human voyage, we are often found feeling quite abandoned, alone, left in the lurch, stranded. I certainly get that. Perhaps we can never know empirically that a seemingly impersonal universe like ours really cares about us. After all, wouldn’t that level of insight require test tube results and verifiable formula calculations and examination processes to manifestly come out in support of the notion?

The nature of this metaphysical question, however, does not lend itself to such probing. There may never arrive to us the news, out of a laboratory setting, of the fascinating discovery that a Universal Love indeed has been found to exist, albeit, that it governs the entire Kosmic Dimension. Deductive reasoning, personal observation and love by proxy may be our best avenues of understanding. To our analytical mind, it can never be proven. It’s futile even to try and prove such a thing. Why attempt to claim it as our reality at all?

Well, we humans have always asked this question. In one manner of speaking, or another, virtually every thinking person longs for the consolation that we are somehow embraced by something bigger, higher than we are, and in that condition, we need not be afraid. It is, truly, out of our hands (and in His, as they say).

As I have been saying throughout, everything does seem to be in place, when we think about it, as we consider the administration of all things in the physical universe. That’s a good sign. We wake up each day and wrap our arms around a new day. Nights follow days and the stars and planets run their course without noticeable effort, and all that exists out there seems to be splendidly ordered. To the attentive observer, it’s a magnificent passage that we are making through the visible night stars and the invisible daystars.

In the meanwhile, on the surface of the earth we are able to generally (though never always) conclude that the natural state of nature (including we humans) seems to be one of peace. Even during a severe storm we can sense this peace, and the quiet that follows all such events is super–loaded with sensations of stillness and tranquility. Ever notice that? The time that we are blessed to experience on earth simply provides us with opportunities to make growing observations of personal amazement and wonder about life in general. Ask most any older person whether or not this is true for them (and please, be patient while you listen to their response). If enough of them tell you that the human experience is generally a waste, and that it is nothing very special to encounter, we are all in trouble. But they won’t do that. Their eyes may be growing dimmer, but they often remain overwhelmingly in a state of confidence and trust, ever growing, still, with the passage of their days and nights. Check it out sometime.

We might just come to see that we can trust the processes, and that, while nothing remains the same for long, life is weirdly consistent, running through all things, and panning out along every perimeter of our lives. With time, we innately begin to appreciate all that life is, for we have come to be around long enough to know that, while understanding life is beyond our mortal comprehension, we have the ability to be in command of our existence, and survive and thrive in the midst of what life brings us.

Additionally – and this happens more and more and more with the passing of the illusion of time – we personally begin to see the value of loving and giving and caring. As we practice it, the sensations of love warm us from somewhere within, although we never seem quite able to pinpoint just where it is coming from. If we are lucky, early on in life we stumble across the paradox that to give love away brings more of it into our lives. As we release love into our world, more and more love (quite oddly enough) floods into our conscious existence. This of course makes no mathematical sense. But having tested it very personally, and very completely, I find it is true. RULE OF LIFE: The more you love the more capacity you have to love. Time may be limited, but love isn’t.

As we subtly superimpose this odd principle to the entire universe we can readily imagine that a Giving Universe might just be wrapped up in a giant biofeedback pattern of Love/love. Since we don’t seem to have an exact outlet to focus this desire to love onto, we reach out to each other and to our world in general, and find that love grows from these actions. In other words, God (whatever God is to you) exists for us to love, and that love exists in all of the things that are in and around us. Within other humans, all other living organisms, and the broad and wide–ranging wonders of life on earth, to love it all is to also come to love God, and to know we are loved in return.

With virtually no effort whatsoever, we see that humans and animals and plants and all other living organisms give us multiple opportunities to demonstrate love.

I am a star–watcher, and have even picked out one I look up and see as my favorite; I love them all as they blanket the night sky…but this one is my favorite. In a way I am not fully able to understand, the familiarity with that particular star confirms for me the love that saturates the entire physical universe. What a silly, romantic, unscientific notion…right? But it is one of my personal knowings, and as such, it empowers me with a great degree of exuberance on a regular basis.

We take notice of the purring of a mother cat’s motor, as she nourishes her kittens with love. Without this imparting act of unselfish giving, the young infants next to the warmth of her body would quickly die. But they don’t; rather, they grow strong from her milk. If we mortal beings are in the living room, and a loved one calls us into the kitchen to eat, do we not feel sometimes a sense of love and comfort? Where does it come from? What motivates it?

We may sit quietly alone and sense that to know the love that is God, we might merely have to observe it, while at the same time practice this love. The impersonal Universe, in a very real sense, is not intimate and personal in ways identifiable as that of being human. By that I mean that we are not going to know and feel the love that comes from the universe in the same manner as we experience human love, which is the personal exchange of love between physical, mental beings.

We sometimes ask ourselves what it takes to personalize it all so as to suit our deepest pleasures. Would we want God to manifest in the form of Divine Beings who walk around our populations in the perpetual comfort of those who need such verifications? How wonderful would that be, right? Will we be satisfied if Radio signals were suddenly transmitted to us all over the world telling us not to worry, and that, indeed, God was out there, radiating to us all the while, promising a return visit in the not–too–distant future? What would it take for us to know that this earth of ours seems to be reeking of Love? What will do it for us?

We can be fairly certain that we will never get our proof in the way that we might want it, or like to have it. We merely have to take what we have, and arrive at our conclusions from there.

What happens, however, when we really do that? When we consider seriously these matters, and evaluate the evidence – the evidence that exists in the outer reaches of the farthermost galaxies. The evidence, which resides in spaces deep within our human organisms, and everything as well that lies in the crevices and edifices in between all of that, is there for us to sense. We are bound to conclude that it is a Loving Place we inhabit. There is really no other choice for us.

In the world of reality and illusion, we can never fully recover from our constant bewilderment. We can, however, trust that all is well – well from within and from without – and that we are inseparably a part of that wellness.

And from what little we know of the concept of good, it is very, very good indeed. Life is good, God is good; it is a good thing to have known this brief encounter called mortality. In this good place, we are free to move about, experience deeply, and trust it all. So, for God’s sake, enjoy it thusly, and live it peacefully.

We are one with all that is one. We all are one. We become unified in that oneness through the conscious awareness that this is so. When we elevate to that level of consciousness, we see that we are not so different really; it turns out we are all the same.

How did we get here? We cannot say. Some Supreme Being, or Beings, whose location originally is placed in distant parts of the Universe (or maybe right next door to us?) may have delivered us here. They may be galaxies away, now, or residing still, just next door. They may be right under our collective noses. At any rate, some two hundred thousand, or one hundred thousand (who knows?) million years ago, we (the Homo Sapiens) arrived, in some fashion, from them.

We may have come from the dust of other planets and stars. We might be the scattered stuff of meteoric explosions. An original and mitochondrial Adam and Eve figure might have started it off. This is something we cannot really know, although it is both fun and fascinating to speculate upon it. We continually imagine that we came from God stock. And if indeed we were made from God, that still does not begin to say much to us of real substance. Since we know nothing of the true nature and character of God – maintaining only hunches and speculation and hopes – being made by God reveals very little of the great secrets of life.

The life that resides in the God–ness that is all around us (which only includes but is by no means limited to us homo’s) may have come to earth from out there, somewhere, and germinated life into the multiplied species that exist today, down or in or on here. Or, a Divine Hand could have suddenly spun it into being. Regardless of our most original roots, they are from common sources, which makes us interrelated, and in that relationship of being interrelated, we, along with all who exist alongside us, are one.

Hello? Here me? We are One, you and me. We will always practice and pursue the simple doctrine of all things being from OS (One Source). It only makes sense to do so.

Our origins are tracked in the general similarities we all bear with each other. Even when there were other human species upon the earth, this was the case. In fact, our origins are not confined to humanness, since again, humankind is of but one expression of the divine. The common origin that is and includes all of life is from all places. We share commonalities with the stars, which are located everywhere, all 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them. Yes, indeed, it seems their numbers are greater (by far!) than all the sands of all the beaches of the entire earth…and tenfold still. That’s a lot of star power my silly reader friend.

Imagine that, if you can – blow the mortal mind on trying to grasp the magnitude of it all. For all we know, our human parts, bits and pieces, are as scattered as the stars. As for the colorful populations of Mankind, we know that we all emerged somewhere out of northeast Africa. From there we managed, over time, to scatter roughly to the four corners, populating the tiny earth in many varied locales and habitats, making our presence known in countless manifesting ways. From the center of the moment prior to our universal Big Bang or Bloom, and on that level, to the creation and evolution and distribution of the race of humans, and on that level, we all came into being.

We were the One, scattered to the Many, and with the right perspective and approach of seeing it, we spring back to the One again. We can live the illusion that there are differences, but they are really games that we play out in our minds. In reality, Life is but a grand game, being played out in the arena of our minds all the time, all the live–long day.

In the final counting of reality, it’s all the same. In all concluding summations, our re–unification was never a matter of doubt. We have only to grow in the understanding and awareness that it is so. Then we will be there. Where is there? In the state of being together, of being one, where there are no differences, and where we understand that we sprung from the very same primal source.

Does Christendom concur on much of this? Any of this? Or is it just babbling New Age mumbo–jumbo? Well, whatever and to each his own. As for me (and my house)? Oneness – we can spread this particular gospel with certainty. Unlike other News flashes, it truly is Good News.

At one time not so long ago individuals living on the earth believed that the celestial sphere was like a backdrop that encircled the earth. We saw our planet as the center of all things, and the stars and planets were more or less pinned into place as ornamentation for our edification here on the earth.

We now know how far off this very human–centric view of the universe has been, don’t we?

In reality, the earth seems to be located more somewhere towards the farther perimeters of the living and moving universe. Wherever the center of the known universe is (and as odd as it may seem, some posit reasonable estimates as to just where that might be), it is far, far from earth, and actually getting farther away all of the time. This universe of ours continues to expand. It is growing steadily, and reaching deeper and deeper into the vastness of, well, nothingness? It is more than just suspected that it is expanding all the time. This is a far cry from the stationary, fixed place we thought we lived in.

What then does this say to us? From the theological perspective, one might conclude that we must not be as loved as we would have thought, since we are not at the center, and not in the middle of things. Could it be that we were not the sole intention in the Mind of some Creator who made all of this, and brought it into being? Could such a thing actually be the truth about reality? If we are not cosmically loved, what then should we think? Can we not accept the possibility of other forms of life also being nurtured somewhere out there, and can we not appreciate the fact that we still seem to be a rare and priceless miracle of the Kosmos?

I discussed before that many of our founding fathers believed in a theology of Deism. They figured that God made the place all right. But then, He zoomed off to other parts of the universe on his divine creating spree. Regardless, barring reports of UFO’s being everywhere we still have not confirmed that we are in the company of other similar, if not ET–looking, life forms. As such, we should be pleased to still conclude that we are unique and special.

Regardless of how, and under what circumstances we came into being, it is indeed miraculous, this life of ours. We, in fact, are walking miracles. And when I refer to the we of earth here, I am in reference to the whole of life, the entirety of creation, of all that is living and dwelling on the differing faces and frontiers of earth. For even on the surface of this one, small planet, we are in the midst of an incredible manifestation of living and breathing things, some of which has the capacity to ponder the matters of how far it goes out, how far it goes in, and how it all came, somehow by magic, into being.

We often wonder where the end of this far–stretching place in which we live lies. Or is there even such a thing as an end to it? Can we ever get there? Will we ever know what it might be like to understand it? Are any of these things remotely possible?

These are but a few of my personal inquiries about matters that concern space–time. When we look out into the vastness of the night, we can’t help but ask about them; it’s a most natural response to the world in which we live. The night sky begs such curious questioning, as does in fact, and no less, the blue skies of the day. If we were trapped in a world that had a border – that clearly had trim around it, an end – then we would be free to think in different terms about it. It would probably be large enough for us to feel comfortable within it, and yet, somehow we would gather in a sense of limitation, and in knowing about that sense, it would serve to mobilize that limitation, producing perimeters to all in the realm of possibility. In other words, we would embrace a notion of limitation.

But the world is not such a thing. It is in fact growing, just as we note that we are growing as well. When I say the world, I mean the entire world. When the Noah writer said world he meant one thing. When the Gospel writers said the word world, they meant one thing. I am from a subsequent generation and from here I am referencing the world of all things in this known time and space. Hello! Things have grown! Everything that exists does so within this much, much larger concept of a world. All that is, is a time and space for the perceptions of the individual perceiver. This means that we live in it alone, but together with all else that exists. It’s a paradox…remember? We are alone with everything there is.

Most recent observations from the Hubbell eye in the sky present to us the shocking probability that, in fact, the universe is expanding at a faster and faster rate of speed. It is, in effect, gaining momentum! Since the world seems now known to be expanding, and not stationary, could we not deduce that we might be expanding component parts of such a world? Is that supposition too imaginative a one in which to concoct?

As to a final end, if constriction is to follow the expansion (as some in science suggest when they talk about the bang being a blown up balloon which someday will begin to release the air it took in) this is hardly something we have to negatively ponder now. We have (perhaps?) billions and billions of years to get to that, and not the mere millions that would cause a few worrywarts to lose sleep at night. So relax!

When we really think about the size of our world, we are not discomforted by it. We are pleased to know of how much more there is than just this earth, and the petty, frail political borders we continually erase and rewrite through our illusions of history, success and conquest. Isn’t it good to know that this is not all there is? Surely, for example, all variety of life exists in other places. We cannot begin to imagine it. It’s what you might call "unfathomabubble!"

At any rate, we are thrilled to know that the realm of possibility includes wherever our mind might drift off into, and that we needn’t worry about restrictions of any shape or kind. At my age (early 60’s at the time of writing) one has to wonder why such ambition exists to grow and evolve, when a simple matter of mathematical deduction can be done to conclude that my human time is short for too many more aspirations to unfold. Does that bother me? In other words, that my time to grow and live and learn is limited – is this of concern for me? Hardly so. If I thought that all of what I planned to do was merely to take place in this one lifetime, I might be more concerned about it. But I have infinity, too. And eternity. Or, if not, I will naively live under an illusion of such.

Infinity (the limitlessness of space) and eternity (the limitlessness of time) are new, old friends to us. They are endless, and they make us endless as well. An afterlife in the same form (or something like it) is not necessary for us to embrace. All we really have to remember is that there is so much more than just this to yet come, and however it is ultimately processed, it will take place in and around our being.

One might call this a condition of trust. And if we are wrong about it (if there is no such thing as eternity) what have we lost? What matters at that point? Nothing…right? Nothing. Embracing the possibility of anything is simply failing to place boundaries around a life that is boundless. As we encounter these phenomena they provide comfort to us. We will surely take in all that we are able to do so, and more, for it is (perhaps?) not just in this one manifestation (this one human form) that we will have the ability to do so.

If we are crazy enough to conceive of an endless universe, then in our minds we will be equally troubled enough to think that we are part of the stars. We can even come to travel with them, to their ultimate destinations, wherever this might take us. Where do you think they are going? Will we ride the skies on our own star some day? What do you think?

Where the stars go, we will be determined to go. Their fate is our fate as well. What they are, we are, for if all things are one – made of common carbon elements, but filled with the stuff of the non–physical – we travel the empty blackness of space in full harmony and unison…right alongside the stars.

As we contemplate these immensely fantastic notions, why should we ever have cause to fear?

None of us has ever really seen the entirety of the galaxy we call the Milky Way. Yet, we all live inside of it. The reason that we can never see it is obvious: we’re in it, and from where we are in it, we can’t get much of a good look at it. Although it is true that we, through the wonders of science, can see a part of it, through means of telescopes, the whole of it eludes us, and perhaps always will.

To describe what it really is, we have to start using funny words, like globular cluster, galactic disk, and nuclear bulge. For a while (and this was after we got over thinking the earth itself was at the center of the universe) we thought our planet was in the middle of the Milky Way. Now we know (though can we know such things?) that we are quite a ways out on the edge of town, in the boonies…on the fringes, so to speak.

If we could do the math, there might be one hundred stars in our Milky Way Galaxy for every person living on planet earth. Yet it’s a rather small galaxy. We don’t live in a galaxy metro area. We live in a rural galaxy – not so very big at all. I like to reason that none of us have ever seen God (the Universe?) yet we all live in the midst of God anyway. We’re really so close to God that we miss it. God is in all that is. It’s like a tree. Is a tree made out of wood? Or is the tree wood? See the difference? Use the micro and macro measurements to extrapolate God conclusions. Too deep? Just keep going; I don’t get it either.

That’s not to mention that we have a false view of what we are looking for as well. Via the wonders of our imaginative minds, we can catch glimpses of God through various forms of seeking It. The whole picture might well be too overwhelming to view. Just like the galaxy, we can only envision a small aspect of the Whole. Yet we try, and oh how very hard it is that we try.

In this case, more funny words are used by many of us to talk of God. Religions are famous for the trademark of lexicons that make God–language their own. This personalizes the very impersonal universe, and makes it more palatable – to some at least. To others…it serves to alienate. But that’s a different point. Our own ego, and our great sense of self, often team up to place us (ironically) at both the center of the Mind of God, and yet an unworthy outcast on the fringes. We are in both of these locations at the same time.

In reality, we cannot know where we stand with God; that’s perhaps why we invented this thing called faith. There might be (and I’ll just pick a pretty number) one hundred billion more planets in the universe – both in and out of this little Milky Way of ours – that contain life something like we have here. This manages to amaze and humble me all at the same time. Yet I somehow know in my being that if one place in the universe is special to God, then all other places are special as well. (And yes, it’s my additional feel that if one organism is special, then all organisms are special).

When I think about the Milky Way, it is done so with Snickers, and a sense of irony and comfort too. It’s a big place, but that’s only relative. So we have big city convenience, in small town comfort. It’s really a nice place to live, and I am glad I was born here.

Someday when I die, I plan to go on a Kosmic tour, and get a more close–up view of some of these magnificent stars of mine. When I am out and about, I will endeavor to send you a post card. Or, oh sorry yes, plaster some pics up on Facebook.

Somehow, chocolate sounds good right now. See you later.

Sometimes I admit that I feel very, very alone. The other day, in fact, when I was thinking about that thought I suddenly experienced an epiphany. I encountered a rare satori moment of Universal Clarity (the ole UC) when I realized why I so often feel alone in the world.

It is because I am alone. And guess what? You are too. We are sojourners in a vast, empty, lonely world. No matter how we try to connect, we are failing to connect, and we are doing it with regularity. No matter how close we push to be with each other, we are still alienated from all others – and even ourselves, except for on good days.

My collection of molecules and your collection of molecules can collide in big ways. We can interact intimately and in many differing juxtapositions of space and time. But our mergers are only intermittent, only temporary, only superficial. They ultimately cannot be sustained. For as they say, we came alone into the world, and we will leave the world – and do so, alone. It’s called a paradox. We can never be alone from God…yet, in another sense, we are all alone.

So, you say, God is here, in all places and in every part of everything. God is our Friend. God is our Partner. God is our Companion. We are never really alone because when everyone else has deserted us, God remains. And just how does that manifest itself in the world each day? Well, (according to who?) we have God in three parts, intervening upon our invitation into all parts of our being. We have a friend in Jesus. The Holy Ghost encompasses us. God the Father resides over all that is, was and ever will be.

And moving on, according to most theologians, we also have the devil and a bunch of his pals and buddies to contend with as well. In fact, as a good explanation for why this whole place is so messed up, it is submitted to us (by the Powers) that the devil is (temporarily, mind you!) actually in charge of this degraded, filthy, flea–bitten, sin–ridden place called earth. While it’s not always going to be this way, for the time being this earth belongs to Lucifer, ole Slew foot, the Ruler of Evil Earth.

With that fat bastard running interference, how can we expect to talk privately to God? How can we avoid getting blocked by the King of this World?

We can do that through prayer. God is AE (All Ears) when it comes to hearing our prayers here below. I am in awe of this God who has had to listen to an ever–growing amount of us as the decades swiftly pass. In fact, when I was born, there were 2.5 billion chirping nest–birds for Him to care for and hear. Now he has a growing audience of seven billion and counting. Soon, we are told, ten billion humans will be making our wishes known to our Good Friend in the Sky.

But is anybody out there at all who gives a rip about us? Hell, I don’t know, and I continually submit that you don’t know either. Now, you’ve been telling yourself that you have been talking to God for perhaps many, many years – possibly decades. OK, so you have an imaginary fairy friend who is looking out for you and walking with you and talking with you along life’s narrow way. Good for you! That’s good. You are not alone.

I am still wondering though. Now I do have a me, myself and I that I can talk about. We are an earthly trinity, and we are significant in our own right. I think up questions and then, a few minutes later, I think up possible answers to those same questions. Who am I talking to? I am talking to another part of me. One part of me wants to know something and another part of me comes up with a thought about it.

Sometimes, I have a few other voices in my head that are yapping about other stuff as well. This leads me to still more conjecture about a whole lot of things. Are the various voices just more of me, manifesting? Am I in touch with some of the good angels? Or the bad ones? Am I schizophrenic? Yes, maybe that one.

Put a gun to my temple and ask me: are we alone in this Giant Kosmos of ours? If I answer wrong, the trigger will be pulled and my head will uglied. How do I respond? No…I do not think we are alone. Sometimes I sure as hell feel alone, but no, I am not…I am not alone. Thank God. We are not alone here in the Kosmos.

Yes, I go back and forth about the Big Questions – the God stuff. You likely do as well. Is He here, is He not? He loves me, he loves me not (doing the flower pedal thing)…

It terrifies us to think of being by ourselves. But there will always be those times in our lives when we know the sensation of the deathly fear of aloneness. This is due to the fact that our egos have managed to become separated from the rest of living life. In such a state, we fluctuate from feeling sky high, to caving down into the dumps, depressed about all that comes our way.

For me, in my life, as soon as I began to realize that it was not really possible for me to actually be alone (even if I wanted to be), the feelings of abandonment that always plagued me in my many former selves swiftly went away. They vanished from my being, never – I suspect never, though life for me is not over yet – to return. Now, even during those inevitable times of great loneliness and personal void, I still maintain a sense of knowing that I co–exist with all that is. I cling to that. I maintain it as truth for me. I am one with the All. The stars and I are kin.

Sometimes, when I am feeling down, and the darkness is temporarily covering the way of my path, I step out into the night and take in a deep view of all of those stars that are above me, all around me. As I behold them, I remember again how impossible it is to ever be alone. The blackened sky is just a temporary departure of the sun from us; that fiery ball of light that always rises again. Each occasion of the rising sun should be of great assurance to us that we are in a system that is well beyond our control, linked to so much that is outside of our realm of being.

When we think about it, to fear, or to internalize any sense of abandonment, is to drain positive energy away from ourselves. After all, locked in our place, somewhere in the midst of this relatively small galaxy of ours, we know that we wield so very little control over anything at all. What do you control, really?

Funny, but our only real hope is death. Ironic, because death, the thing we often most fear, turns out to be the magical door to a deeper understanding of our interconnectedness to all that is. If, through death, we return to a Greater Part than is just this small, temporary part, we will (somehow – don’t ask me how) finally reinstate to our original instatement, and I am guessing to a more permanent peace in it than we know now.

In the meanwhile, we remain always human. As we see the illusion that is the human existence, we can identify with non–human aspects of ourselves, and in so doing, loosen control even more of our sense of aloneness. The more we recognize ourselves as being interconnected to greater aspects of life all around us, the less our feelings of abandonment will prevail from within us.

There really is no cause to fear at all. No matter what happens to us, we are somehow cared for. If that idea is too simplistic, or simply far too fantastic, too unbelievable – just consider it anyway. Most of all, consider your alternatives, and then compare them together – side by side. When it comes to our plight in life, we have no real choice but to trust in whatever processes govern it, and then assume the logical position of knowing that we are never, ever alone.

…Sometimes, when I am deep in the illusory fog of fear, and no light is shed on my path whatsoever, I step confidently out into the night, and simply look up. Those twinkling diamonds, they tell me otherwise. No, I could never again believe it; I am sure, beyond any fragment of this paradoxical doubt, that we are not alone, that we could not be alone.

Since the launching of the Hubbell telescope in April of 1990 we have discovered that we are in a much larger universe than we ever anticipated before. Hubbell, as you may know, only peeks at a tiny section of our UH (Universal Home), but in so doing we can somewhat extrapolate the great size of this place, and there are simply no expressions by which to explain it no matter how good you were at math.

We’ve come a long way since the invention of the telescope. We lived in a tiny place, blanketed with stars and the moon by night and our own personal sunlamp during the day. It had to have been intimate, cozy and simple – especially compared to now! I hold a nearly universally held take on the matter that says we are a miniscule segment of an untraceably huge Universe, and how wonderful it is that we can claim both an awareness of it and also realize we are a relevant aspect of it.

Theologically inclined people five hundred years ago probably could not correlate their world so well with the world we view up above now. I know that when I was a little boy, like millions of other lads I wondered what (more like who) was hiding beyond the cloud bank that floated over my head as I lay spread out in the green grass and dandelions of a wide field, dazed.

It turns out it was just more space; and beyond that space? Still more of the same – yet more space. Somewhere along the line, I got to thinking that God might not be up there after all, because we’ve probed deeper and deeper into the vastness of the abyss and yet have nothing to show for it in the way of Divine Discovery. I suspect I may just be thinking in too small a way.

Where does God spend his days and nights? I know it must be someplace, but just where? And I still think I matter though. It’s like before. I thought I was a big fish in a little pond. Now I see that I am a little fish in a big pond. It’s the old minnow in the ocean analogy. You and I matter; it’s better to believe it than to toss the notion out the window. And why is that? Hey, why not? Come on and tell me just why not?

I am smart enough to admit that I am not smart enough to answer the question of who designed the Designer of the Universe. It would, in fact, be the epitome of arrogance to set even forth a postulation, short of one being a brilliant cosmic physicist, or Einsteinian genius – of which you have already discovered I am not. While our miraculous human minds are capable of great consciousness we are clearly overextending ourselves as we ask questions on the nature of the Designer, let alone his or its Designer/s. We wander far out of our league to do so.

It is clear to me that I love philosophy much more than the next fellow. But some philosophical postulations are so far–fetched for us to reach towards. A Theory of Everything or String Theory or originating God hypothesis eludes all of us. If you cast your view across the globe, both to places now and in the history of the human past, you can start to take in the countless worldviews held by individuals and groups attempting to take on these types of questions.

…That’s why it is audacious to hear people speak so confidently about simple God matters. It’s no less than a copout to conclude that God didn’t need to create himself, and that he bluntly just always was. That’s too easy. And it’s also too easy on the other side of the spectrum to conclude that simply because we are clueless about God/gods origins and etiologies that makes God/gods a non–existent entity or being. I would set forth that something, or someone, is responsible for us. But we have not received a consensus communiqué or series of them down through human history so, obviously, this something/someone to whom I speak is not keenly interested in self–disclosure. Is God shy?

Though some would say he does converse…with a select chosen few of us…

Poppycock, and again, the echoes are coming from Christendom’s glorious choir section. Hello, they say, we can tell you. God is here, he is alive and well, and you can know him through his words that come from his One Word – the one and only word of the Holy Bible (yes, the HB). I like where science is going with the question more than that, because the logic in God choosing to reveal himself throughout human history via the OT/NT narrative is too, far too, weak for me to maintain faith in. Sorry.

I know; you are the sorry one…for me, that is.

One hundred to two hundred thousand years of us Homo’s on the earth…and a couple of thousand years ago God finally decides to send a piece of himself down to earth (i.e. Jesus the Christ) to tell us exactly what we must do and not do in order to know him, both now, and for eternity? So that’s the story you are going with?

In fact, I think if I were Chinese or Indian or African, I would be extremely insulted that the one message from heaven concerning the God of all Creation manifested and came to fruition at points in history along the narrow edge of the East banks of the Mediterranean Sea, at the end of the Bronze Age, and as scripted to us through the bible, via the first of seven or eight spawns of a little Jewish virgin woman way back in the day.

…Do I digress? Yes indeed, so back to the original question: who made God? Not a clue, I say. I don’t know. Einstein did not know. The religious don’t know. And not even you, my reader friend, have even a slightest amount of a clue to the question. That’s where we are with that particular inquiry. But that’s no reason to dismay either. We don’t need to know everything there is to know in order to live a joyful, curious, full and satisfying life, do we?

So we don’t know…but are we known? We have no secrets to hold from the Universe; how crazy is the notion that we could ever keep a part of ourselves in any capacity of secrecy? As our lives are viewed by the Greatness and Splendor that is all things, the Expanse exposes each of our thoughts and intentions, no matter what they are. We might as well be totally honest about that, and we frankly fool no one when we are not. The Universe, in some way we do not understand, knows us.

Furthermore, we strongly suspect that whatever and whomever created us maintains some sort of operating manual or code book on our well–being. That creative force understands our upkeep and maintenance; all of our origins are comprehended, and so are our ultimate outcomes. With all of this understood, we have come to see the value in a life transparent, hidden under no cloaks or cover, with no interest in a personal practice or policy that manifests any form of deception. None of this is necessary, and it makes living here below a more intimate experience, a far more harmonious one as well.

Towards the Universe, we do not know personal shame. On that rare occasion when we feel some of it, we confront the bringer or carrier of the shame, examining all angles and etiologies. We reconcile on the spot the issues our inclinations toward shame have brought to the surface. Since we are so completely known by this Universe, what have we to hide anyway?

We can be temporarily embarrassed, from time to time, in trying to be something or someone we are not. But when the shame of doing so has brought us back to our senses, the value of the shame is minimized, and so too the shame itself. It is both comforting and disconcerting to know that we are so known by the Kosmos. It’s comforting, because it’s nice to be known by someone or something. It’s