Foot Spas, Blackbirds And Reincarnation

[poliphilo]

1. Ailz acquired a foot spa off Freecycle the other day. We went and picked it up and the man who handed it over at the door called me, "my man" twice in the course of thirty seconds. In the far off and long ago "my man" was how rich men in wind-up motor cars addressed  simple, smock-wearing country folk when they had to stop and ask them for directions. It was patronising to the point of insult. Coming from a scruffy-looking bloke in a council house it presumably has other connotations- but I can't say I liked it much.

I just topped the spa up with nearly-boiling water from the kettle. Ailz seems to be enjoying herself. There are bubbles.

2.The blackbirds who nest in our ivy have successfully raised one brood this summer and are now raising another. This makes me happy. One cannot have too many blackbirds.

3. Michael Newton- author of Journey of Souls-  says we enter into a covenant not to remember past incarnations when our souls return to earth. We have lessons to learn- and it's better we start with a clean slate.  Our responses will be fresher if events surprise us-  and the task will seem more urgent if we don't realise we have lives to burn. Yes-  fair enough-  but to know what I was is to know who I am- and I'm finding it really frustrating to be kept in the dark.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there's also a chemical/wiring component that makes a brain go awry.

Does Newton address mass murderers anywhere?

Twice in my own life I felt visceral responses to major choices--when R asked me to marry him I felt a strong sense of an inner No!, not exactly a voice but a strong feeling, and many years later when a woman asked me to become a lay sister at a local convent. I'd always been fascinated by nuns and convents and yet I felt that same No!

I've often wondered if my choice to marry was not planned and messed up everything. And I was pretty sure, too, that the last thing I was needing to do in this life was hang around convents!

(Aside: I'm not sure if you know who Tim Russert is, but he died last week and was a fine news analyst here in the US, on Meet the Press. Everyone loved him, he had a wonderful smile, loved his life and his family. When he died suddenly even the president came to his funeral and people around the world were mourning him. He had been kind to everyone he knew. He told people he knew what he was supposed to do (they wanted him in politics, he had so much influence and was so ethical), which was to distill the political scene so that people could understand and vote wisely and to bring ethics to politics. Anyway, everyone--it was live on NBC--watched the live memorial service yesterday (to show you how powerful Tim's influence was, Obama and McCain slipped in to the morning funeral together, sat together, and hugged each other!), and after it was over, the camera went to another live broadcast outside, where the moderator, a Catholic, was riveted on the sky: over the building was a very clear double rainbow, with both ends in view!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Newton talks a bit about what happens to mass murderers afterwards: they get a lot of serious counselling- and if they've been very badly corrupted by their experience they may have to be remade; but he has nothing to say about what happens when a soul is faced with the choice of such a life. I suppose what we're really talking about here is the "problem of evil" which has been perplexing philosophers and theologians since the year dot.
There has never been a satisfactory answer and it's probably unreasonable to expect to find one here. All I can venture (and it's a cop-out) is that things must look very, very different from the perspective of eternity.

My one visceral moment came when I left the church. I believe I got that one right.

Some of Newton's clients have glimpses of future lives- but they're always kind of hazy. I get the impression that the general lines of the future are planned in advance, but that we get to do the colouring in. Actually Alice had what she thinks is such a glimpse; it ammounted to little more than a picture of the body that would one day be hers. I asked her about her surroundings (because I'd love to know what the future's going to look like) and she said she didn't notice.

I hadn't heard of Tim Russert before he died. I'm not sure we have anyone as universally beloved over here- or at least not in his sphere of political commentary. Perhaps the nearest is the (black) newscaster Sir Trevor McDonald who presents ITV's iconic News at Ten. They cancelled that show a few years back- and had to bring it back in response to public pressure.