Searching in Outer Space

Father Schall has written an interesting article, but Zuckerberg and Hawking are in a fruitless search it seems to me, just as traveling into OUTER space to find God or discoveries which add to our understanding of God are without satisfaction. When we were conceived within our mother’s wombs, we had no previous experience to store as “knowledge”. We did receive some sensory experiences prenatally and we perhaps stored some of those experiences in the pre-consciousness which in fact may indeed translate into some life experiences which we possess through our extra-uterine lives. From birth onward, our experiences are transferable into what we term our “knowledge”.
No matter how wise we become, we fail to have direct experiential knowledge of God. Others may teach us about God, or give us their concepts in words and writing of what they conceive God to be, but no direct experiential knowledge. We might believe what these others say, because we judge them worthy of our trust but for us to believe in God requires something
more.
As we grow, we encounter the historical Jesus as told in the Gospels. Perhaps we read all he is reported to have done and said. We may search all of the Gospels but we are not asked by Jesus to “understand” God, because humans cannot conceive of God Who at the beginning created all time and space, matter and energy from “n o thing”. We cannot conceive of no thing and consequently we cannot conceive of God (If there be such). So what does this Jesus say about God?
The earliest written of the four Gospels, Mark, has as Jesus’ first words, his “keynote address” to his disciples the following: “Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the ‘good news’ from God and saying: ‘The present moment is the right time. Change the way you think, for the Kingdom of God is WITHIN you. Believe this ‘good news’”. (Mk.1:15)
Most of us spend our days learning by experiencing the world “outside” of us. That includes our search into outer space. Many of us also spend some time talking to God as if God were somewhere outside of us also. Wrong! If anything Jesus said is rather hard to believe, it is that God the Father is somehow within us. Especially in hard times, we pray to God who seems
very distant, unaware and even perhaps disinterested in our plight. This can be seen in Jesus’ own words while dying on the cross: “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabbacthani?” (My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”)
But Jesus also teaches us how to pray to God when he said: “And when you pray, enter into your private room, and having shut the door, pray to your Father in secret, and your Father seeing in secret will hear you.” (Mt. 6:6)
So let us seek to believe because Jesus is trustworthy and “experience” as only one can, the presence of God within, us, and within everyone else as well. This is called the doctrine of Divine Indwelling. Jesus asks us not to understand, comprehend or conceive of this; but only to believe it. If we do, we have access to the direction in which we go at death, within. God thus is
closer to us than we are to the outer world and outer space, and even closer to us than we are to ourselves. Ask for such belief and it will be given to you.
So while we eagerly seek knowledge in outer space, let us never forget to find the peace to be found in inner space.

12/12/12 at 12:12AM

                             12:12 on 12/12/’12

                                The Interstices

For some strange reason, that word, “interstices” kept popping into my mind as I reflected on what had recently happened to me at the Brigham and Womens’ Hospital in Boston beginning on December 12, 2012.

The definition of the word “interstices” is “the small or narrow space between things or parts; crevice; crack”.  Perhaps it was the coming together of my physical and critical emergency with countless Brigham and Womens’ surgeons, interns, nurses, caregivers and staff who joined their care and skill to attend most completely and efficiently to my immediate need. All of these wonderful people had lives of their own put to one side while they attended to my needs of that very moment which indeed contributed to my continued life on earth. To them all, I promise to keep in mind my beliefs and intentions which I expressed because of what they did. It is from that I  became aware of how time is racing by and we can never fully retrieve a past event, nor can we really perform any act in the future. All we really have is the present moment. If we are ever to do anything, it must be done “now”. Now is the “interstice between time and eternity.  It is so important to take the present moment to act, to do something nice to someone else, to say “thank you” and “I love you” to those we should. It was my experience at Brigham and Womens’ that helped me to understand this. Let me describe what happened in as great detail as I can recall.

          -----------------------------------------------------------

On December 11, I saw my kidney Doctor that afternoon. After my visit to my Kidney specialist where I had been pronounced as making a good recovery from bladder resection surgery on November 1^st ,  I felt increasingly nauseous and had severe abdominal cramps in the evening. Later in the afternoon, I discovered that my colostomy was not emptying and I had the beginning of dry heaves, with some pain and pressure near a spot where I had previously discovered a slight hernia. I called the South Shore Visiting Nurse and she said if it persists, go to the Emergency at either So. Shore Hospital or better even, to B&W.

My son,Tom,  literally carried me from Scituate to the B&W in our  ’94 GMC pickup. Tommy drove the pickup truck while I was semi-doubled up on the seat next to him. I was given a wheelchair at B&W and wheeled directly in to the ER where Doctor Kimones tried to help ease the hernia. It was 11PM.

The nurses , according to Tom, were all aware that the clock was approaching 12:12 on 12/12,’12 but I was totally unconscious as to how close to eternity I had come.  I was surrounded by Doctors, Interns, Nurses and aids and was nauseous, delirious and rambling.  At 6 AM, things had gotten worse and Doctor Ron Bleday, the Doctor who had done my first surgery at B&W came into the hospital. He was scheduled to do surgery on this day. I was given the high contrast and a Cat Scan. They intubated me to prevent me from vomiting into  my airway, but they had difficulty getting the tube past my esophagus. I was sleepy and very confused, very out of it. The surgery, which had been planned for later in the day was moved up to 7AM. Tom called my other children, Claire, Grace and Chuck. Tom really didn’t think I was going to make it. Tom was in the waiting room for 2 hours and Claire arrived. I was placed in 8D in SICU, With Joe and Taryn as my nurses. I needed intensive fluid therapy.

Four days passed in 8D.  I don’t remember much except weird bits and pieces. Nurses Heather and Beth stayed by my side and there was this beautiful older Haitian lady named Jocette who stayed with me all night long and we both sang spiritual hymns and songs from Jamaica and Haiti. She was extremely tired and tried to fight off sleep for my sake all night long. I am in debt to her forever for her care. I was apparently heavily medicated and I remember striving with all my will to remember my nurse’s names five minutes after hearing them, but I just couldn’t.

I remember Taryn more than anybody else. I was having real traumatic dreams where I would slip into an alternate state, much like falling into a day dream but which would turn into a horrible situation from which I couldn’t extricate myself . One I remember was that I dreamt I was driving along Rte 128 near Blue Hills and an earthquake occurred in which ground, buildings, cars and people all got smeared off the road and I was left stuck in my smashed car while everybody else, being able, were walking back to their homes and all I could do was thrash and get panicked. Then I heard a distant but clear voice say, “Charlie Charlie! Where are you? Charlie!”  I can remember fighting to regain possession of where I was. “Charlie! Charlie! Where are you?”

“Benson …and…” I said.

“Charlie, where are you?”

(Ice cream, I thought), “Bergson’s Ice Cream”…”No… Brigham’s… Brigham’s … and … Womens’” I shouted. “I am in the Intensive Care Unit at Brigham & Women’s!!” I shouted, looking up to the right into the warm and welcoming eyes of Taryn my nurse.

“Yes” she answered. “And you’re going to be fine!!”

Thank God for Taryn. And thank God for Joe, Sara H. Peterson, Dave Molway (whom I discovered had been a student in my class years before), and Heather, Sara’s angel, Laurie, Donna, Ellie, Beth and all the wonderful male nurses and all the magnificent Doctors and Interns in Doctor Bleday’s miraculous team. Also Jocette, who sat and prayed and sang with me all through the first rough nights in SICU. And to all the other wonderful people whose names couldn’t make a dent in my troubled mind, THANK YOU!!

                   ------------------------------------------------

Thus, I came to see that every single contact I made with all these wonderful people  constitutes the interstices in which one sees the miracle of what takes place every day at B&W ICU. Every need and request intercepts every day in the same way –yet- the magic persists; the magic of seeing God’s greatest work on earth, healing, as each present moment races past the face of the earth. Each and every person, be they Surgeons, Doctors, Interns, Nurses, Aids, Staff or “all night watchers”; doing exactly what is needed when it is needed to 100% efficirncy and caring, then leaving to do this somewhere else perhaps never to be seen by you again.

The time of contact races past and the moment becomes very difficult to recall or retrieve. Yet, these moments were the most important in my life, and I never had the opportunity to thank them all face-to-face from my heart. What I have learned from these experiences and wish to tell everyone, is that after 76 years of life, my only message is Jesus’ first recorded words to his disciples; i.e., his “keynote address” in Mark 1:16 where he says:

          “Metanoiete ( Wake up!) the present moment is the right

           time;    the Kingdom of Heaven is WITHIN you!   

           Believe this good news,”  …

and time whizzes past.

This is going to sound really strange, but since B&W, I have come to a conclusion that everyone is seeking happiness in their lives, but most are seeking it where it cannot be found. Most of us seek happiness through attaining money, possessions, health, long life, success, a good reputation, a “happy” marriage, children that we love and are proud of etc… , all of which are truly good and desirable for sure. But we so often fail to realize that the greatest treasure of all, is within us; and within ALL others. It doesn’t feel like happiness, it doesn’t look like happiness, it isn’t an idea we possess, but it is a treasure we are asked to BELIEVE in.  When one person encounters another person with true unconditional and other-centered caring,  that is what I sense happens everyday thousands of times a day at Brigham and Womens’ Hospital in Boston.

Brooksley Born's Overthrow

When Ronald Reagan became President of the United States, a new economic future for the country was born.  The idea was to let business be business and get big government off the backs of business so as to allow profits to bring the stock market into life. The obstacle to the realization of these goals was a Democratic congress and regulations imposed upon business and upon the market by legislation passed in 1933 to prevent a collapse of the market as had occurred in 1929. This legislation was under what was called the Glass-Steagall Act.

The Republican Party and the Republican Administration worked asiduously to overturn Glass-Steagall but the Democratic Party stood in the way. After the Reagan and Bush I administrations failed to overturn it, Bill Clinton drank the Kool-Aid and pushed the Democrats to support overthrow. In May of 1998, Democrats still opposed overthrow with  

The Washington Post

 

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Credit Crisis Cassandra

Brooksley Born's Unheeded Warning Is a Rueful Echo 10 Years On

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As head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the late '90s, Born would wake up at night "in a cold sweat,"; her fears, as we know too well, came to pass. (By Carol Guzy -- The Washington Post)

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Brooksley Born in 1964, the first female president of the Stanford Law Review. She was also the first woman to finish at the top of the class. (Photos By Carol Guzy -- The Washington Post)

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Born holds a photo of herself with President Carter in the late '70s at a meeting of the ABA's federal judiciary committee, of which she was the first female head. (Carol Guzy - Carol Guzy/washington Post)

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By Manuel Roig-Franzia

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Friends nudge the woman who saw the catastrophe coming.

They want Brooksley Born to say four words, four simple words: "I told you so."

Ah, but she won't -- not at legal conferences or dinner parties. Not even in a quiet moment in her living room, giving her first interview with a major news organization since last fall's economic collapse.

She just smiles, perched ever so properly in an upholstered armchair at her Kalorama home.

"More coffee?" she asks daintily, changing the subject.

A little more than a decade ago, Born foresaw a financial cataclysm, accurately predicting that exotic investments known as over-the-counter derivatives could play a crucial role in a crisis much like the one now convulsing America. Her efforts to stop that from happening ran afoul of some of the most influential men in Washington, men with names like Greenspan and Levitt and Rubin and Summers -- the same Larry Summers who is now a key economic adviser to President Obama.

She was the head of a tiny government agency who wanted to regulate the derivatives. They were the men who stopped her.

The same class of derivatives that preoccupied Born -- including the now-infamous "credit-default swaps" -- have been blamed for accelerating last fall's financial implosion. But from 1996 to 1999, when Born was the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the U.S. economy was roaring and she was getting nowhere with predictions of doom.

So, upstairs in the big house in Kalorama, Born tossed and turned. She woke repeatedly "in a cold sweat," agonizing that a financial calamity was coming, she recalled one recent afternoon.

"I was really terribly worried," she said.

Before taking office, Born had been a high-octane attorney, an American Bar Association power player, a noted advocate of feminist causes and co-founder of the National Women's Law Center. But none of that carried much weight when she crossed over into government; for all her legal experience, she was a woman who wasn't adept at playing the game. She could be unyielding and coldly analytical, with a litigator's absolute assertions of right and wrong. And she was taking on Beltway pros, masters of nuance and palace politics. She marched into congressional hearing after congressional hearing -- pin neat, always with a handbag -- but no one really wanted to listen.

The Wall Street Journal declared that "the nation's top financial regulators wish Brooksley Born would just shut up." The Bond Buyer newspaper compared her to a salmon "swimming against raging currents."

What Did Jesus Look Like?

In 1963, I was a monk in a Trappist Monastery and one day while reading the psalms I turned to a page where a prayer card fell out. As I picked it up and looked at the picture on it, I was very confused. It looked like the death mask of some ancient man. I turned the card over and read a description of what the picture showed. It was believed to be an actual photograph of Jesus. It was called the Holy Shroud of Turin. Thinking it to be a painting by some medieval artist, I later went to the Scriptorium and consulted the Catholic Encyclopedia. This began a lifelong pursuit of mine to try to understand how this "photo" came into existence.

Later, in my teaching years at a Catholic high school I bought a film strip produced by the Order of Salesians of Don Bosco which was entitled "The Holy Shroud of Turin". I previewed it and was shocked to find that I believed it to be authentic. I showed the film strip to my students and they were as amazed as I, and without any pressure by me, professed that they also believed the image was the true face of Jesus.   

Rather than tell you the history of the investigation concerning this relic, I simply refer you to the following link. I hope that it is possible for you to see this presentation and come to your own conclusions. I know mine. thank you,     Charlie Mc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNJPJ4JwHeE

What Did Jesus Say / Mean?

The thoughts,words, and deeds of Jesus were predominantly in Aramaic. 

 Thirty five years after Jesus' earthly life ended, printed copies of the "good news" began to be written in Greek, thus already a translation. 

In the following centuries, the good news was again translated into Latin. The very best of Catholic biblical scholarship today believes that when these last translations were made, there were some serious mistranslations. 

Two quite serious errors may have occurred in the translation of the earliest Gospel accounts of Jesus' first recorded words as found in the earliest written of the four Gospels, Mark. The first of these is the Greek word "Μετανοιετε"[Metanoiete] which was translated into the Latin as "poenimine" which means literally "Repent!". A study of Treadwell Walden entitled "The Great Meaning of Metanoia" (1896!) indicates that the first and most likely translation of that word should have been "Change the way you think". From the meaning of Metanoiete as "Repent", evolved centuries of debate as to why those who first encountered Jesus had to repent. From this debate, the early great Councils arrived at the doctrine of original sin. It seems a little strange that Jesus would call his 'good news' "good" when it proclaimed that all are sinners from the "get go"

The second possible mistranslation is in translating the Greek
"ηγγικεν" [heggiken] with the word "appropinquavit" [draws near]. I.e., "Repent, and believe for the Kingdom 'draws near'".

A better translation,according to the best Catholic biblical scholarship is that the word "ηγγικεν" has a first translation not unlike what a waiting commuter means when he says "the train is here" i.e., coming into the station or simultaneously coming and already here. Thus the more accurate translation of the verse in Mark should be " The present moment is the right time. Change the way you think for the Kingdom of God is WITHIN you. Believe this 'good news'[Mk1:14-16].

In other words, God, Whom mankind has sought outside himself, is in reality closer to him than the man is to himself. Thus to pray, Jesus advises us to "enter into our inner room and pray to our Father who is within"(Mt.6:6). Now that IS really good news!

So it is not heretical to strive to understand what Jesus meant, rather than putting so much emphasis on what the interpreter may have thought.
                                                                 Charlie Mc