Thank you for taking the time to share all your experiences. I have to admit the possibility of such things, especially when they come after you are pretty much outside the reach of the church's dogma and demands and illusions, and when they come more or less unbidden / unexpected, and when the ultimate outcome is positive for you and for others.
I can't say that I've ever sought or seen the point in ecstatic experiences; it's not really what I'm looking for. As an intellectual, it's possible that I fear it. Hell, I'll admit, I'd be humiliated. The closest I ever came to something like that was when I experimentally submitted to a cranio-sacral therapy which left me manic for a couple of days and then rubber-banded me into a black funk. The funk more than made up for the relaxed giddiness that preceded it. I don't ever want to go THERE again. The D.O. that did the work had no particular explanation other than that sometimes there are strange responses as various body tensions are released. I've never gotten up the courage to try it again. It seems like he was messing with things he didn't understand. Cranio-sacral therapy, though offered in a distinctly areligious clinical context, is very similar to the laying on of hands. It is directed intention for healing.
I've noted that on occasion some random person has accurate intuitive insight into something and that good comes of it ... as was the case with your deathbed rally story. I am not at all jealous or resentful that this was not my wife's experience. Whatever works. Any port in a storm. I also however am not impressed that the vessel for this insight happened to be a charismatic Christian. The universe doesn't appear to be fussy or particularly organized about who gets such insights when. Or about who gets needed grace and who goes lacking. I don't take such graces as endorsement of the individual or his/her belief system.
As for your being warned about your husband's cancer ... lucky you. It happens. And it doesn't. I am kind of with your mother on this ... god does what he wants and doesn't seem to respond to our needs, requests, hopes, dreams or aspirations in a way that is undeniably different from random chance, so what's the point? At some point you just get tired of the struggle -- the hoping against hope, the persevering, the being patient, the suffering, and you just accept that your are S.O.L. and let it be what it is. I very much understand your mother. She was no longer interested in playing that game. I would respond exactly the same, given her situation.
I'm glad your experience has been different. If you ever figure out why, do let me know.
Part of my problem is that if I believe in a benign, loving, personal god I would have to be enraged about what happened to my wife. An impersonal force, i can cope with and keep my serenity about it.
You also mentioned that perhaps lack of revelation is a mercy because it's a sort of "be careful what you ask, you might get it" situation. That me be quite true. I am not sure I even want to understand WTF is going on or receive any special insight anymore. It's past time for it anyway. I no longer want other people's drama or be in positions where I'm supposed to pull a rabbit out of a hat to try to help or comfort them or provide them with the certitude they crave. I don't want that kind of responsibility. I don't want to watch any more writhing and screaming and dying. I've had way too much of it already and I really like not having it ;-)
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Originally Posted by NightSpirit  Honest questions from a desire to know, I think God can handle. |
Indeed ... even I can handle those, so if god can't, he's not god.
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Originally Posted by NightSpirit But some of what goes on here on these threads, not you Bob, comes quite close to tempting God or calling God evil or ridiculing the sincere way people try to serve Him. To me, that is sad and doesn't seem to be smart. |
In my experience god doesn't get riled any more reliably than he answers prayer. Some of these people secretly want to get a rise out of god -- ANYTHING. Pretty much the same way kids act out to get ANY kind of attention they can.
You also have to remember that ego enters into it too. The need to mock and rail comes from the love of drama, the desire to "get back" at god or the church for real or imagined disappointments, or to find a focus for some sort of "us vs them" self-aggrandizement.
I suppose that I have as much of a right as anyone to want to attack the church and Make Them Pay (tm) for all the heartache they caused me, but I just can't. I was on the inside too long, and I know that there are a lot of people there who mean well and just don't know any better, and more than you'd think who mean well and do well despite their muddle-headed beliefs. Sometimes better than "enlightened" people with "open" minds.
Best,
--Bob