In the book A Forever Place, I discuss two connected experiences where I found myself in a place of infinity —

I was in a place with no boundaries.
No walls.
No floor.
No ceiling.
Nothing gives me a point of reference to measure distance.
It seems to have no ending.
I stare at infinity.
Infinity stares back at me.
    A Forever Place, pp. 1-2

What if we removed the points of reference from our daily lives?

As humans, we have established various methods for measuring things. We don’t think of them as measurements because they are commonplace and routine. These points of reference include things like a house, a car, a city, a mountain, a river, an ocean…. We define all of these things in our minds as if they have “size” but they have “size” defined only by finite, human perspective that we, as physical beings, have established.

What if we remove ourselves from the physical role and consider “size” from a different perspective? The movie plot for Men In Black is based on a few humans in New York City attempting to find a galaxy. It takes them awhile, but eventually they discover the galaxy is contained in a marble-size globe hanging on the collar of a cat. At the end of the movie, the camera pans away from the city into space. As the camera moves away from earth, it reveals our solar system, then a nebula and eventually our entire Milky Way Galaxy. Then the camera moves further away and reveals the Milky Way is contained inside a marble-size globe.

MIB I ending:

“Size” is an interesting concept; so is “time.” If we remove our limiting, human perspective, “size” becomes something that is relative — relative only to the concept of association we have created in our finite human brains.

Inquisitively,
David

My son sent this to me. I couldn’t resist…

The light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration, as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her cell phone and makeup.

As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up.

He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell.

After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, ”I’m very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bumper sticker, the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday-School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk, so naturally…I assumed you had stolen the car.”

I received an email that said:

“There’s a huge problem with the Law of Attraction. The problem is…it’s not working for most people and unfortunately you might be one of them. There is a lot of confusion about the Law of Attraction, what it is AND is not, and how it really works. If I asked you to explain the LOA, what would you say?”

My response:

There is not really a problem with the Law of Attraction so much as there is a problem with our understanding its meaning. It’s actually rather simple. Essentially, the Law of Attraction is: I attract to myself the things on which I focus. When I think “I am in a bad mood” then my mood is dour. When I think “I am Peace” then my life is filled with peace.

When I perform the act of resisting something, my focus is on the thing I resist. My act of focusing on that thing is what increases its attraction to me, even though my focus is in the form of resisting. In order to break the cycle of ‘What you resist persists’, I simply think about the thing (or things) I want to have in my life and choose not to think about the thing I am resisting. Simple, but maybe not so easy…

How does it work for you?

Best Regards,
David

There’s something about this song.
Well, yes, it is Clapton…
…and it does have a good beat.
But, no matter where I am or what I’m doing,
when I hear this song,
it feels like I’m right where I’m supposed to be,
doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.

Enjoy…
D.W.

The Core

Every morning when i wake, a feeling soon begins to overtake me.
Ringing in my ears resounds through my brain; it finally surrounds me.
There is fire, there is life, there is passion, fever and fury.
There is love and there is hate, there is longing, anger and worry.

Oh, i am a flame; feel it touch my heart.
And down at my core is the hottest part.
I can run without fear.

If it should become too cold, i know i can endure the frostbite.
Oh, a blanket then i’ll wrap around me; i keep myself so close to my sight.
No one then can cause me harm, just as the river runs into the sea.
’cause every day, a fire alarm is deafening the silence all around me.

Oh, i am a flame; feel it touch my heart.
And down at my core is the hottest part.
I can run without fear.

It is burning.
It is burning.

You can trust me; we can laugh. together we can share our sorrow.
I will give you secrets too, an attitude that you may borrow.
Gypsy woman said to me, “one thing you must bear in your mind:
You are young and you are free, but damned if you’re deceased in your own lifetime.”

Oh, you have a flame; feel it in your heart.
And down at the core is the hottest part.
We can run without fear.

It is burning.
It is burning.

Eric Clapton and Marcy Levy
Album: Slowhand

(Today’s post is submitted by Zac Wine, who continues to challenge my thinking.)

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I don’t capitalize god. I also don’t capitalize him/his/he when I reference god. God is not a name; god is a concept.

A really, really big concept.

Think about this: if you say the word “god,” what does it sound like way down deep in your throat? Or better, how does it sound way down deep in your soul? When you experience the vibration of god, how does it feel in your gut? God, as a sound, has a certain appeal. It’s abstract and intangible like god should be.

On the other hand, when god is manifested in our reality, his name is a materialization of the sound and he has many names—Yahweh, Jehovah, Elohim, Shiva, Vishnu, Brahman, Allah, Jesus…. I capitalize these because I appreciate the idea of the vocalization of god; the sound or vibration of god.

What does pronunciation of Yahweh bring to mind? What does the sound of Elohim make you think of? How does the sound of Jesus make you feel? How does Jesus with the Spanish pronunciation (hey-soos) make you feel? The idea of G-O-D is over-used in our culture and is too misunderstood to break it down as a sound. However god’s manifestations are far easier and more interesting to think about and feel.

I might argue that the name Jesus has too many connotations to be included in the list. Is he the son of god? Too much ego involved in that argument. I’d like to discuss it with Jesus himself—about his name and his source—and and get an answer directly from him that didn’t involve the Romans or Pharisees.

If you want to capitalize god, go right ahead. For me, it feels like I give him much more respect when I treat him non-egotistically; non-human. So with appreciation and honor to him/it/them, I don’t capitalize god.

With respect to god,
Zac Wine

In my last blog I faltered—suggesting I have limited capability to comprehend infinity. Shortly after I posted the blog, I received an email from my niece, gently refuting me with a simple challenge: “I think you need to expand your consciousness to infinity.”

“OK.” I offered. “Got any suggestions for how to do that?”

She reminded me of the simple advice from the sage Jonathan Livinston Seagull.

Decide I can.
Choose it to be.
And it is.

Just let go of everything and it will come to you.

(Thanks Amanda.)

Gratefully,
David Wine

One of my weaknesses is I believe you interpret life the same way I do. I think you think like I think.

Extrapolate this concept to a much grander scale…to the scale of infinity, where we meet God. Somewhere in the grand, human process, we went there, came back and then continued with our day-to-day lives. As we went about our ordinary lives we developed religious and spiritual beliefs in a limited, human state of consciousness. One of these is our definition of God. Most western religions claim to be based on the Bible, which is a source that generates an image of a very human-like God. This result is not surprising with words like, “God created man in his own image.”

Throughout history, we have assigned a “personage” to God which has many human characteristics; we see God in human terms and give him a human likeness. We gave God ears (He listens to us); we gave Him a mouth and larynx (God talks to us); we gave Him feelings like dissatisfied, displeased, and unhappy if we do something outside His rules.

I think God is not a person…especially not in the way that’s been spawned in our minds.

In several books I’ve read recently, God lets us know that he is nothing like we think. In The Shack, he deliberately takes on the appearance of a woman, and then proceeds to call himself “Papa.” In Conversations With God, he very directly states, “I am not what you think.” And although it was not their intention, the authors of Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness gave us the preliminary framework we can use to begin to grasp a possible nature of God. All of these accounts show an image of God that is very unlike anything I have encountered.

For now, I don’t think I am capable of expanding my consciousness to the point of infinity, so I’ll take small steps. I first choose to walk away from my earlier belief that God is human-like. Next, I choose to believe that God is nothing like I imagine. Then I choose to allow God to take any shape He prefers. After all…He is God.

Then again, what do I know? I’m just an ordinary guy with a weakness, who thinks you think like I think.

Curiously,
David Wine

On January 29 I asked: How Big Is The Universe? In that blog I wondered, “What are the things I currently believe to be THE TRUTH, but given more time, will discover to be false?” Today’s guest blogger, Zac Wine (Cambridge, MA), follows my questions with a few of his own —

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It’s ironic that we are still constantly looking and finding perfect guardians of health. A few hundred years ago, man was in search of the fountain of youth. You know, the actual fountain that springs up from the ground that grants eternal youth to whomever drinks from it. Little did we know that we would still be looking for it now, in this century, in this time of awakening, in different physical forms like heroine … or Prozac.

On top of the food chain of things we do not know is death. Or not so much death itself. You really only have a few choices when it comes to death itself: going quietly into the light or going out extravagantly (and maybe painfully). The great unknown really is what happens after death. There are so many ideas that man can choose from. Most men I know (yes, and women, I know some of them too) see all the ideas and pick and choose their beliefs like it was a buffet table. But what is the truth? What actually happens? Is one right? Are many right? Are any right? What would be the great unknown if we knew for certain about what did happen after death?

And somewhere during this search we forget to wonder about the glory of a short life, a short life often wasted on things we do not want or like to do. Instead of describing blue to someone that cannot see, try instead to describe it to someone that can see. Can you do it without using examples of blue? Can you do it without using science (or religion, for that matter)? Now instead of trying to unlock the great unknown, try to unlock the things you think you already know. Where do we come from? And I don’t mean from your mother.

Let’s all take risks and possibly be jailed, ostracized, forced to drink hemlock, beheaded, or maybe just be dead wrong from time to time. It’s from heavy failure but strong determination that great success comes.

Enjoying this glorious life!
Zac Wine

I no longer claim the religious beliefs my parents taught me, but at times I still ponder them. In those younger years, my friends and I were full of questions like:

“If the Bible tells stories about King David and his many wives–and his son Solomon who had seven hundred wives, and the Bible also says, ‘Go, and do thou likewise,’ then is it OK for me to have several wives?”

We were curious, but mostly just having a little fun with our teachers. They usually gave us a resounding “Pshaw” and continued with their lecture, flipping from one Bible text to another, building “proof” of some particular doctrine or tenet.

Now that I’m older, my new question is: If one Bible text can be used to support another in establishing a system of beliefs, then the “many wives” argument should hold as much weight as any other, shouldn’t it? How would you decide which Bible text supports or “proves” another?

Here’s an example. My teachers thought they had resolved the meaning of Biblical prophecies in Daniel and Revelation, one of which speaks of “2,300 days.” They told us that the 2,300 days in that prophecy are symbolic of 2,300 literal years, and that the “day equals a year” concept is based on two unrelated texts in Ezekiel 4:6 and Numbers 14:34. I think the “day equals a year” concept is taken out of context. But don’t take my word for it. Decide for yourself.

My inquisitive mind wonders why we should limit the “day equals a year” concept to only prophetic passages? Why not use it to explain other time-related stories, such as the story of creation? If read literally, the Biblical story of Creation teaches that the sun, moon and stars, our planet with all of its vegetation, the animals and humans were literally created in 6 days. However, if we apply the “day equals a year” model to the creation story, then maybe God took 6 years to create the Universe, the Earth and its inhabitants. While we’re at it, why not expand our thinking another notch and say “a day equals a billion years” and allow creation to take a literal 6 billion years?

Creation meets evolution!

Why can’t both theories be explained within the same, broad spectrum? I am neither a creationist nor an evolutionist. I embrace both theories…AND the other 6 theories we haven’t even discovered yet.

Actually, I think the missing link is based on a much larger concept.

From God’s perspective, “time” does not exist. It doesn’t matter if God created the world in 6 days or 6 billion years. From His perspective it would have been the same moment either way.

Well, that’s one perspective. Here’s another —

God is capable of anything. He’s able to create an entire Universe, including our Earth, with ‘age’ already existing in its structure. Maybe God did create our earth in 6 days and, while He was at it, had a little fun and made it with 4.6 billion years of “age” already built in.

After all, He is God….

What’s your theory? Maybe it’s one of the other 6.

Inquisitively,
David Wine

When I recently wondered about How Big Is The Universe, I mentioned The Ant’s perspective. I wondered if there are beings who perceive humans in the same way we perceive the ant.

What if an ant could expand its awareness so it could see AND understand humans? I wonder if it would try to communicate with us. Or if it would try to become more human-like by taking on our behaviors or values so as to fit into our culture or understand us better.

From our current human perspective, we have speculated that angels exist; some even say they have seen angels. We speculate that they have wings. We talk of having guardian angels, “assigned” to each of us to protect and guide us. Some of the books I’ve read recently discuss certain tasks angels perform like Healing, Teaching, Guiding, Delivering messages from/to God

In my human finite-ness I don’t personally know much about angels yet, but I wonder if the human-angel connection is similar to the ant-human relationship. If it were possible, would I choose to expand my awareness so that I could perceive and understand angels on an everyday basis?

Inquisitively,
David Wine