Does God Directly Create Each Snowflake?

Primitive concepts of God included a God who directed the weather. Now we have meteorology that predicts the weather based on wind and ocean currents via satellite pictures. We once believed that God created earthquakes. Now we know about the pressure of plates in the earth and measure that pressure with probes. We once believed that God created sickness, but now we know about germs, viruses and bacteria. We once believed that God created the present animals that Adam named, but now we know that the earth is perhaps a billion years old and began life with one celled creatures that evolved over millenia. We once believed that God had political views and supported one King versus another King or the capitalist system versus socialism (this is still very popular in the USA but has gone by the wayside in much of the rest of the world where the government actually takes care of its citizens, not just the ultra rich and  corporations).

God is an intelligent foundation of all that is, not a person. I do believe that this force we call God is intelligent and does respond to prayer. However, I believe that God is the invisible substance that is manifested as forms, animals, things. However, God does not directly create those manifestations, as the Bible literally states. Instead, he created natural laws for this universe (other universes may have different rules). Those natural laws in themselves result in the weather, the shifting of the earth plates,  and EVOLUTION of consciousness from a 1 cell creature to humans. On other planets this evolution may have gone much further than humans.

Many people see nature as a manifestation and reminder of God. This is true. But I do not believe that God personally created each type of tree, plant, fungus, mold, crabgrass or poison ivy. Religious people often send me in email pretty pictures of nature, while somehow denying the reality. All of nature is based on the eating of other life. The little fish is eaten by the bigger fish. The weaker virus is eaten by the bigger stronger virus. We are the ultimate predators, as every single FAST FOOD restaurant you pass in your car illustrates. We consume living creatures to survive. Even plants compete for space above and below ground.

Did a loving God create this horror where life is based on killing and eating of other life? This does not sound like God to me as I understand him, as the one power that is pure love. Instead, this world (made of God energy or substance) is more likely formed by the human or even an unknown alien ego. This is a fallen world, even when people try to put a yellow smiley face on it. Even the heavens do not work right all the time, which is why we have pretty eclipses. There are entire galaxies right now being devoured in space by huge black holes. If there are people in those galaxies, how do you think they feel to be obliterated this way? There are galaxies that are colliding with each other, causing cosmic destruction. Can't God even keep the beautific heavenly elements from crashing into each other? Evidently not!

So I do not believe that God personally created the cosmos or the elephants or the chickadees. As humans we are naturally attracted to certain natural scenes such as cool lakes surrounded by lush forests or meadows. But within that forest and meadow a constant war is going on as large insects devour smaller insects, birds eat all the insects, birds are eaten by snakes, etc. The chain-of-life is actually the chain of "who-is-for-dinner-tonight?"

For all we know, like in Hindu and Buddhist Eastern religion, there are smaller demi-gods. They may be life forms but seem like gods to us. They may dwell in other dimensions. But for all we know, they used their minds to manipulate God's energy to create this universe of feasting on each other, disease and sorrow. All the pretty pictures sent in email cannot erase the basic fact that this is a universe of butchery that we participate in (this includes you vegetarians out there) just to stay alive. Then we humans add our part by constantly wanting to kill or enslave anyone who disagrees with our own interpretation of reality, East versus West, even North versus bat shit insane deep South!! :-)

God is always invisible. How this force manifests is always up to us. That "us" could include creatures from other dimensions that we are not even aware of now. This may account for UFO's, and all the paranormal stuff that happens.

Unity says that prayer is for our benefit, not to convince God to do something he is not already doing for us. God is constantly giving us everything he can via a Divine Flow that originates in our hearts. How it manifests is truly up to us. We can pray for the earthquake victims in Japan, but God is already giving each individual there everything he can. God shines from within, like constant sunshine. What prayer does is unite us as ONE on this planet and allows us to share our love with the Japanese and to open to ideas on how to help Japan. We are God's manifestation. I want to repeat: God is already doing for us everything he can do. It is our responsibility to OPEN UP & SURRENDER to this Divine Flow so it can manifest in practical terms.

Earth is a place we come to learn, often called school house Earth. This universe (and quantum physics substantiates this) is also like a make-believe Playstation video game that is loaded with certain rules (laws). If you walk off a cliff, you will fall to your death. Not God's fault. If you live where a fault line is building pressure, and it blows, destroying a city and many lives, it isn't God's fault. Ancients blamed God for everything. But they were ignorant savages. We aren't. So our understanding of God must grow.

Earth is not a big sandbox with God as the giant child moving toy action figures around. God is transcendent and immanent. He is within everything as the invisible substance, but the form it takes is up to his natural laws and even us.

DID GOD EVEN CREATE THIS UNIVERSE? I SAY NO!!

Have you seen the movie THE MATRIX with Keanu Reeves? This movie reflects the widespread belief of Hinduism that the experiential world we inhabit is an illusion. Unity believes this world is real. That's their dogma. I am more inclined to see this world as an illusion that is so powerful that we could never puncture it while living in it WITHOUT GOD. The COURSE IN MIRACLES agrees with this assessment, and even says that when we die, WE DO NOT LEAVE THE ILLUSION BUT JUST ENTER ANOTHER ILLUSION unless we have truly done our homework to come home to God in consciousness.  The only thing that is really Truth is what is permanent and unchanging and that is direct union again with God. This universe is the playground of beings who feel separate from God, but always have an Exit Door, the realization that God is within us, known as the Christ Self.

There is one charming belief that when all the names of God have been said, all the stars will darken, and the theater lights will come up and we will awaken from believing in this world. We will then realize that like babies, we have been safe in God's arms all the time.

Have you ever seed the very first original Star Trek episode before Captain Kirk was part of the cast? In this episode, the Enterprise is lured to a world where the aliens can create 3 dimensional fantasies in human minds. There was a human woman living there who they mercifully gave the illusion of youth and beauty, even though she was physically old and deformed from the crash of her space craft. The captain of the Enterprise (who in real life died and was replaced by the famous Captain Kirk) was captured and the aliens hoped he and the woman would breed. So the aliens created illusions for them of wonderful forest scenes where they could ride horses and have picnics in romantic settings. But the stalwart captain would not buy any of it. He figured out what the aliens were doing and said he would not play along.  The aliens decided to punish them both by putting them within an illusion where giant monsters were descending upon them. The captain sat down and said that he refused to play at their game. But here is the crucial point. The woman said frantically to him:  "It does not matter if you KNOW it is an illusion because it will still FEEL REAL. YOU WILL FEEL EVERY INJURY TO YOUR BODY, you will feel great pain and suffering." This was very profound for an old scifi show in the mid 1960's, and reflects the view of both Eastern religion and the Course in Miracles.

To dig deeper into this perspective, God had nothing to do with this manifested universe, absolutely NOTHING! It was created totally by the minds (ego) of man and other entities, asleep to their true nature and in a sense "sleeping while still  in heaven". Unity teaches that God is within us as higher consciousness that can manifest as our consciousness to impact the uinverse. This can make our world a much more peaceful beautiful place. Yet left to the ego and without God's higher consciousness to supercede the ego, the universe can revert to lower and lower forms of violence and horror. This is like a bad dream we are giving ourselves, and we need to wake up and (as Unity says) "acknowledge the appearance but do not give it power".

I have no idea where Unity gets the idea this world is real when all metaphysical and mystical teachings of all times state that this universe is an illusion. Even 20th and 21st century quantum physics agrees with the mystical teachings, not Unity! But even Unity can be wrong at times. I'm not interested in dogma, just a more open consciousness.  We are actually living in a quantum "soup" that we consolidate into a reality with our minds. Our way out of this house-of-mirrors and illusion? To cultivate oneness with God, as Unity advocates and manifest the God self as much as possible in our lives.

Are we spiritual beings having a human dream? Have we dreampt up an expanding universe filled with billions of galaxies? I believe we did and that we sustain it each moment of the day. Of course, we could not do this without the constant inflow of Divine Grace. God is extreme patience, being outside of time and space. So while we little humans think this universe is so impressive, to God it may be like a little soap bubble within his transcendant reality.

Well, that's my personal belief system. We are allowed to disagree with Unity dogma from 100 years ago, and at certain points I do!

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The Bible's Sex Life!

As we all know, the fundamentalist Christians use the Bible as justification for their "family values". But....have any of them actually read what the Bible has to say about sex?

Genesis

1."And Adam knew (had sex with) his wife; and she conceived." This is the first sexual intercourse mentioned in the Bible. Send up the 4th of July Fireworks! From this humble beginning came Hustler and Playboy magazine! Of course it resulted in a baby boy, since baby girls are hardly worth mentioning in the Bible. 4:1
2."And Cain knew his wife." That's nice, but where did she come from? The Bible doesn't mention any of Cain's sisters. Well, maybe he married his mom. In any case, Cain and the mysterious Mrs. Cain (God in drag?) have a son (another blue cigar!). His name is Enoch and he builds a city (population 3). 4:17
3."And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare yet another son." Way to go Adam!4:25
4.The "just and righteous" Noah (6:9, 7:1) plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and lies around naked in his tent. His son, Ham, happens to see his father in this condition. When Noah sobers up and hears "what his young son had done unto him" (what did he do besides look at him – was Ham gay and did he “diddle” with his dad’s manhood?), he curses not Ham, who "saw the nakedness of his father," but Ham's son, Canaan. " That's a sample of God's justice, I guess. A servant of servants shall he [Canaan] be unto his brethren." 9:20-25. What a grouch! Did Noah perhaps have an embarrassing tattoo that he didn’t want Ham to see?
5.Poor Pharaoh couldn't resist the "very fair" Sarai, and he takes her into his harem. (She must have been well preserved, since she was about seventy years old at the time.) 12:15
6.Sarai is the first of a long line of barren women who were desperate for children. (In the Bible, it is the women who are barren, never the men who are “shooting blank bullets”.) She sends Abram into her handmaid, Hagar, so that she can "obtain children by her." Abram gladly complies. 16:1-4
7.God establishes his covenant with Abram: "This is my covenant ... every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin." It seems that penises are supremely important to God. Did God regret creating te foreskin? 17:10-11
8.Lot in the city of Sodom refuses to give up his visiting angels to the horny mob who want to have sex with angels. So Lot offers the mob his two "virgin daughters" instead. He tells the mob to "do unto them [his daughters] as is good in your eyes." This is the same man that is called "just" and "righteous" by God in 2 Pet.2:7-8. 19:8
9.Lot and his ravaged daughters camp out in a cave for a while. Since there are no other studmeisters around, the daughters get their "just and righteous" father drunk, and have sexual intercourse with him, and each conceives and bears a son (wouldn't you know it!). Just another wholesome family values Bible story. 19:30-38
10."The Lord visited Sarah" and he "did unto Sarah as he had spoken." So evidently Mary isn’t the only female God had sex with in the Bible! And "Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son." 21:1-2
11. Abraham makes his servant put his hand under his thigh while swearing to God. Weird. Of course "putting his hand under his thigh" is just a polite euphemism for "holding his testicles in his hand." Come to think of it, maybe it isn't so weird at all -- coming as it does from a God that is completely obsessed with male genitalia. (See Ex.4:25, Lev.15:16-18, 32, and Dt.23:1) for just a few examples.) I guess it's sort of like taking an oath on the bible. Consequently, we could logically deduce that symbolically the Bible = the penis. 24:2, 24:9
12."And the damsel was fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her." (Oh boy!) 24:16
13.Unfortunately the king "looked out a window, and saw, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife." Sporting? Were they playing Croquet? But Isaac grew rich from the lie anyway, just as his father had. 26:8
14.Jacob is tricked by Laban, the father of Rachel and Leah. Jacob asks for Rachel so that he can "go in unto her." (Talk about being graphic!) But Laban gives him Leah instead, and Jacob "went in unto her [Leah]" by mistake. Jacob was fooled until morning -- apparently he didn't know who he was going in unto. He was not satisfied with Leah and complained to the management. Finally they worked things out and Jacob got to "go in unto" Rachel, too. 29:21-30
15."Give me children or else I die." Rachel considers herself worthless if she cannot produce children for her husband. But luckily she has an idea. She says to Jacob, "Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her." She solved the problem the same way as did Sarah (16:2). "And Jacob went in unto her. And Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a son." (These arrangements never seem to produce daughters.) 30:1-4
16.Rachel trades her husband's favors for some mandrakes (a type of plant). And so, when Jacob came home, Leah said: "Thou must come in unto me, for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night." Presumably God, by telling us this edifying story, is teaching us something about sexual ethics. 30:15-16
17.Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, is "defiled" by a man who seems to love her dearly. Her brothers get their revenge by killing all of the men of the town (after first having them all circumcised), and then take their wives captive as concubines (A woman who cohabits with a man for the man’s sexual pleasure without being legally married to him). 34:1-31
18.."Reuben went and lay with his father's concubine." I wonder why God wants to tell us about it. Maybe he figures that "inquiring minds want to know." 35:22
19."And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite ... and he took her, and went in unto her. And she conceived, and bares a son (obviously!); and she called his name Er. And she conceived again [I guess Judah must have went in unto her again] and bare a son; and she called him Onan." (It seems that the probability of having a biblical daughter is considerably less than 1%.) 38:2-4
20.After God killed Er, Judah tells Onan to "go in unto thy brother's wife." But "Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and ... when he went in unto his brother's wife ... he spilled his semen on the ground.... And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; wherefore God slew him also." This lovely Bible story is seldom read in Sunday School, but it is the basis of many Christian doctrines, including the condemnation of both masturbation and birth control. 38:8-10
21.Tamar (the widow of Er and Onan, who were killed by God) dresses up as a prostitute and Judah (her father-in-law) propositions her, saying: "Let me come in unto thee .... And he ... came in unto her, and she conceived by him." From this incestuous union, twins (38:27-28) were born (both were boys of course). One of these was Pharez -- an ancestor of Jesus (Lk.3:33). 38:13-18
22.After Judah pays Tamar for her services, he is told that she "played the harlot" and "is with child by whoredom." When Judah hears this, he says, "Bring her forth, and let her be burnt." So it is OK by God in the Bible for men to use prostitutes but not OK for a woman to be a prostitute! 38:24
23.Joseph is seduced by Potiphar's wife. He rejects her advances, but she claims he "came in unto" her. She uses his cloak as evidence (evidently Joseph dropped it on her bed when he fled). Joseph is put into prison. 39:7-18
24.God promised to bring Jacob safely back from Egypt (Gen.46:3-4), but God doesn't keep his promise and Jacob dies in Egypt. 49:27
25.Jacob says that Reuben will "not excel" because he "went up to [his] father's couch [had sex with his father's wife]." (see Gen.35:22) 49:4

Exodus

26.God decides to kill Moses because his son had not yet been circumcised. Luckily for Moses, his Egyptian wife Zipporah "took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. So he [God] let him go." This story shows the importance of penises to God, and his hatred of foreskins (which he supposedly designed, since he created the human form). 4:24
27.Moses, like a coach giving instructions to the team before the big game, tells the men to "come not at your wives" before he goes up to Mt. Sinai. However, he didn't mention whether the team waterboy was off limits.  19:15
28.God tells the priests not to go up the steps to the altar "that thy nakedness not be discovered thereon." (Skirts on stairs are such a problem.) 20:26
29."Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death." Is it really necessary to kill such people? Couldn't we just send them to counseling or something? 22:19
30.Aaron makes a golden calf and tells the people to take off their clothes and dance around naked. God then punishes them mercilessly for following their divinely appointed religious leader. 32:1-35
31."Their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods." God always blames the women; it is they who "go a whoring" and then "make" the men "go a whoring." 34:16

Leviticus

32.Long, tiresome, and disgusting instructions regarding the treatment of men who have a "running issue" out of their "flesh." Very enlightening to know that God is so interested in the treatment of venereal disease.  A pity He didn't offer a cure  to leprosy (one of God's favorite punishments in the Bible)  15:2-15
33.This passage tells you what to do if you get your "seed of copulation" on yourself, your clothes, or your partner. Thank God this is in the Bible. Of course, they didn’t have stain removers in those days. 15:16-18, 32
34.Don't "uncover the nakedness" of any of your relatives or neighbors. Just ask them to keep their clothes on while you are around. 18:6-18, 20
35."Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is apart for her uncleanness," Don't even look at a menstruating woman. 18:19
36.Don't "lie with any beast." You probably weren't planning on doing this, but now you know it is wrong just in case you get the urge sometime. However, I do cuddle sometimes with my golden retriever. No lightning strikes yet! 18:23
37.Don't "go a whoring" after Molech (a competing God in the ancient world who enjoyed child sacrifices) or "commit adultery with him." (Don't you love it when God talks dirty? How do you have adultery with a make-believe god? Well, the human imagination can work wonders....) 20:5
38.Stay away from people with familiar spirits and don't "go a whoring" after them either. 20:6
39.If you "lie" with your wife and your mother-in-law (now that sounds fun!), then all three of you must be burned to death. 20:14
40.If a man or woman "lie with a beast" both the person and the poor animal are to be killed. I feel sorry for all the gerbils that were probably slain because of this verse. 20:15
41.Don't have sex with your sister, uncle's wife, or your brother's wife -- and tell them to wear clothes whenever you're around. 20:17, 19-21
42."Neither shall he [the priest] profane his seed among his people." (His seed is holy like the Pope’s seed.) So, in other words, the priesthood should keep the spilling of their seed within the Priesthood, a verse that seems to have inspired the Catholic Priesthood! 21:15
43.A man with damaged testicles must not "come nigh to offer the bread of his God." Once again, God is obsessed about the proper state of male genitalia. 21:20
44.A man who has a "running issue" or "whose seed goeth from him" ... "shall not eat of the holy things, until he be clean." 22:3-5

Numbers

45.Moses tells his men to kill all the males and non-virgin women (how did they know, did they bring along a doctor to perform vaginal examinations?), but to keep all the virgins alive for themselves. Num.31:14-18
46."Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart." How poetic. Dt.10:16
47.If you see a pretty woman among the captives then just take her home and "go in unto her." Dt.21:11-14
48.Adulterers are to be killed. Yet, it is getting hard to differentiate exactly what adultery is in this ancient world. Dt.22:2
49.Kill rape victims if they fail to cry out loud enough. Dt.22:23-34
50.A rapist must buy his victim from her father for 50 shekels. Dt.22:28-29
51.Don't discover your father's skirt (reference to his penis). Dt.23:20
52.You can't go to church if your testicles are damaged or your penis has been cut off. Dt.23:1
53.You must cut off a woman's hand if she touches the "secrets" of a man who is fighting with her husband. "And thine eye shall not pity her." Let me get this straight. If your husband is having a fight with the neighbor over trimming the hedge, and you give the neighbor's penis a squeeze (a likely event?), then it is death for you. Dt.25:11-12
54."Have they not divided the prey, to every man a damsel or two?" Jg.5:30
55.Samson goes in unto a harlot. He is also praised as one of God’s favorites. Jg.16:1
56.The Levite and his concubine. Jg.19:22-30
57.Naomi encourages Ruth to spend the night with Boaz. Ru.3:3-4
58.Ruth lies down next to Boaz after "uncovering his feet." (another of those euphemisms for hanky panky) Ru.3:7
59.Ruth tells Boaz to spread his skirt over her (hanky panky). Ru.3:9
60.Ruth lies at "his feet" until morning. Ru.3:14
61.Boaz "goes in unto" Ruth and she conceives a son (King David's grandfather). Ru.4:13
62.David buys a wife with 200 Philistine foreskins (twice the asking price). They used foreskins as money? How lovely. Maybe they made a good tasting broth when boiled for 3 hours? 1 Sam.18:25-27
63.David tells Jonathan that he has given him pleasures more than that possible of woman. This is often quoted by gay rights advocates to illustrate the hypocrisy of the Bible and Christianity, since David is obviously very much romantically  in love with Jonathan.2 Sam.1:26
64."And David took him more concubines and wives." It is good to be King! 2 Sam.5:13
65.David dances nearly naked in front of God and everybody. Hmmm….sounds like an average night at the Charlie Sheen mansion. 2 Sam.6:20
66.David watches a women bathe, likes what he sees, and "goes in unto her." The Bible does not say whether he at least allowed her to get out of the bathtub and dry off first. 2 Sam.11:2-4
67.God says he will give David's wives to someone else who will "lie with thy wives in the sight of the sun." 2 Sam.12:11-12
68.God kills David's son to punish David for having sex with David’s countless wives. 2 Sam.12:15, 18
69.Ammon rapes his half-sister. 2 Sam.13:11
70.Absalom "goes in unto" his father's [David's] concubines. 2 Sam.16:21-22
71.Old King David tries to get some heat by having a beautiful virgin minister unto him. I assume she brought the lubricant? 1 Kg.1:1-4
72.Queen Vashti (the real heroine of the Book of Esther) refuses to display herself in front of the king's drunken guests. This seems sensible to me, but she probably angered God by her modesty since women were made to pleasure men. Est.1:7-12
73."All the fair young virgins" throughout the kingdom are brought before the king and the one that "pleaseth" him the most will replace Queen Vashti. See, I told you. Queen Vashti is stripped of her crown, if not all her clothes. Est.2:2-4
74.Esther wins the “Hottest Babe in the Land” contest. Est.2:8-9
75."Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times." Pr.5:19
76."Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning." Pr.7:18
77."The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly." Pr.20:27
78."Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. SofS.1:2
79."He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts." SofS.1:13
80."His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. I charge you ... that he stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please." SofS.2:6, 8:3
81.Our heroine takes her lover into her mother's bedroom and asks not to be disturbed "till he please." This is the first Biblical reference to the hotel “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on the door knob. SofS.3:4-5
82."Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins." SofS.4:5, 7:3
83."My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him." I don’t even want to think about this. Did he sodomize her with his hand? That would certainly move my bowels! SofS.5:4
84."The joints of thy thighs are like jewels." SofS.7:1
85."Thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine." SofS.7:8
86."We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts ... But my breasts [are] like towers." SofS.8:8, 10
87."The Lord will discover their secret parts." Why is God sniffing around people’s genitals? Is he a dirty old God? Is.3:17
88.God will shave men's "hair of the feet." ("Feet" and "hair" are biblical euphemisms for male sexual organs and pubic hair, respectively.) Is.7:20
89."Tremble, ye women that are at ease ... strip you, and make you bare." Yeah, bring on the naked dancing girls!  Is.32:11
90.Committing adultery with stones and stocks. Jer.3:9
91.Circumcise the foreskin of your heart or God will burn you to death. Jer.4:2
92."As fed horses in the morning: everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife." Was this the inspiration for the 60’s sitcom MR ED? Jer.5:8
93.Jerusalem is compared to a naked woman who sighs and turns backward. "Her filthiness is in her skirts." Lam.1:8-9
94.The adversary puts his hand upon "all her pleasant things." Lam.1:10
95.Big penises. Ezek.16:26
96.Really big penises. Ezek.23:20
97.A tale of two sisters and the traveling salesman. Ezek.23:1-46
98.God makes "all their loins to be at a stand" and then cuts them off. Ezek.29:7-8
99.God tells Hosea to "take ... a wife of whoredoms." Hos.1:2-3
100.God talks about whoredoms, adulteries between breasts. He plans to strip a woman naked as the day she was born and to discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers. When people engage in sex, it is always the woman’s fault.  Hos.2:2-3, 2:10
101.God tells Hosea to "love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress." Hos.3:1
102.If you misbehave, God will make your daughters "commit whoredom" and your wife "commit adultery." Hos.4:13
103."They have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink." So these favored men of God sold a boy and girl into a life time of slavery for a good time one night? Jl.3:3
104."A man and his father will go in unto the same maid." Is this Biblical Father-Son Quality Time together? Did they take turns or go into her together? Am.2:7 Nahum
105.God will "discover thy skirts upon thy face, ... show the nations thy nakedness" and "will cast abominable filth upon thee." Yeah, we all know that your Biblical Old Testament God is a psychopath with an obsession about other peoples’ sex lives. Let the old fart rant and rave. 3:4-6

Matthew

106.Jesus recommends that to avoid sin we cut off our hands and pluck out our eyes. This advice is given immediately after he says that anyone who looks with lust at any women commits adultery. Thanks, Jesus, for making a sin of the most natural of reactions, i.e., erotic feelings. Mt.5:29
107.Jesus says that married people cannot go to heaven. Remember: Jesus hung out with 12 men his entire adult life, which is just not done if you are a Rabbi. Lk.20:35
108.God abandons those who don't know him to "uncleanness and vile affections." Hmmm....a pity there isn't more detail about those "vile affections", e.g., loving women as equals to men, for example? Rom.1:24-26
109.With his usual intolerance, Paul condemns homosexuals. Modern scholars like Bishop Spong have suggested that Paul was gay (he whines to God about an affliction that is hard to resist), and projected this out upon everyone else instead of just dealing with it. Paul, GAY IS GOOD! Rom.1:24-26
110.Paul explains that "the natural use" of women is to act as sexual objects for the pleasure of men. Rom.1:27
111.Paul lists ten things that will keep you out of heaven, including homosexuality and being "effeminate." There are no sissy men in heaven. Rom.6:9-12
112.Homosexuals (those "that defile themselves with mankind") are included in Paul's list of lawless, disobedient, unholy, and profane people. 1 Tim.1:10
113.Only 144,000 celibate men will be saved. Those who were not "defiled with women." In other words, the saved have not had sex with women. Paul, get your act together. In the 21^st century, he would definitely be seeing a psychiatrist. Was the guy bi-polar or just a flaming hypocrite?  Rev.14:3-4
114. The great harlot is described as being "full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication." Was this Rome? Throughout history the great harlot has been whatever the priesthood found most politically convenient.

Remember all this drivel the next time you see some TV evangelist thumping or humping his Bible.

TWILIGHT FRANCHISE LOCKS LOGIC IN THE CLOSET

I just watched TWILIGHT and TWILIGHT-MOON because we are getting a free SHOWTIME weekend. I am so confused by some of the basic tenets of these 2 movies. Can someone help me?

First of all Bella, the female lead, is a mere senior in high school, and not very impressive to me.  We are supposed to accept that this handsome vampire boy and his competitor stud muffin wolf boy are both madly in love with her.  I just do not get it.  Is she particularly pretty? NO. Does she have a deep  personality? Not in my opinion. Does she show intelligence? Seldom. Does she ever even smile? More rarely than snow in Phoenix.

As I understand it, vampire boy is over 100 years old. So although his body may be very youthful, he has had more time on earth than most of us will ever have (in 1 life) to emotionally mature. Yet, he still has the hots for a little high school chicky pooh? The oldest person I know is my dad. He is 98 years old, and if he had the hots for a high school chickadee I would talk to his doctor about a change in medications! Yet this vampire boy (who I understand only eats road kill because he is environmentally sensitive?) is in love with this little pom pom girl with her perpetual frown.

Of course, the same argument goes for wolf boy. And all I can say upfront about wolf boy is WOOF! He has a beautiful physique, and a lovely soul, yet Bella prefers a guy that makes normal human albinos seem tanned in comparison. Now, as a gay guy, I can see the male beauty of the actor selected to play wolf boy. The movie certainly rewards all the teen girls’ deepest lusts by showing him wearing very little most of the time. He has a classic pretty high school jock face. Put a varsity jacket on wolf boy, and he would be the classic high school girl’s dream cum true boyfriend. But Bella prefers the walking dead guy who also has a perpetual frown. When I look at his hair, I feel like yelling "surfs up" because it always looks like an ocean wave about to crest. If he had head lice, they'd all be on little surf boards!

The other foundation tenet I do not understand is, why are 100+ year old vampires going to high school? Haven’t they had a lot of years to learn how useless algebra, chemistry and geology are in normal vampire life? Imagine it. You are 109 years old but full of the vitality of a youth of 20. You have supernatural powers. You also seem to have lots of money. So what do you do to pass the time? You enroll in a rural high school. Uh, huh…..sure, makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? This would be like Paris Hilton deciding to spend her life studying how to be a maid. You would think the author would find some logical reason for vampires to act so dull,  such as claiming it is a vampire initiated effort to improve public education. Or perhaps this family of vampires lost a bet and is being forced to attend high school in punishment.

The other foundation tenet is that everyone human accepts the vampires as being human. Let’s see: they are whiter than snow, they have eyes that change color from BLACK to brown to GOLD, their skin glistens in the sun, and they can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Human? There must be something in the water supply of this little town that is blurring everyone's vision.

So to sum up, the latest film franchise has the following tenets:

1.      Supernatural studs naturally fall madly in love with this dull dreary girl named Bella, a mere high school student who could use a powerful anti-depressant and therapist.

2.      Bella naturally falls for a guy who looks like he’s been in a freezer 100 years and is covered in freezer burn rather than the ultra hunky tanned warm blooded wolf boy.

3.      Teen vampires, even though they are hundreds of years old, naturally attend the local public high school to learn how to conjugate verbs and disect frogs.   

4.      Humans in the town naturally mind their own business and see nothing unusual about snow white people with glowing golden eyes and magical powers.

I understand that later in the franchise vampire boy and Bella have a baby? I thought vampires were supposed to be like the walking dead and did not have sex. I thought they were ice cold. Ladies, how would you like something icy cold “doing the deed” with you? This would be like having a popcycle thrust.....well, you get my drift.

I understand that eventually Bella gets her wish to lose her soul and become a vampire girl. I wonder if she is then able to shop at Saks - Transylvania branch. I understand that Bella and vampire boy  settle down and raise some little blood suckers. How sweet! This sure is the stuff of every teen girl’s healthy sexual fantasies, eh?

Oh, well, it’s just a movie franchise, and I am finding some of it rather predictable. Since girls like to be the center of attention (which is my theory why they bellow so loudly in packs at the Arrowhead Mall), I bet there has to be a battle over Bella (gag) eventually. Yeah, (sigh) beautiful wolf boy and anemic vampire boy will probably fight over Bell as if she is a piece of prime fillet.  And she will watch it all with the same pasted-on sad look she carries through out all the movies.

 Boys, she isn’t worth it.

I wonder if vampires and wolfmen have dating agencies, like vampire Match.com?

A Typical Retirement Friday for Will Christie

Today is Friday, which is a big deal to YOU poor working class slobs. We retired folk live adventurous lives of freedom every day. I thought I would attempt a stream of consciousness download of my typical retirement Friday. That way you poor working class slobs can see what you are working towards when your job is outsourced to India (as mine was in 2004).

Let’s see, the day started out with me giving my customary greeting and snuggles to my dog Chandler, who awaits my appearance outside the bedroom door. I’d let him sleep with me, but he takes all the covers. When I complain, he reminds me that he has huge fangs.

In my jockey shorts (the rest of me may be feeling the pull of gravity but my butt is still tight enough to crack a walnut) I sat at the PC reading FACEBOOK.  I had sent out a shocking private piece of gossip to one “Friend” and was awaiting a response. I got my payoff later in the day when the person responded “I’m shocked”). 

Chaos ensued around 10 a.m. when I suddenly realized that the bug spray man was coming today. The house must be spotless before he arrives.  I don’t mind if he finds rats taking a bubble bath in the kitchen sink, but perish the thought that there is dust on the tables or fur balls from my dog rolling across the tiles. So I and my jockey shorts scrubbed the floors (with my dog trying to smell parts of my anatomy that are better left unsniffed).

Then I attempted to go to the Temple of Prosperity (Wells Fargo Bank) to get some old fashioned paper money for a haircut, but the path was blocked by my doubts (in Unity terms). Actually, putting all the Unity metaphor shtick aside, there was literally a big hole in the street gushing gas or water (hard to tell since they both smell the same in Anthem). Evidently, in building a new Mormon “Ward” center in Anthem the righteous workers in yellow vests had smashed into the existing pipes and turned Main Street into a postmodern art fountain.  Hundreds of people stood around and applauded. People in Anthem are easily entertained. Give them each a flashlight and they will stand motionless for hours just flashing the light into the sky, waiting for the Rapture.

So I sat in my car for about an hour listening to Valerie Crabtree on CD annoyingly promote herself on her UNITY FM program for the first 10 minutes of the show, then finally offer some  spiritual instruction for a successful life. 1. Constructive Thought 2. Faith in God 3. Listen for Guidance 4. Act on Guidance 5. Thank God. 6. Repeat until it works.

Upon returning home, a friend called who wanted to download the last 3 months of her psycho analysis. When the conversation shifted from having a hot toddy (my contribution to the call) to inadequate potty training (the caller’s obsession) I suggested that she fax me the doctor’s notes instead. I hated to sound callous, but the bug spray man always calls before he arrives, and so I must leave the line clear.

I actually read some of Emilie Cady’s views on DENIALS for the class I am taking next Tuesday at Unity. Emilie tells us how to deny any power to “appearances”. For example, if you are up to your neck in alligators, you don’t deny the presence of the alligators, but Auntie Em says you should deny any POWER to the alligators (even as your fingers float by, followed by your arms, etc.).  Auntie Em says we can ignore appearances because we are each an eternal manifestation of God, even if that manifestation has been chewed down to a stump by powerless alligators. There’s a picture of Emilie Cady in the book, and she resembles Granny Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies. Could it be? She also resembles Barnie Fife in drag – remember the episode of ANDY GRIFFITH where he got in drag as a little old lady in order to place bets with a bookie working out of Floyd’s barber shop?

I got a personal invitation to attend an all-night gay dance party at a huge gay dance palace (5 floors, 40,000 square feet) in West Hollywood, where 2 top gay models would appear to arouse the jaded crowd of LA boys. For those straight people who don’t know, gay top models are extremely handsome and have more muscles than a statue in the Vatican of Hercules. Yes, this ridiculously misplaced invitation took me momentarily into memories of the rather shallow land of youth, steroid induced muscles, and the most handsome young men on the planet, dancing with each in dry ice clouds until the roaster crows!

I suspect there is a 20 year old Will Christie who is wondering what happened to his invitation in the Phoenix area. The days of taking my shirt off and dancing into dawn with hundreds of my “tribe” are over for little old me. I could make a charitable contribution to send 1 gay teenager to the nearest gym to pump iron (which is the only way he will get his invitation to join the so-called White Party Circuit), but I decided to cut back on such urgent causes this year.

Speaking of the gay world, I was also offered the opportunity to spend $19.95 for a calendar featuring erotic poses by Rodiney Santiago (he has a FACEBOOK Page so check it out) a top gay model. Each calendar came with a written guarantee that the model sat on the calendar with his naked butt before it was sent out. Great! I can imagine ordering such a calendar and then upon receipt needing to spray it with Lysol.  You can’t be too careful these days. If a man has a furry butt, I’m concerned about lice!

Then another friend called and told me he had piles. I asked him why he needed to share this information and his response was “When I heard I had piles, I immediately thought of you”. He insisted this was a compliment because he claims I smell like Preparation H on a hot day. I defended myself, telling him that it was just my natural masculine musk scent!

Then I began to channel my inner evil Queen of Hearts. I sat at the PC yelling “OFF WITH THEIR HEADS” while deleting a few FACEBOOK friends who have not lived up to expectations, e.g., no messages of slobbering adoration, no dedications to me in their soon-to-be published books, and no one to tell me that I’ve got this spirituality thing down pat and should move on to napping 20 hours a day. Actually, when I first began my FACEBOOK page, some of the people I removed insisted on filling up the news page with hundreds of pictures of their newly born baby, each picture looking exactly the same (like a ripe melon with Mr. Potato eyes and lips). If you are going to inflict hundreds of pictures of your baby on FACEBOOK, at least change the pose, have him balanced on his head, put him in the dog's mouth or dress him up as an alligator.

Finally 4 p.m. arrived, the time the 3 reruns of GHOST WHISPERER are on TV. At that time, a hush descends upon the house. Chandler my dog curls up at my feet with a big sigh, and for 3 hours I watch to see who is going to be sent into the light by a pretty girl who wears a lot of low cut blouses that show mucho Grande cleavage and her handsome stud of a husband, whose major role on the show is to take his shirt off and kiss the pretty girl every ten minutes. He’s every girl and gay guy’s dream of the perfect husband, a really hot looking guy who just takes his shirt off and kisses you every 10 minutes.

Soon I must retreat to bed. I don’t like going to bed, any more than little kids do. I have such weird dreams. Last night I dreamed I looked in a mirror and was Carrot Top, the comedian and magician. I woke up clutching my Howard the Duck doll in fear of what my therapist would make of this.

So there ends a typical Friday. Was it worth a blog post? Do you still want to retire? 

Note: On a serious note, I've made the best of my retirement by being a Unity Chaplain for 4 years and a Hospice of the Valley worker for 3 years. Due to illness in 2010, I had to drop both service functions. My goal is to find new ways to serve in 2011 that won't disrupt my GHOST WHISPERER watching schedule (unless someone buys me the series? Any wealthy philanthropists out there?)

Love, Will

So Much To Read, So Little Time, So Little WillPower

When I was a young, I could read a book a day. I’d often sit on the lawn of a pillared mansion that then served as a regional library, or I’d curl up in a chair on the roof overlooking the distant high-rises of downtown San Francisco. I loved reading about magic, architectural design and self-help books titled HOW TO BECOME PERFECT BY READING THIS BOOK.

But now I never seem to have time to read. I have a home library with about 500 books, most of them on metaphysical/spiritual topics. They sure look pretty and give me great comfort just awaiting my attention like colorful little toy blocks on the shelves. In some cases, I’ve insulted them by putting framed pictures in front of them, along with little Winnie the Pooh figurines. I also have a 12 inch size copy of the robot from the original LOST IN SPACE TV show. When I get close to selecting a book, he shouts “Warning, Will Robinson. That does not compute!” Then I get side tracked by my 50 year old collection of plastic Roman Soldiers and my dinosaur statuettes. My subconscious mind seems to be keeping me away from my books by turning my bookcase into a carnival wall of cheap prizes. If you have a choice between reading THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND (Julian Jaynes) or playing with Roman Soldiers, which would you do?

Is this the only reason I have trouble reading? I could blame it on my hectic life since I retired! I have a golden retriever who constantly needs to be talked to, petted, fed, played with, let outside, brushed, and walked. This is just the beginning of my retirement duties. I have to prepare my own breakfast! I have to put on my own pants and remember that the zipper goes in the front!

I have to breath! Now someone might say that breathing takes care of itself, but not when you are a Unity Truth student.  Then you consciously take deep breaths in through the nose, and then slowly release them through the mouth to calm yourself. This is a great practice if you feel anxious, as I do when I must decide whether I want chunky or plain peanut butter toast. Unfortunately, my conscious breathing usually upsets my dog and he barks (he thinks he is a paramedic), so then I have to reassure him that I am not having a strange fit.

I have to check FACEBOOK and see if anyone has written to me. What joy when someone takes the time to write to sweet little me. I feel like an old nanny hoping to receive a card on Valentine’s Day from her now grown up charges, or at least a lewd note from the little old man who gooses her in the park (Do nannies secretly wear underwear with the zipper in the back?). 

OK, I do make an effort to read books that are good for me, but after about 10 minutes, I suddenly shudder and realize that I’ve been napping for an hour with a spiritual book on my lap. Staying awake, even when reading the latest Unity book on Bliss, Oneness and Gratitude….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Forgive me, there I go again into the stillness and silence that others might call sleep.

I truly want to be a Truth student and read all this enlightened wisdom in a linear fashion, with my eyes moving from left to right, row after tedious row.  But my subconscious tells me that reading about Bliss, Oneness and Gratitude is so powerful and I am already so “deep” that I fall into a heavenly trance where my snores are equivalent to speaking in tongues.  

One time while enjoying the Stillness with God, I found myself walking down a Beverly Hills street naked. The cops came and were going to arrest me, but Brad Pitt appeared. He told the police that I was his special friend. He just happened to be carrying a soft white bathrobe, so I put this on and became respectable again by Lindsey Lohan standards. We drove around LA in his black SUV enjoying the toxins in the air together. He even put his hand on my knee! Yet, then I opened my eyes and I was in my home library again. Thinking of the recent movie INCEPTION about many levels of dreams that can become quite complicated, which is real, my library or my ride with Brad in his black SUV? Are Bliss, Oneness and Gratitude manifested by hanging out with Brad Pitt? DOes my angel manifest as Brad Pitt? Hmmm…..could be. But I know the real Brad Pitt is fickle (per PEOPLE magazine) and would eventually dump me and return to Jolie or Jennifer.

Taking an amateur philosophical approach, could I just be spoiled? I am being bombarded every day by so many new methods of communication. These are often little devices with dazzling colored lights, noises, voices, music, and a sense of interaction – I get to press a button once in a while! WOW! This somehow seems much  more exciting than turning the page of a book. Books just seem dull. They just lay there in your lap. Is that why Amazon.com is selling Kindle? Amazon takes a mundane paper book and puts it inside a little electronic box, and ABRACADABRA, the written material becomes interesting again. But isn’t that rather silly?

What better medium for providing information is there than a book? If it’s a paperback you can fold it and stick it in your back pocket or purse, you can write in it, highlight passages.  Please be prudent: as Unity Lending Library Meister I’ve seen books where the reader went berserk and highlighted in yellow every single word in the book. You can drop it in a mud puddle, and it still works, unlike Kindle.

So getting back to basics, how do I bypass a subconscious mind that doesn’t seem to want me to read about spiritual truth and would rather have me dream about being Brad Pitt’s special bro? Do I read while sitting in a bathtub full of ice cubes? Do I read standing up? (Not sure that would work – I think I’ve learned to sleep standing up). Do I put on music I loathe like rap or heavy metal? Maybe that would side track the subconscious and I could get some reading done. Should I clip clothes pins on my body? (Hmmm....turning book reading into an S&M experience? Maybe I should suggest that on certain websites). Maybe I could offer myself rewards, e.g., if I read a book from cover to cover, I get to buy myself yet another book! Hmmm….something doesn’t seem quite right about that concept of a reward. Maybe a chocolate chip cookie would be better.

Right now I am reading ASK YOURSELF THIS (Wendy Craig-Purcell), HEART CENTERED METAPHYSICS (Hasselbeck), JESUS 2.1 (Thomas Shepherd), ANGELS IN MY HAIR (Lorna Byrne), WHORES OF LOST ATLANTIS (Charles Busch), PUTTING ON THE MIND OF CHRIST (Marion). And THE MINDFULNESS CODE (Altman). If I take a Unity class on Emile Cady later this month, I’ll have to prepare by rereading her complete works.

I probably just need personal responsibility and discipline. I can tell myself that I do not get to watch the GHOST WHISPERER rerun on ION cable TV unless I’ve read a chapter in each book.  Where there is a Will there is a way, right?

Will's Traitorous Celebration of New Year's Day

Eckhart Tolle wants us to “be here now”. But there are times I find it more peaceful NOT to be here now, e.g., when the New Year’s Day Rose Bowl Parade brought to you by Honda is on TV. I remember watching the parade as a little boy on TV (yes, Virginia, they had TV back when I was a mere mite). When I was a child, the parade was quite exciting, even in black & white, since everything was made of flowers. What was there for a little gay boy not to like?

But do I really want to be here now with the 2011 parade? Let’s take a short peak into Nowness. Hmmm. There is a high school marching band from Lynchum, Mississippi playing “When the Saints Come Marching In”. How original - nothing from the Rocky Horror Show? I take a moment to use my Spiderman vision to look into their sweet young eyes, and I see terror. I empathize with these dear Southern sisters and brothers. They came from Lychum, Mississippi to Los Angeles in just a few hours by flight! They are in cultural shock.

How can there be a town like LA in the greatest nation on Earth without a Southern Baptist Church on each corner? And why do all y’all talk so funny? There’s something slightly non-Christian about the California accent (did you know that California is where most porn is made?).  On each side of the band I see adult keepers, ready to reign in the righteous kids if they lose control. It would be so easy for one of the Lynchum trumpeters to freak out and summon the archangel Michael to help rapture their butts out of Sodom & Gomorrah. I shift my clairaudience to focus on the cute young lady twirling a baton. Her eyes fall upon the address 666 Colorado Blvd. “Oh Lordy, protect us as we pass by the devil’s house” (Actually, it’s the Southern California corporate address for everything on late night TV that sells for $19.95).

See where “now” can take you? If you have great psychic powers like me (or just a wild imagination and the power of projection), "now" can be quite scary. So I turn off the TV.

I feel social  guilt arising from my conscience. How dare I not watch the parade? Have I no ethics left? Surely I will be watching the football game (which football game? ANY football game) this afternoon, right? Well, no. You see, I just don’t enjoy watching guys who look like they were turned down for the movie TRON for being overweight. They are so padded that they look more like Power Rangers than athletes.

I like to see a bit of thigh when I watch sports, so I am a big soccer fan, like just about the entire rest of the world except the USA. I love watching those handsome guys running around in their tiny tight shorts, kicking the little ball around with their muscular hairy legs. It is just so cute. You can actually see the guys’ flushed faces and their hair flying through the air.

But I am not a total traitor to my culture. No!  Chandler my golden retriever has a glow-in-the-dark football that squeaks when he bites down on it. Chandler and I celebrated New Year’s Day in the backyard. I’d throw a pass, and Chandler would catch and run with it while I tried to tackle him. Neither of us wore helmets or padding, but we had a lot of fun until we had every dog within a half mile barking at the noise made by the football.

Oh, yeah…..isn’t New Year’s Day also the day when red blooded American guys drink a lot of beer in front of the TV as they root for their favorite tribe?  Well, I am a spoilsport here also because I cannot drink alcohol due to some medications I take. But I fulfilled my duty as an American man in the culinary snack department. I gorged myself on bottled water with a hint of grape flavoring, and ate some air puffed potato chips (these are the latest rage, but the way).   

As night falls, I am back at my new Christmas HP PC. Beneath the screen is a little chrome frog that Chaplain Barbara (some of you will remember her) gave me. She told me years ago that the little statuette stood for God. I responded “God is a frog?” “No, you imbecile! F=Fully R=Rely O=On G=God”. “Ah, I see.” I haven’t seen dear Barbara in years (she is quite elderly and can no longer travel to Unity Phoenix), but her frog gift reminds me of spiritual truth every time I sit in front of the PC.

While performing the rituals of the first day of the year might be fun or provide some deeper sense of continuity with life (i.e., my grandma and mom watched the Rose Bowl Parade, and now the crown – made of pansies - has been passed to me), you can sneak in deeperness (no, that isn’t a real word but it’s my blog and I’ll make up words if I want to). Perhaps during the silence (between beer commercials) you might whisper “Fully Rely on God. “This became a life preserver for me in 2010, when I suffered a serious downturn in health in June that made me feel that I was being sucked down into a vortex.

My illness brought home the truth that I must rely totally on God to guide my next baby step or mighty leap (you never know with God). I’ve learned that at any time I can take deep breaths in through my nose and slowly let them out through my mouth. So soothing and relaxing – no yoga training required and you don’t have to like sitar music. By the way, the yoga show on Unity FM drives me crazy with the sitar music in the background. “SHUT IT OFF, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!”

I close the eyes – it is so comforting, I think constructive thoughts, I have faith that I am part of a great gestalt called “All That Is”, and then I listen. I test what might be a message from a higher source against my sense of logic and intuition. If it asks me to put on a Ronald McDonald’s costume and leap from a tall building, I toss it away. If it asks me to take the medication the doctor suggested and then do my best to serve others, I do it.

And now I’ll share my ultimate secret weapon. I give thanks. Giving thanks is the best practice for “Now”. And if you do not want to be here “now” (e.g., if you are having a root canal), give thanks for “then” (past/future).  While you are at it, give thanks for that inspiring rendition of “When the Saints Come Marching In” and give all your love to the boys and girls from Lynchum, Mississippi.

Growing Older With Mr. Whipple, Mr. Ed, Mrs. Olsen and the Green Hornet

A dear friend of mine named Geneva just turned 80 years old. She has more vitality, vim and vigor than most of the people who drive the trucks at monster truck rallies. She considers me (at 58) young. This is one of the delights of hanging out with folks who are older than you – it is all a perspective.

When I turned 40, my beloved life partner Wes snuck into my AT&T office and decorated it with balloons and banners with the number 40 appearing endlessly. At that time, 40 seemed to mark a demarcation between pretending to still be young and having to admit to middle age. Everyone who worked with and for me was still in their early 30’s. Computer careers are often like that – it truly is a career of youth due to the constantly changing technology. I spent years using the computer language COBOL and that is now equivalent to admitting that you spent years as an elevator operator at a department store downtown that went bankrupt.  Anyway, the idea of letting others in my Logan’s Run group know that I had reached the time to be zapped was terrifying. So I ripped down all the decorations frantically. Like Jack Benny (does anyone still alive remember him? Oh, dear, I am showing my age yet again) I wanted to stay 39 forever.

Geneva gave me the wonderful affirmation: “My mind and body are light as a feather”. In just those few words, she captured affirmatively what many of us Boomer Generation folk (like the aging members of the BRADY BUNCH)  fear most: the mental and physical “heaviness” that can be associated with growing older.  What is associated with youth? A body and mind that responds quickly and lightly to your commands with no back talk (grunts as I get out of a soft chair, strange gurgling sounds in the tummy after eating something spicy like oatmeal).

Now, how many times have you ever wished to reach out and have someone compassionately listen to your fears about aging, only to have the person flash you their most manic Unity smile and glibly say “You are only as old as you feel”. Well, such a response gives me the momentary desire to dip that person in a vat of tar and use them to repair a hole in the roof.

Certainly our attitude is extremely important, but so far no one’s attitude has kept them 25 indefinitely, except for inspiring role models like Cher. I believe she was my age when she wore a full body see-through stocking and sang in front of a huge Navy ship of horny sailors. At least 90% were probably at least amused (if not aroused by this woman old enough to be their grandmother), while the statistically present gay 10% of the sailors SECRETLY lip-synced the song with her.

But if I were to don a full body see-through stocking, I would look like the Grinch that Stole Christmas. All 100% of the Navy Sailors would rush over to me and cover me in a burlap bag! Then I would probably awaken in a spotlessly clean clinic testing booth, being asked to put the square pegs in the square holes and to submit to MRI brain scans. Consequently, what works for Cher will not work for me.

 I did discover that if I smile all the time, I look younger, so I do my best to smile all the time like one of the Double mint Twins (there I go again, dating myself by the commercials I recall). Nonetheless, none of this gets at the core issue of being afraid of getting older. What is my fear about? I fear having a mind and body that no longer function as they used to in some mythical youthful golden age.  

When I was 25 my mind was sharp, judgmental, competitive at work, obsessed with my looks (which establishes your only line of credit in the gay subculture) and generally worried about something on a moment by moment basis. My body never matched the handsome muscle boys on the covers of gay magazines. I worked my poor body at the gym day after day, but it still remained thin. Finally, an instructor pulled me over and said “Listen kid. You inherited long stringy muscles. The only way you are going to gain bulk is with steroids.” I responded “Aren’t they illegal? Don’t they hurt the liver, and even worse, cause acne?” The instructor had the attitude that gay men should eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we transition. Ironically, he was right, for about this time the AIDS epidemic began. But I refused the steroids and remained what nature basically intended for me to be, a scrawny little guy with gorgeous blue eyes and a nose big enough to house the Van Trapp family.

Why tell you all this? Well, actually I was talking aloud to myself, reminding me that my youth was not so golden after all. And now? I am retired and no longer have to compete for a place in the gay subculture because we are divorced. Men my age are usually relegated to discreet little piano bars. There was a bar like this in San Francisco that I and other golden boys of youth referred to as the GLASS COFFIN, because it had huge glass windows looking in, and all the patrons were in their 50’s or older. In the gay world, that is equivalent to death. The gay subculture is a vicious place, and reflects a lot of internalized shame. However, when you are young and good looking, it can be a lot of fun until the music stops.

So is this how I age gracefully, by going to seedy downtown piano bars during happy hour? Of course not.  And I also will NOT buy a Buick, which seems to be associated with being older (no offense to you wonderful darling Buick drivers out there). If you see someone in a Buick, that person often appears to be in their 70s to 90's. In other words, Buick drivers are often probably the parents of the Boomers because aging Boomers are more likely to buy a sports car or one of those 70 ton home trailers. Remember the old commercials “It’s not your dad’s Buick anymore”. No, it isn’t. He transitioned 10 years ago! Now it’s on the used car lot with a $500 price tag on the window.

Older people are offered many options to pass the time: waving our arms around in pools as an instructor encourages us to do our water aerobics with enthusiasm, riding a golf cart and hitting a little ball with a stick, then chasing it with the cart so you can hit it again, listening to FOX News and ranting about socialized medicine and anything more progressive than apartheid, and folding service bulletins at Unity Church. IF we have money, we can also take cruises to Alaska or travel to Egypt (does anyone besides me remember the song DANCE LIKE AN EGYPTION? No? sigh…..). We can tutor little kids who say we smell funny (I always keep a dog poo in my pocket so I don't disappoint the kids, who have been trained to say whatever pops into their heads....from one extreme of being silent around adults to the other).

Seriously, I know there are tons of wonderful activities and services that older folks can do, and each person has to find the right match. I am amazed at the large number of Boomers who are raising their grandchildren because the children’s parents can’t be bothered because the goddess of meth, alcohol, mental illness or good old fashioned “career comes first” rides the land in a black unmarked 1968 Buick Le Sabre.

For me personally, growing older has been rather fun as I become more and more INVISIBLE.  The older I get, the more often younger gay men look right through me as if I am not even there. This even happens at Unity Church, which is not exactly prime cruising territory. (Or am I just being naive?) Yes, I remember the days when I did that to older men – it was a way of saying “Stay away from me, you dirty old bugger”.  And a good day to you too, boys.  Now I go to busy malls, and most of the customers seem younger than me and part before me without looking at me, as if I am a trash container or a support pillar. Maybe it has nothing to do with age. Perhaps it is because I am about the only person at the mall anymore who does not have tattoes covering the shoulder or arm or legs. Does not having a tattoe make me invisible?

I feel a little guilty. Why am I bothering you with this nonsense when I could bother God instead! As the Source, God must know something about old age, as entire star systems collapse and perhaps our universe has breathed in and out millions of times, contracting to a tiny black spot and then once again exploding into a visible expanding universe.

God, I trust totally that you will guide me to handle aging gracefully. No longer will I wear a Chris Rock black Tee-shirt, and roll into Unity Church on a skateboard (clutching the walls to keep steady) with my hair in dreadlocks. I will no longer wear baggy pants that make it seem as though I took a dump in them. I will not deny the changes of the body (and they can be serious and painful) , but instead will do what I can to befriend my body and mind, knowing that neither of them is ultimately me.

If in time I start rambling about Mr. Whipple and who squeezed the Charmin, or insisting on riding Mr. Ed, or demanding that the Green Hornet be asked to get rid of the Africanized bees, or worrying about  Mrs. Olsen (The Folgers’s coffee lady – “It’s the richest kind”) or telling my care giver “Mother please, I’d rather do it myself”, my inner Self will still be intact, and will be helping me detach from this fantasy world so I can go home to Truth. And then perhaps I get a chance to do the whole damn thing all over again.  Oh, what fun.

Until then, it’s time for my vitamin pill and a little nap before watching Ghost Whisperer reruns. The lead character can see ghosts. She is such a nice girl, and she has no tattoes.