Reflecting on the Unknown

When two introverts get together, they never discuss the mundane.

 

It’s one of the things I love best about introverts: we’re more or less obsessed with talking about things too few others seem willing to tackle!

 

Unknown, Unanswerable Christian Conundrums

 

Among the things we discussed was how unable (or perhaps unwilling) people of faith seem to be when it comes to actually understanding and embracing the tenets they claim to believe with all their hearts.

 

We see lovely, wonderful, perfectly imperfect Christians kicking themselves relentlessly for missing the mark (“known as sinning”) in various ways.

 

One of Lisa’s friends kicks herself because she didn’t know her son was being molested as a child.

 

(Understand: Her son grew up to be an upstanding, resilient man she’s immensely proud of, and he doesn’t blame her for not knowing, but she still carries enormous guilt for having been clueless.)

 

If she really understood and embraced what Jesus did for her on the cross, it seems to me she’d be dancing on the ceiling, feeling 100% free of blame for not being able to protect her son from something she didn’t even know was happening. Neither her son nor Jesus blames her for not knowing. She is INNOCENT!

 

By contrast, I see CINO (Christians in Name Only), far-right wackos, fundamentalists, and racist CINO cops, judges and juries callously screwing over people of color and others apparently without giving a single thought about what God will have to say about that later on.

 

Apparently they feel 100% forgiven, which I very much doubt they are, or will be in the hereafter, if the hereafter exists in the way Christianity purports it will be.

 

The Bible says that Christ will tell cruel Pharisee-like folks when their time comes, “I never knew you.” Now, that’s justice! White-washed sepulchers still contain the judgmental dead, no matter how lovely they look on the outside!

 

ANOTHER UNKNOWN: GHOSTS AND SPIRITS

 

We segued from that anomaly to concepts of ghosts/spirits/reincarnation/traveling through various lifetimes with the people we feel the most kinship with.

 

And then to children who remember past lives, see dead siblings, and tell their parents as three and four year old supposedly clean slates, “Remember when we were brother and sister in that big house in Maryland (or Holland, or Wales)?”

 

We discussed both having seen and/or heard ghosts/spirits in our homes as kids or teenagers. Knowing that neither of us use (or used) drugs and have no need to lie to each other, we pondered over whether what we experienced was a time warp in which long-dead people coexist for a time in our present spaces, whether they’re true ghosts/spirits who are here either to protect us or banish us from their perceived “homes,” or people who don’t know they’re dead and are still trying to figure it out…

 

Our Real-Life Ghost Stories

 

In my case, although my ghost scared the stuffing out of me, his face exhibited peace and concern; I just didn’t like the fact that he materialized out of a blue light and came over to my bedside to lean over and look at me more closely–at which time I dived under the covers and thought, “If he touches me and I feel it, I will have  a heart attack and die right here in this bed!!!”  Years later, I saw a commercial with the Gorton Fisherman and I immediately exclaimed, “That’s what my ghost was wearing, exactly, hat and all!”

 

(When I finally told my older sister about the apparition’s visit  a few days later, she advised me, “You should have felt honored, not scared.”  Yeah, in retrospect, maybe I should have. But in that moment, all I was thinking was, “”Shee-yit! THIS is NOT NORMAL!!!!!!!!!! THAT’S NOT A REAL PERSON!!!! THAT’S A FREAKIN’ GHOST!!!!”)

 

In Lisa’s and her brother’s case, their ghosts were outright rude and rowdy, talking loudly and throwing pans around in the kitchen, in no way interested in their scared little bodies lying upstairs in  their beds!

 

 

These are the kind of things that occupy our conversations. Of course, we have no answers to these mysteries–who the heck does, or can?–but conjecture abounds.

 

Lisa and I almost never have mundane, superficial conversations.  We talk as much about the unknown as we do about the known.

 

That’s why I most love being around her.

 

I love stimulating conversations, especially ones where some kind of mystery is involved. I saw and heard an unearthly flying saucer in the 60’s. (Several others, including parents and a conservative Republican state representative, saw and heard it too. And the Ellensburg newspaper reported other people witnessed the same thing on the same night.) It did aerial maneuvers that no aircraft could do back in that day, or can even today. Where did it come from? Why was it here?

 

Leonard Nimoy (no weird-oh by far) said he met and knew aliens from other worlds.

 

It’s mysteries like these that keep me wanting to stay alive to find out more.  But I suppose it will take dying to understand some of them!