Did you ever take a long awaited trip or vacation, far away from home, only to run into somebody you knew?
I think that most of us have experienced this "small world" phenomenon.
My husband and I were standing in Wall Drug, in Wall, South Dakota several years ago. Anyone who has driven across those rolling hills of tall grass and seen 1400 signs about Wall Drug, has to stop. As we were taking in all the sights Wall Drug has to offer, my husband noticed a man he was sure he knew. Sure enough, they had worked at the same place, years before.
Another time, while sitting in the airport in Cancun, Mexico, my husband noticed an older gentleman wearing a school jacket from a neighboring town in our area. He asked the man if he had purchased the jacket in Mexico and after introductions, my husband knew this man's son. I always said I couldn't go anywhere with him that he didn't know somebody.
Years ago, Mother took a bus trip to the south west. When she stepped off the bus, somewhere in New Mexico, there stood a woman she worked with. Their first response was, "What are you doing here?!?"
Yes it is a small world. I always heard that most of us know someone who knows someone famous and it usually only takes a sequence of about 6 people to get to the famous one. For instance, I know someone, who knows someone who was very good friends with President George Bush, (the first one).
There has been another shooting in this country, as most of you know. The reason most everyone knows is because it seems to have been broadcast over every news agency in the world. I sometimes wonder why that is necessary. It just seems to give some other person, who is obviously not right in the head, an idea.
The victim in this case, graduated from a small town high school, 20 miles from my small home town. I didn't know him or his family personally, but I have family who lives there and they do.
This isn't a rant about gun control. Guns are simply a better, faster and more accurate way of throwing a rock. Guns don't kill people, people kill people and they've been doing it since they first set foot on planet Earth. Why? I'm not sure, but I want to close with a couple of ideas for you to think about.
These ideas are from books that I have read. The following passage comes from "Proof of Heaven A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife" by Eben Alexander, M.D. Dr. Alexander had absolutely no belief in life after death, until he had his own near death experience. The passage is just one of the things he was told while in the presence of the Creator. He refers to God as Om, and the orb is his guardian.
"Through the Orb, Om told me that there is not one universe but many--in fact, more than I could conceive--but that love lay at the center of them all. Evil was present in all the other universes as well, but only in the tiniest trace amounts. Evil was necessary because without it free will was impossible, and without free will there could be no growth--no forward movement, no chance for us to become what God longed for us to be. Horrible and all-powerful as evil sometimes seemed to be in a world like ours, in the larger picture love was overwhelmingly dominant, and it would ultimately be triumphant."
The next passage is from my memory, I've obviously loaned the book out because it wasn't in the stack by my chair. It comes from the book "Why I Am A Catholic" by Garry Wills. Mr. Wills is a professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University according to the inside flap on the cover of another one of his books and the last time I emailed him, he was still there. He also took his doctorate in the classics and taught ancient and New Testament Greek at Johns Hopkins University. Through this latter detail, of being a translator of the old Greek language, Mr. Wills has shed new light on what some of the words actually meant, before being translated into the Kings James version of the New Testament.
So here is the way Garry Wills translates the first part of the Lord's prayer. Please remember, this is from my memory, which yesterday wasn't working worth a hoot, I hope I do Mr. Wills justice:
Our Father of the Heavens,
Your title be honored,
Your reign arrive,
Your design be fulfilled,
On earth, as in Heaven.
I am not preaching, nor am I Catholic, I just enjoy books on different religious beliefs. The thoughts I want to leave you with are these: If the design of the Creator hasn't come to completion, then we must have a ways yet to go. Even though it seems that there is an awful lot of evil things going on, we need to try to wrap our heads around the fact that evil is a necessary element. Lastly, if love wins the game, that is where we plant our hope.
If you don't believe in God or a higher power, that's fine too, you'll be the most surprised.
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