“How many
people are there in the world,” Little Boy Darling (five-years-old next month) asked me yesterday.
“Oh I think
about three billion,” I said.
“Wow,” he
said “That’s enough to make me fall of a cliff.”
He fell off the couch instead.
Actually I was off by half. The population is more like six billion going on seven. That’s a lot of pushing out babies. Ouch.
Actually I was off by half. The population is more like six billion going on seven. That’s a lot of pushing out babies. Ouch.
“When I was
a little girl…” sounds like an old-timer doesn it? “When I was a little girl,”
I told him, “there were half as many people living as now.” We were both astounded. I remember my family going fishing when I was
a child and we were the only ones on the riverbank. By the time I grew up it
was difficult to fish in the old fishing hole for it was swarming with people. All
those people deserve to be here the same as we do; it is just astounding that’s
all.
And it makes
me wonder what we who are getting somewhat long-in-the-tooth can give to the
world.
Some say the world advances because old codgers die off taking their out-moded ways with them. Out-moded, yes, take them. Prejudices, Paternalism, the need to fight wars, yes, take, it take it. Territorialism, yes. But let’s not lose sight of some of the wisdom of the ages. Let’s still read philosophy, and ethics, and use the scientific-method. Although I have some issue with the scientific method. For a long while the world has been viewed as purely physical, of matter being the thing we can see, touch, smell or taste. That was it. Now we are finding that doors are opening to other understandings.
Some say the world advances because old codgers die off taking their out-moded ways with them. Out-moded, yes, take them. Prejudices, Paternalism, the need to fight wars, yes, take, it take it. Territorialism, yes. But let’s not lose sight of some of the wisdom of the ages. Let’s still read philosophy, and ethics, and use the scientific-method. Although I have some issue with the scientific method. For a long while the world has been viewed as purely physical, of matter being the thing we can see, touch, smell or taste. That was it. Now we are finding that doors are opening to other understandings.
I just
completed the book Proof of Heaven by
Eben Alexander, M.D. where he tells the story of his NDE (Near Death Experience.)
One of the most astounding things about his experience was that he was a
neurosurgeon, and thus understood the workings of the brain. Second, during a
week in coma, he had NO BRAIN ACTIVITY in the cerebral cortex, the part of the
brain that makes us human, that thinks, and conjures up all the inventions we
think are so great. So his experience came to him from someplace else.
It made me
think about the spirit, the soul of a person and how it can live outside the
physical form. And that is what we take with us when we die.
Joyce
