Jamie123

Remind me - is Smoke the new kitty? Klaw's friend?

I have often thought of telling this story, but something has always held me back. It may not sound like very much, but somehow it's always stayed vivid in my mind. Perhaps it's time I saw what others made of it. It was in 1992 - 32 years ago. It was not too long after my first meeting with the first pair of missionaries who taught me. They invited me to a "fireside" at the church, which was to be led by a certain President Johnson - the "Area President". They were all excited about having such an important man come to talk. I didn't understand what was so special about an "Area President", but I could tell that this was a very big deal for them. One of the missionaries had written to me saying it was very important that I should come, because it was mostly for the benefit of investigators. Anyway I went. I was sitting there waiting for it to start when this particular missionary came to talk to me. (I wont tell you her "missionary name", but her first name was Veronica. She was a thoroughly nice girl and totally enthusiastic about her work.) People were coming into the church and I asked her if most of these were investigators. She looked a bit embarrassed and admitted that most were members, but she said that she had hoped there would be more nonmembers there. That was when what I can only describe as a "black mood" started to settle on me. Anyway, President Johnson started his talk. He told the story of his conversion. Yes, he was a convert. Not even a child convert (as some who claim to be converts are if you probe them deeply enough). No, he was an adult convert. He had been converted as a young man, through his future wife who introduced him to the Church. But the more he talked, somehow the darker my mood became. I began to feel a totally irrational anger towards him, and a hatred of the whole place I was in. After the meeting came the chatty-chatty time. A few people tried to engage me in conversation, including Veronica and her companion (whose name was Janelle) but I had little to say to them. I felt horrible - like I was suffocating. I could only bear it for a few minutes after which I went out to my car and drove home. Back home, all alone, I felt worse. Everything was meaningless and empty. I remember looking up the stairwell into the gloom above and thinking "I can't stand this". So after about ten minutes, not knowing what else to do, I got back into my car and drove back to the meeting house. The party was just starting to break up as I slipped back in amongst the members. I don't think any of them had noticed I'd been gone, and I had a good many offers of a lift home (which of course I politely declined because I had my own car). But funnily enough the mood was now lifting. I wasn't angry anymore. I wasn't struck with an overwhelming joy, like I "knew it was all true" but the blackness were clearing. I felt normal again. And that's it really. I don't remember feeling anything quite like it before or since. Recently I watched a YouTube video by "A----a G------l" (I wouldn't mention any Anti-Mormon's name here) where she describes how she lost her testimony. Part of what she describes does sound similar to what happened to me, but without the last part. For me it was not the going away but the returning which took away the blackness. I never told this to anyone before now. Not even Veronica and Janelle - not that I didn't like or trust them, but something always held me back. Anyway that's the story. The experience didn't lead me towards, or particularly away from the Church, but I have always found it curious.

I've known similar situations. You get an inner clique of people who run nearly everything. You get a similar thing in student Christian societies too, when the officers choose their own successors for the next year.

Hmmm....very amusing. But I thought we'd find out what was behind the door!

Funnily enough I've had that book on my shelf for about 20 years, but never got round to reading it. Now I'm intrigued enough to read it I'll probably find it's missing.

Do you mean the same as our spirits? Or the same as they were in mortality? Or the same as each other? I was vaguely imagining that a human would have a human spirit, and a cat would become a spirit cat, and a tick a spirit tick.

I know what I'm beginning to sound like: I couldn't find the clip but a little bit later: Bart: What about a robot with a human brain? Teacher: (pulling her hair out) I don't know! Is a bit of blind faith too much to ask?

Perhaps I overthink these things, but do all animals have spirits? I can understand it for our cats and dogs, but what about the ticks we pull off them? Or the fleas we kill when we de-louse our pets? What about carpet mites and bed bugs and cockroaches and greenfly and the midges that bite you when you're camping (and never get any fewer no matter how many you swat)? They are all animals too.

I sometimes think I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of things I can make sense of... Edit: No actually that's hyperbole. The Bible helps me. I read it every day, and it gives me strength even when I don't understand it (which is a lot of the time). And my daughter is talking to me again. I do have a very good friend in America whose e-mail address has suddenly vanished along with her Facebook page. I don't have her new address either, so I have no idea if she's alive or not. But God knows, and I am entrusting her to His care. I have a lot to be thankful for.

I'm not talking about my particular parish, but the Church in general. Poor old Justin Welby (the Archbishop of Canterbury) is in the impossible position of trying to please everyone - the conservatives like me (and by modern C of E standards I am very conservative) and the "God is a Gas" gang. I don't envy him one tiny little bit. That is, I suspect, pretty much where she is. I certainly haven't helped. What could I have done differently? I could have said "no Tarot in this house" and "keep those dreamcatchers away from our bed" in a patriarchal tone of voice. Perhaps if I'd shown a bit of faith and backbone it would have worked. I suspect probably it would have driven her away sooner into a life of no-Church (not even Church of England) and unbridled New-Age chicanery. And to say that I "shouldn't have married her in the first place" would be to wish my daughter out of existence. (OK...maybe not...premortal spirits etc... let's not go there.) But either way, we are where we are... I'm just praying to God for guidance.

I'm having exactly the same problem! Haha!

Try telling her that. I think her overall view is that there are many spiritual forces at work, some good some evil, and not all of the the good ones have anything to do with Christianity. Or at least not organized Christianity- and certainly not the Church of England. (Though that's turning into a bit of an "anything-goes fest". I've more than once thought of joining GAFCON instead.) That's the impression I get from her anyway. (I shouldn't try to speak for her any more than I should for our friend Carb.) From what I've read of Doreen Virtue (pre-conversion) it's all about "Ascended Masters" - of which Jesus is only one. (If you want the names of some more, I believe they include Krishna, Budda, Joseph Smith and Mahatma Gandhi.) This is precisely what I worry about. She and I are in some ways opposites. C.S. Lewis once wrote: I'm at least verging on the first - the semi-materialist. I do believe in the Devil, but not in the matter-of-fact way that a more "spiritual" person would. She's the second - the New Ager (though no New Ager would admit to being in contact with the Devil).

Embracing doubts can easily prevent faith from functioning at all. Doubt is far easier than faith, IMO. "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith". I like that. I think this is what Tennyson meant by "honest doubt". I've quoted that poor man to death I know, but I'll quote him once more for luck... "But ever strove to make it true..."

I appreciate your advice, Zil, but in my defence I did not attempt to tell Carb what he knew or believed. I merely made suggestions about how we (humans) deal with metaphysical propositions such as life after death, which he was quite at liberty to disagree with. Perhaps I was wrong to extrapolate my own experiences to "most people" and I also phrased it badly. It's not the first time I've gotten into trouble for bad phraseology. Well absolutely. If I was to tell you that I went down to the river this morning and saw a turtle with an elephant's head and giraffe's legs paddling upstream on a surfboard, you would quite reasonably suspect that: (i) I saw something that looked like a turtle with an elephant's head and giraffe's legs paddling upstream on a surfboard but actually wasn't, or (ii) I was having some kind of psychotic episode, or (iii) I'd been at the "funny fags" (I believe "wacky tobaccy" is the phrase you use) or (iv) I was telling a whopping great fib. You might perhaps entertain the fifth possibility that I really had seen such a creature, but if you'd admitted to considering the first four explanations, there would be little point me saying "you've not lived my life, and you've not seen what I've seen" and stumping off in a mard*. Having said that, I am finding this dialogue very interesting and (I hope) useful, and I'm grateful to everyone (even Carb). Perhaps I should explain a little more about my own journey. My wife (yes...yes...the same wife I am always moaning about) claims she sees spirits and angels. On the rare occasions I've said to her "I know you think you see these things" or "imagination can be very strong" it's never gone down very well. (In her position I probably would find it patronizing.) So it's a mystery about her I've learned to accept. There are a lot of things in this world I don't understand, and that's one of them. Before you jump too quickly to my wife's defence, you'd better know that she also filled the house with dreamcatchers, tarot decks, crystals (with supposedly mystical properties) and books written by Doreen Virtue before she (Doreen Virtue) became a Christian. She's also dragged me to Tarot readings and "services" at the Kingston Spiritualist Church, and she's as adamant about all those things as she is about her "angels and dead people". So I think you can understand why I have some degree of skepticism about "spiritual experiences". I am trying to build bridges with her right now, which is possibly why God has allowed me to get into this conversation. The fact that I have difficulty with these things does not mean I am not open, nor trying to understand. I'm hoping it will help. *A sulk. I was brought up in Leicestershire.

Well of course I do. There would be little point in this dialogue otherwise. (I'm not interested in talking to a sounding board.) What bugged me about Carb's response was his pronouncement that I was "closed to anything else" and that "there was no point discussing it further". He was doing exactly the same thing to me that he was accusing me of doing to him.

I disagree with the bold parts, though I can understand why someone might perceive it that way. Maybe you're right. But it's odd that Jesus would have phrased it as a question if there was not some kind of doubt - or at least vulnerability - in his mind. At face value the answer was obvious - it was necessary to work the atonement. At that moment, during the absolute anguish of his separation from his Father, doubt crept in. And I don't think that takes anything away - it enforces the fact that he WAS human, like us.

Ah...I begin to see part of the confusion. You're presupposing that by "we" I'm referring just to people on this forum. I'm not. I'm talking about humanity in general.

Sorry - replied by mistake while trying to do an edit.

I’ve been pondering over some of the comments on the thread I started about “Dead People” – particularly Carborendum’s. I have apologised to him, but my days of groveling before other people's hurt feelings are long gone. (I will say though that it is difficult to have a meaningful dialogue about anything existential or metaphysical, with someone who claims to know the whole truth already, and gets irritable at the suggestion that perhaps really they don’t.) Death is a mystery to me. So is life. We see death everywhere there is life. Plants and animals live and then they die. In animals in particular we see aspects of ourselves: some animals are capable of rational thought. (Anyone who has ever been around Burmese cats will know that.) They have emotions similar to ours: they understand love, anger, sadness, fear. Humans are (allegedly) the most intelligent animals, but surely the difference is quantitative, not qualitative. We are essentially the same sort of thing. It is no answer at all to say “God placed Man above the animals”. Maybe He did. But we are left with the question of where these animals - beings not that dissimilar from ourselves - go after death. If the answer to that is “nowhere” we are left with the sneaking suspicion that perhaps the same is true for us. I’m not saying this to offend Carborendum, or any other LDS Temple-goer; I’m just trying to articulate my own thoughts. Death – to me – is a mystery. Maybe it isn’t to everyone, but I suspect it is to most people. Perhaps I shouldn’t say “most”. I’ll say “many” instead. Though perhaps “most” of the “many” get through their lives without thinking about it too deeply. I have always hoped that by embracing doubt and “working through it” prayerfully and asking questions, may be a road to a stronger certainty. (I think Tennyson felt the same way, when he wrote the passage I quoted earlier: “And Power was with him in the night, / Which makes the darkness and the light, / And dwells not in the light alone”.) The margins of my Bible are covered with questions and “doubts” to pray and ponder over. So please, Carborendum, don’t tell me I am “closed to anything more”. I’m particularly grateful to Vort for his analogy with Jesus healing at the pool. This was typical of Jesus. He entered the worlds of the people he met in order to reach them. He dined with "tax collectors and sinners". He could I suppose have preached from his throne in Heaven using some kind of “holy megaphone”, but he came down to Earth and became fully human. He entered into the whole mess and muddle of human life. He was tempted in the wilderness. He experienced doubt and fear. He said “Father, remove this cup from me”. On the cross he cried “My God, why have you forsaken me?” He did not preach from a position of absolute power and confidence. He became weak and vulnerable for our sake, and he was honest about it. Which brings me to Vort’s other point about “utter honesty”. While I agree totally, utter honesty is not easy to achieve. We often think too much of ourselves, and at other times despair and think too little. (If the “we” in that sentence offends you, read it as “I”.) We (I) latch onto ideas that appeal to us and gloss over evidence to the contrary. It is something else we (I) need to strive and pray for.

Aye...wi' slaughtered the Sassanachs at Bannokburrrrrn! (No, I'm not Scottish, and I'm not even very good at doing the accent!)

Har har! You've got absolutely no taste!

Oh I don't know! Don't you think it goes well with the beard?

"...is that you get to wear a skirt." Here's a typical "woman" wearing a skirt! (The last thread I started got a bit intense. Im starting one about cross-dressing instead!)

I have a number of those as well. One of mine is John 8 (another passage that doesn't appear in all Bibles - my NIV has the whole section in italics) about the woman caught in adultery. I don't believe she was ever in any danger of stoning. I think the whole episode (not just the question) was set up to trap Jesus. But as for John 5:4, I've looked it up in my other Bibles I keep at work. It is in the King James Bible, but the "big" NIV misses it out along with part of verse 3. (Though again it is mentioned in the footnotes.) The little pocket NIV New Testament I was given at school does have it, so I must have read it before at some point years ago. Interesting. P.S. This page is quite interesting https://www.lavistachurchofchrist.org/cms/did-an-angel-actually-stir-the-waters-at-bethesda-or-was-it-only-a-local-tradition/

Thanks Vort: I've been pondering over this for the last few hours. I must have read this passage so many times, but I had no memory of the angel stirring the water. I was wondering about the Mandela effect, but then I looked it up in the Good News Bible, and verse 4 is missing. (It is in the footnotes, where it explains that only some manuscripts have it.) So it is likely missing in a lot of other Bibles too. However, it states factually that the angel stirred up the water - not that it was a superstition. I've gotta look into this further. Thanks.