When I was a child, I would frequently go to the switch tree, to choose the weapon that would be used on my backside. I was only three and four years old but I learned quickly to choose a switch that was thicker, as the thinner switches stung and raised bloody whelps on your skin. I was always into something... My mother was gone to find work and my grandparents raised me during those first few years of my life... I never really knew my biological father very well. When I did visit with him, he almost always ignored me. I felt as if he wished he could just forget about that part of his life, where I was his son. I tried a few times, to make our lives connect as an adult but he is in his 70's now, with poor health, and he turned into some kind of paramoid, far right, religious zealot... He was a life long union member, who advocated for the little man but then he found God and these days he sends me awful emails telling me how evil those illegal immigrants are(I was named after his best friend...an illegal immigrant) and how evil Muslims are... My Stepfather always treated me decently and you know, that is something I will always respect... but when I think about my biological father... I wonder sometimes, how my life would have been, if he had been more involved in my life than the shallow relationship that we had... I have had such a tough life... things never worked out for me. Three busted marriages... children strewn across half of Texas... I work as a teacher... do carpentry on the side...and I work and I work and still I am always poor...
Although my grandparents thought 'switching' me was the kind of medicine I needed... I never could turn to that kind of brutality... for my own... Through three failed marriages, through seven children, borrowed and my own who have called me Papa, Dadee, Rudi, father or dad... I never could get much into the beating thing... I would sometimes swat at them, my children and those I borrowed, when they were attempting to stick keys into an electric socket or when they were strangling each other... but... I mostly held back my hand...
I look at my life... three broken necks later... and I can't help but think sometimes, when I think of those decades of pain, how I must be one of the tough cases... a hard headed misbehaving child... in the hands of an angry God... but then I remember the most loving light I met in my NDE... a being made of Love who was simply amazed by my little light... I mean... that kind of love is more than anyone could ever imagine... That light was amazing to me but more... that light also loved all of those other little orbs of light more than anyone could ever imagine... Returning to my body, from heaven, I met a lesser aspect of God... He was much more like my biological father... indifferent... a being who only cared about me when I was speaking to him... who wished he had never created me... but since I was there... I was going to have to live a hard life... in a world where everything was hard... and everyone lived by the rule, 'an eye for an eye.'
Raising my children, I couldn't help but be a child of the lesser God of this world but I had already had a NDE, before I ever started raising children. I had a very personal and intimate relationship with 'The Light' when I was only 20 years old. To this day, we have a constant conversation. I know that I am not 'all that.' I know my children will never say I was a a good father... far from it... but if I were the one who created this world... if I were the God of this world, I would never break my children's necks to teach them a lesson... and I don't feel a desire to take out a switch on them... I never get the feeling of returing every harm with harm...
My Granny who raised me, until I was four, the one who switched my hide red... she changed somehow... She is now well into her 90's. Somewhere along life's path, Granny changed into one of the kindest, most gentle and loving human beings you would ever know... But sometimes, I think the God of this world changes as well... even though in ancient old books it says he never will... The mean ole' God of my youth... who hates Muslims and Homo's... Atheists and Communists too did change for me, after my NDE. Somehow, like my Granny and the God of my youth, they both changed into wonderful, merciful and loving beings of light... that loved me like her brightest star in the sky... who loved me like her long lost son... who cherished me but more... that mean ole' God of my youth changed into the being of light I met in my NDE... from a God who would crush his people's enemies and burn them in hell into a being of divine love who loved those Muslims... Homo's... Atheists and Communists like her brighest stars...who loved them like her long lost children... who cherished them all , cared for them all and only wanted what is best for all of them...
Somehow, perhaps, we all will one day change into the likeness of my Granny... I saw it in my NDE... everyone loving on one another... I know this is how it will be... I only hoped it would come sooner...for my children... and their children...and the all of God's children in the world...
My youngest daughter... she broke a window... swatting at it because there was a bug on the other side... I could have been angry... I could have been mean...I could have been mad even... I could have turned to my child and sent her to a switch tree. I don't have the money to replace it just now... I will in a few days... but the last thing I would ever think to do would be to switch her... or beat her... or even yell at her... It was an accident... so what does a good father do?
Late in the morning, as we were preparing to go swimming... My little one said " Dadee! Look at the rainbow!" I mumbled something about there not being any rain and how could it be but then she showed me... on the floor... The sun had shined through the duct tapped window, and through the cracked glass; on the floor was a perfect prism rainbow. It was a beautiful thing... a lesson that day... a moment we shared... a shining clear moment that time will never take away... My daughter taught me a lesson about creating rainbows through broken glass... It may be a memory that soon fades away... but on the other side... it is a crystal treasure... a little piece of forever... that a switch or a beating would have ruined... I am no wonderful father... I make lots of mistakes... but I treasure those moments more than anything... more than even the God of this world... and if I have to learn my lessons with broken necks... I hope I gave my little one a better God than the God of my biological father, the God of my youth... I hope I shared with her how true love really loves... and I hope she will raise her children... with love that shines through the broken glass in her life...
I know my children and lovers... and all of my ex-wives would not give you the best report of my hubandry, lover, or fatherly skills... I am probably much more like my biological father than I care to admit... but I do love them all... all of them... and I never stopped loving anyone long enough to pull out a switch... or ditch them and leave them for the world to eat up. Although I might not have been the best lover, best husband or father... no one can take from me those moments... Not even the God of this world can steal from me, how much I loved each and every one of them, through it all... But, just like my biological father...who would give the shirt off his back to a stranger but ignore his own... I am sure I do that sometimes... I am always helping others... But I did try to do more than my biological father and the God of this world, to teach my little ones to be kind to others, by example... And not to just people like me but to Muslims and Homos... Communists and Atheists too... and it may not have been the lessons that they will need to survive the God of this world... but I hope they at least know what was important to me...
"when I think of those decades of pain, how I must be one of the tough cases... a hard headed misbehaving child... in the hands of an angry God... but then I remember the most loving light I met in my NDE"
Hi Rudi,
I wonder, as I read how you interpret your experiences in life, if some of your misfortunes were self imposed, I am not talking about karma or anything like that. Do we through feeling of guilt, whether misplaced or deserving, impose experiences on our selves? I have observed that people who are not, shall we say, overburdened with conscience, always land on their feet, while those who are filled with contrition usually have many bad experiences. Could this be the reason why substitutionary sacrifice, and the use of symbols like the scapegoat became such a major theme in judaism and most other religion? Do you see any value in rituals like this?
I am glad that you have found a god that you can live with now.
I frequently say my soul planned my misfortunes, so he could learn his lessons. I am seeking a more gentle way forward... more gentle lessons... I know he gave me a fuzzy brain... nothing like my mind on the other side...
I think it is mean to send souls into these pit-bull like bodies we have and expect them to act like show-dogs... but I do the best I can... I do like your way of saying that it is self imposed punishment... makes total sense... I would assume move beyond my eye for an eye programming but it is still buried deep inside my programming...
It is true that body and mind cannot be seperated.
Yes, we definitely seek these dramas for reasons that we do not fully understand, but at least we know are associated with our childhood. Wouldn't it be good if we were much more skilful at creating good learning dramas in our own lives than we are at creating painful lessons. The good news is that some of us survive and we grow milder, kinder as we age in spite of the harshness of life's lessons. We all need to forgive the 'enfant terible' that we were and celebrate what we have become! It is funny how religion attaches so much guilt to us celebrating our own good qualities. Why should we be constantly beating our breast. I think the quality of joy is underated by religion.
I am not too sure what you are saying about the eye programming.
This life is the pain we must feel to participate in the experiment of time... but there are better playgrounds to play in, if we are ready to let go of the loathsome temptation to play in the playground of fear. We live in a world with an unlimited less one doors leading to light; the one door that drops out of sight into complete darkness is just as deadly as the light-bulb is to the moth... and still we keep going to that absence of light... but we do take with us our soul made of light... our flashlight in the cave of unknowns... We all will arrive back with stories of the adventures we experienced while we were down here... Hopefully we will finally move beyond fear based dramas in the dimension of time and on to soaring timeless love stories...
"This life is the pain we must feel to participate in the experiment of time."
That certainly has been the common experience.However maybe it is possible to lessen the intensity, and quality of that pain, which is an inescapable part of life. We are all living by some myth, religion, world view. Most of it fear based. Regardless of if we are religious or not unless we are completely cut off from society, we share in many of the many of the belief common to the prevailing religion of our societies. So the athiest may not believe that god will punish her/him but she/he will believe that moral law, fate, the cosmos will extract vengeance. A prophecy, or belief that is so deeply rooted then becomes a script, which we then act out or experience.
In the bible we read that "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother ... Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city ... And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die." Deuteronomy 21:18-21
Yet now even the most devout believer in this holy writ understand that children go through stages and degrees of rebellion against them as a necessary part of individuation. Woe betides the child that does not go through some sort of disobedience she or he will not be able to say no to peer pressure or even establish any power in social relationships. Even Judaism would not recognize such a law now.In fact few people would stone their own child, but many would find equaly brutal aspects of holy writ to apply against different groups. I referred to the quotation above in order to say that a lot of the instructions and myths that are held so sacred are irrelevant, have been superceded, show little understanding of human nature and developmental processes and do not serve us well. Yet there is still this pressure from society to conform to this ancient, brutal collective worldview. The brainwashing is hard to overcome even after we make a conscious decision to persue a more rational life experience.
I say all of this in order to support my view that this sphere in which we live now can certainly be improved to a great extent by adjusting our expectations by means of better myth, beliefs, religions that reflect a more truthful and mature understanding of the world as it is, in a way that is congruent with our personal modern knowledge of the world, and ourselves, taking into account scientific explanations. Although this world is full of danger and suffering,the only way that we can see what we can make of it is to make the necessary changes and see where they take us. Rudi,I understand that you see it as some kind of boot camp to escape,or kindergarden to graduate from, and in your own way you are trying to put a kinder belief out there to use as long as we are here and to improve our lot in the future. Kudos to you!
To anyone reading this who does not trust science,I ask how is it that you trust that when you get into a CAT scan machine, that that calculated dose of radiation will not cook you, or that the aircraft that you get into will find its way to your airport even when its 30,000 feet above massive thunder storms clouds.
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I changed Gods after my NDE 
