Thoughts on Medicinal Things

I'm recovering from bronchitis, which would never have hit me if I'd paid attention to my gut instincts a lot sooner than I did.

Fighting being sick for a month and a half was so totally not necessary that I'd kick myself in the behinder if I were agile enough to do it.

Me, I did not go to a doctor for a bunch of pharmaceuticals to deal with my bronchitis. I looked to the grandmothers.

A recent on line post by a friend reminded me that there are other areas of our health that are at risk and we need to be paying attention to them as well as to our physical ailments.

When, some years back, I found myself seemingly locked into something I couldn't find my way out of, emotionally speaking, and the steps I'd taken on my own weren't working, I did go see a 'professional'. 

Working as I do in a health care facility, it didn't cross my mind that the professionals I work with all the time would be so absolutely oblivious to signs they're trained to look for and recognize. Granted, it's not in their job description to be alert to the well-being of their colleagues - but I was in dire shape.

Regardless, my first stop was a self-requested visit with our on site 'mental health professional', a ten minute interview consisting of me filling out a brief questionnaire and her immediately reaching for a prescription pad as I was mildly depressed in her estimation. Horrified at the offer of anti-depressant pharmaceuticals based on our few minutes of contact, I declined.

I had already tried a visit with another site-recommended professional when our whole shift team was struggling with what my social worker daughter (she works in an elder-care facility) had informed me was Compassion Fatigue. Now, this guy's clients were largely in the medical field but I had to finally bring up the term, and then define it for him, which may not have been totally appreciated but geez ... my education, training, and experience is largely crisis intervention. I'm not completely ignorant. When I know something is affecting me and my crew and we need help, I'm going to ask for help. Well, at least I did back then. His advice, when we declined pharmaceutical intervention, was a bubble bath in the middle of the afternoon and us listening to a DVD of his voice soothing us to sleep. That was more than enough for me to say, 'No thanks.' It's a little disconcerting to go to someone for help and find out you know more than they do.

Eventually I found myself in such bad shape that I finally did end up going to a 'real' professional. One who ordered blood-work immediately. One who called in a team to address the issues I had brought up as being of concern. One who told me flat out that the St. John's Wort I had added to my arsenal was absolutely no different from me taking Prozac or Zoloft so really, considering what it was doing to my brain I ought to knock it off and start taking my vitamins like a good girl. That's a paraphrase, by the way. He was much kinder. Vitamin D (the absence thereof) was maybe the biggest culprit, and the fact that my age was a factor hormonally speaking, aside from the Compassion Fatigue. 

He gave me DBT from which to choose my weapons on the latter front, and approved my use of Red Clover as a hormone replacement treatment. Together, the D and the Bs of the vitamin arsenal, plus a good daily multi-vitamin, and my Red Clover tea on a regular basis as opposed to being an occasional 'tonic', and the DBT, made magic happen. Within days the effects were dramatic.

I was extremely blessed to have happened into the team I did at that time. The other diagnosis was 'homesickness' believe it or not. To have that validated was an eye-opener for me. The 'cure' being far beyond my grasp, at least I knew what I could do about it if/when I was financially able.

What nobody brought up but which I'm darned sure was a factor in all this, is that I'm INFJ/P personality type. I have a very strong hunch my demand for paper and pen and the subsequent articulated narrative would have been a dead giveaway as to what they were dealing with - and told them how to proceed.

The point of being so transparent about the darkness that haunted me then is to illustrate how much difference there can be among professionals, and that pharmaceuticals may not be right for everyone, nor necessary for everyone.

It also serves as a reminder that 'natural' treatments aren't necessarily innocuous child's play. Where do you think pharmaceuticals spring from?

Yes I did extensive research on St. John's Wort as a result of what that doctor told me - and of course he was absolutely right. It acts the same way in a person's brain as SSRIs. I also deep-checked Red Clover; same results on the hormone front. Vitamin D and the Bs - same thing. I had to discontinue the Red Clover because it re-activated the intrauterine fibroids that gave me such grief, but the rest of my 'prescriptions' minimized the effects of not having it in my arsenal.

There are scads of articles on line about 'natural' treatments. If you're thinking about trying any of them DO YOUR HOMEWORK AHEAD OF TIME.

There's no way I can over-stress that.

Red Clover and Alfalfa both have hormone replacement properties, for example. But one thickens your blood and the other thins it - unless you know which is which, don't mix either with any blood pressure medications. Just to make it easy for you, Alfalfa thickens your blood (lots of vitamin K) so take aspirin 80 along with it; Red Clover thins it so don't go there if you're already taking Coumadin/warfarin.

Do not dick around with any of this stuff without thoroughly researching it for yourself first and I ain't even kidding.

On the other side of the coin are things that aren't likely to do you any harm but only good no matter how you cut it.

Such is the case with the concoction that kicked my recent bout of being sick.

Honey will never hurt you.

Onion, garlic, ginger, lemon, apple cider vinegar ... all perfectly safe although the combination might appall you. Horseradish and cayenne pepper added to the mix might make you want to just stay sick.

It does, however, work. At least it did for me. I did not have to pay out of pocket money I cannot afford for a doctor's visit and expensive pharmaceuticals. A quick inexpensive trip to my local grocery store is all it took. Plus the guts to actually take my medicine, and to continue taking it after that first dose. I don't know what would have been in the medicine a doctor would have prescribed. I do know what was in the medicine I took.

As a matter of fact, ginger is the only ingredient above that I'm not sure grows locally, in gardens at any rate, and there are plenty of apple trees if you want to make your own apple cider vinegar. Well, lemons might have a hard time in our climate ... 

Chamomile is another favorite - soothing and calming without being a sedative, plus it tastes good and grows wild in our area so is free. So do Red Clover and Alfalfa. Can't get better than that. 

When people look down their up-turned noses at my idea of medicine, I'm fine with it. To each his/her own sez I. The pharmaceutical companies aren't in any danger of going belly up because of my choices, and lots of people are happy to keep their businesses going strong, which is presumably good for the economy.

There are many plants out there just growing all over the place that have medicinal properties. If you're interested, go on line and do some searching, then come spring, summer, and fall, do a different kind of searching. You might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

Just BE CAREFUL and don't get all gung-ho without finding out ahead of time what you're getting yourself into.

Ah, lest I forget to clarify what not everyone knows, DBT is Dialectical Behavior Therapy - mindfulness, a plethora of tools/weapons with which to battle daily events that can drive you nuts (like people who get on your nerves, or stressful situations, or having to be nice when you feel like snarling, growing fangs, and detaching somebody's face from the front of their skull - you know, stuff like that). 

My personal favorites are 'pushing away' and 'role reversal'. Those might not be the technical names, but that's how I think of them. 

The first is simply knowing that the 'situation' is not you, and pushing it far enough away with your mind so that you can see for yourself (so to speak) that it does not define you. You can deal with it later, which frees up the internal resources you have to use to get you through now. 

Role reversal is generally speaking just doing the opposite of what you feel like doing. Instead of growing fangs, give a pretty smile with your current teeth. Instead of snarling, sing something nice. Like that. Me, I sing a lot. It might start out being a DBT weapon, but usually ends up actually how I really feel. The power of suggestion maybe. Whatever - it tends to work pretty well and I am rarely aware I'm even doing it. 

DBT has something for everyone and the beauty of it is that you just pick and choose what works for you ... you don't necessarily have to go through a whole great big long process of learning the whole nine yards. It's a great camouflage technique. People think you're happy all the time when really you don't particularly have to be all that happy. What you don't show them can't hurt them, or you. And no, it's not 'being fake' - it's being respectful of their feelings and of your own. You will deal with your own stuff in your own good time. Meanwhile, it doesn't have to interfere with what you have to do right now.

Just sayin'. It comes in right handy.

Or you could go with pharmaceuticals and therapists that cost a fortune. Me, I don't have a fortune. If I did there are plenty of other things I'd want to spend it on. 

So, for me, it's worth doing my homework, finding out what my options might be, trying what I think might work, going to the professionals when need be (hoping I find one who knows what the heck they're doing), and calling it good enough when it all comes together just right.

Also, for the record, today's scientists are discovering that some of the 'ancient ways' are perfectly valid. Some, of course, are clear out in left field somewhere so don't go thinking that just because it's recommended by the ancients it's a sure cure for what ails you. Decapitation is a sure cure but comes with a pretty big price tag. Not that decapitation was a recommended cure of the ancients, except in the case of the bad attitudes of their enemies maybe.

more than a year and a half later ...

I can finally look at these photos and videos without having to peer through tears.

Duke's the best travel companion EVER.

Yes there are trip photos of ND, SD, NE, KS, CO - I'll likely put them into another post.

 At Bill's ... happy Duke!

 Some of the ones who have gone on ahead ...

Dad and me ...

  The video doesn't work (did it wrong) but here's Dad again ... 

Bill and me ... 

Out at the Ranch ... Dad of course couldn't go himself - but he loved the video!

I did this wrong so it won't run ... I've got another video from out there but can't bear watching it just now.

 Goin' to Scott's ... 

Ben'ts Fort above; zoom below

Bindweed - prettier than it is nice

Duke and Cockroach 

Heading west ... to Bev and the Rockies ... and another post ... :) 

Working my way through these has been rougher than I thought it would be. Even though it's been over a year and a half, during which I've pretty much left them alone because of the emotional pain I know the grief of homesickness brings me, it's still so hard. So very very hard.

Yeh.

I was wrong about the tears.

I'm Not The Only One ... Trust and Faith Are Growing

Contoveros Feels It Too
^^^ Click for his post ^^^

In this post Contoveros speaks of missing a train only to find out later that taking that train would have been a waste of time - but in more words, with more skill and effectiveness LOL :)

This:

" ... How often are you plans dashed only to learn later that you were saved from some tragedy or heartbreak? Why did you take a wrong turn at one exit and not the other? Could you have been saved from a danger only God or whatever you want to call the Source had foreseen and plan to prevent from happening? ... "

And:

" ... When will I ever learn to trust the Universe?

When will I develop enough faith to believe things happen for my well-being? And when can I truly trust my instincts and live more peacefully in tune with what the Cosmos is manifesting just for me ? ... "

Me, I've been letting various thoughts, seemingly unrelated and unrelatable, follow their apparently random patterns as they percolate and incubate in my mind.

At any given time all of us have any number of 'random thoughts' floating around in our heads, or sitting quietly in their little niches, or regulating the actions of our bodies, or whatever ... 

I think (but for goodness sake don't quote me because this is one of those wayward thought processes that just roams around in my mind) that, as ideas make their way through the maze of our minds they bump into one another now and then. 

Some of them apparently have an affinity for one another and end up sticking together, continuing their own wayward patterns but now linked even as they separately wend their way through the twists and turns. As they go, they each pick up other thoughts or ideas to add to the equation, and the network begins to connect.

Whether there's any actual basis for any such thing I have no idea and I don't particularly care. For me, it's just the way I sense what's going on in this crazy nuts head of mine. Cope as best you can.

On the other hand, science is adamant about some things that really do have an actual basis besides my intuition.

Every last thing in our world is energy, from tiny to tremendous. Visible and 'invisible', it's all energy in one form or another.

Everything.

Wrap your head around that concept.

Everything our five senses tell us is 'real' is energy manifesting in one or another of its forms. So is everything else. Just because we can't see as well as those shrimps whose visual gifts exceed ours by far doesn't mean that colors we can't see don't exist. Shrimps can see things we can't. Many animals can hear things we can't. Our limitations do not limit theirs - and so it is with our bigger world. We do not and we cannot at this time know the full complexity of our world; that's just the way it is. We can only 'know' what our five senses make 'real' for us.

Yet, and here's another of 'those' thoughts, I think we do indeed live in an Interactive Universe.

How can it not be so?

Energy changes forms, some of which forms we cannot understand or even conceptualize. That doesn't mean they don't exist.

Having said all that, until the time comes that we do understand every last little thing in our complex world, I'm going with the Interactive Universe thing - aka GOD. My God, not necessarily 'yours' although honestly, no matter how you look at it, there really is only One. 

We are unable to even grasp the intricacies of energy, let alone create it or destroy it. God is fully capable of all three.

Yep.

That one might be a little harder for science to wrap its head around, which doesn't make any difference one way or the other, regardless of what science thinks.

Onward.

All that energy we can't sense with our senses probably isn't just sitting around doing nothing - that would go against its nature.

So what's it up to?

Well how the heck should I know?

Maybe its playing pinochle on the Spiral.

I'm speculating though, for example, that the energy we expend in thinking changes forms, goes out there into the same sort of networking webs our brains theoretically construct as we think, and does what the thoughts and ideas in my mind do - connects with an energy 'strand' of some kind that has an affinity to it, and makes its way along that web to wherever it finds its destiny to change form again and become yet something else, via all those entangled bits of energy that can and do impact one another over unknown distances.

Which leads to a pair of thoughts. What if Karma is real and the Power of Prayer really works - a spiritual concept being verified by science does not in the least lessen its spirituality, you know. Nothing we can say or do or believe or think or feel has ever been able to lessen God's power. Never has, never will.

At any rate, no I'm not surprised to find that many of us all seem to be on the same 'wavelength' in our thought patterns - literally.

In ways we will not be able to understand or explain any more than anyone before us could, our world is an Interactive Universe. 

It's been that way since 'the beginning' and we know that instinctively. 

Why would it change now? Or ever, for that matter? 

Why would we want it to? 

God is God. 

Science cannot contradict that in any effective way but only reinforce it.

God and Science are not mutually exclusive. God isn't mutually exclusive with anything, being the Creator of all. God IS all.

So why would not everything we know of and everything we don't know of (yet) be thoroughly connected? Why would Karma be a silly thing, and why would the Power of Prayer not be completely valid? Why would it be impossible for people who are far removed from one another to be following similar thought patterns at the same time?

We live in our own here and now but we are simultaneously inextricably entangled with the whole of infinity - past, present, future.

Not that it generally matters much on a day to day basis, mind you. That Universe isn't going to clean our houses for us or pay our bills for us or do our jobs for us. We have to do what we have to do.

But maybe it does matter how we do what we have to do; maybe it really does make a difference (albeit a slight one per individual, the collective effect would be cumulative) what attitude we use our energy to promote or strengthen. If there are prayer webs out there, there are likely the opposite as well. There have to be in order to keep things in balance, sad but true. 

Having a prayerful, thoughtful, mindful, positive attitude might be more important than we think, aside from it making us feel better in general. It's what we're designed for so of course we're going to feel better about everything, including ourselves, when we're in tune with the way we're supposed to be. Stuff isn't as 'random' as we might think.

At least that's my take on it.

Trust in good is a good thing; taking a leap of Faith is generally a good thing too.

We will do what we have to do when we have to do it, but we don't have to do it alone. 

That too is a good thing.

United States Internal Migrations As Related To The 2nd Amendment

HERE'S THE LINK to the source story. It's another Washington Post one since I'm roaming around in their space at the moment. Cope as best you can.

The numbers here are INTERNAL AMERICAN MOVES ONLY - they do not include immigration (legal or otherwise).

Florida added about 200,000 and Illinois lost about 105,000 ... 

Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, both Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida added to their populations, as did seven others (and D.C.) to a lesser degree.

Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and California were the biggest losers, with 25 other states seeing decreases over the past year or two.

Overall, folks seem to be moving basically southeast and northwest with the mid-west holding essentially stable by comparison. Well, except for Illinois which lost a bunch and Colorado which gained a bunch but only about half of what Illinois lost. The rest of the mid-western states (central area, basically) seem to be juggling a little with their populations ... but in general pretty well balanced, which is my opinion.

My opinion is biased. I admit it so don't get your knickers in a knot about it. We've never been as unbalanced as the rest doncha know ... 

The story has maps and such that are interesting I have to say. Go look at them.

Anyway, we're apparently moving around in our nation and that's not a bad thing. It's a big nation with a lot of pretty good roads.

And now I'm going to go look up a few other statistics. Hang on until I get back.

#

Click HERE for an interesting chart ... it's an article in the Guardian; cope with that as best you can. Specific comparisons are kind of hard to pin down when it comes to stuff like this.

The handiest visual for me is the circular chart depicting the Regulations, Carry, and Permit/License laws per state, arranged by region (which is kind of a thought-provoking image when paired with the Internal Migration stuff, yep).

You will never in this world guess what it shows. 

The strictest gun laws are in the Northeast, Illinois, and California - the least restrictive being in the Southeast and Northwest - with the Midwest and Southwest kind of balancing (but for Illinois and California, with Michigan and Ohio higher than the others in regulations) - 

##

Because it's the middle of the night for me and I have a shift to fill tomorrow (well, later today but about ten hours from now so I DO have time to sleep and wake up) I'm not going to do the research comparing state by state population losses and gains with gun laws.

However, one thing really did pop real big for me in just these very preliminary separate sets of statistics.

Americans are moving.

They're leaving the Northeast, Illinois, Michigan, and California and moving to the Southeast, Northwest, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado - with again the Midwest basically stable ... and it's darned near state for state a match for the gun laws being strict or not.

Fancy that.

I wonder if it's pure coincidence, instinct, or if people take this kind of stuff into consideration if/when they decide to move.

It's only just a following of my gut,  the thought of even looking into the comparison. Turns out my gut might be trying to tell me something (besides that I did not go ahead and cook up the steak, chicken, pork, veggies, and pasta I was going to make as soon as I got home tonight but went into this roaming around on line thing instead *sigh* ) Huh. Since I've been following my gut here, it better not gripe. I can cook that stuff when I wake up.

As far as numbers go, I reckon there are scads of them out there. I'm pretty sure that these two sets were generated independently of one another with no interest whatsoever in connecting them. That's part of why I find it so interesting.

Yeah, this is what I tend to do: take unrelated things, superimpose them, and see if a pattern pops.

Sometimes a very interesting pattern does indeed pop.

There are at least a couple of other factors I'd like to add to this equation but am not going to do it tonight. Maybe somebody else will do it and save me the trouble.

If I had more time on my hands I'd do a color coded map just to see what it looks like. 

Mm-hmm ... maybe Americans aren't really as slow on the uptake as some people think they are (or hope they are). Or maybe they just have good instincts. Who knows? I have to admit I was a bit startled by what I found. I thought it might be a little related but didn't expect it to be as clear as it seems to be. 

Seriously, check out the visuals in the links above. I bet you'll see the same thing I do.

Uffda.

I Never Wanted To Know

I never wanted to have to find out, and prove, how tough I can be - never.

I still don't want to.

I don't want to.

I don't want to.

At the moment I'm not feeling the least bit tough. I'm in the process of soaking my way through a roll of paper towels, having already used up my box of Kleenex.

The loss of this oh so dear friend is hitting very hard. 

Part of it is that I was not with her; we never got to say goodbye. The last thing she said to me were the above words, 'You will do what you have to do.' They seemed such a non-sequitur at the time, just a couple of days ago. We smiled, her eyes as always giving me strength and peace. I was so very looking forward to seeing her today, her smile, the smile reaching her eyes as she recognized me.

All these tears, this plugged nose, red eyes, sopping wet paper towels - they are my selfishness, which doesn't help the situation any. I weep not for her but for my own loss. I am bereft, bereaved.

Part of it is that I cannot really grieve except here, alone. I can't take the time it would require to find my peace - and what peace is there for me to find? This dear friend is the one I sought out when I was in need of peace, and strength. For years, from the day I met her, she was my go-to person for peace, and strength. Now I feel as though I have lost my balance and fallen. It is times like this that I seek my friend - but she is gone from me so where am I to turn?

Part of it is the cumulative effect of continual loss.

Every other loss over the years of our friendship was somehow eased a little by the touching of our foreheads, the touch of her hand to my face, the understanding in her eyes that I needed her. Every one. She was there when I needed her, and I ... I ... where was I when she might have needed me? 

Part of it is my own guilt. I should have been there, should have spent more quality time with her, with everyone ... 

Her words are in my mind, in my heart, in my soul. She didn't always talk a whole lot. These words from her are precious to me. So very precious. You see, although she never read a word of the books I write, the words of this dear friend are quite very familiar to me. They have been many times the words of Characters who have never held my hands in theirs, never touched foreheads with me, never smiled into my eyes - yet it is their words I heard from my friend, out of the blue just a couple of days ago. They seemed so out of context but it turns out that they were not.

And so, what am I to do?

I've been weeping for hours; you'd think I'd be out of tears but no, they keep coming.

They do not belong to her, nor to any of the others. They belong to me and I ought to have known they were coming.

I cannot be as tough as I think I ought to be. 

I cannot.

In reality, I do not want to be.

I would rather go through the grief, the hurt, rather shake my fist at the sky, rather weep and weep and weep - and God it hurts, it's a soul-wrenching hurt.

If the tears flow through this night, so be it. If they are still flowing come daylight, so be it. I will weep them, let them rise, course, fall, and carry with them from my heart bits of that hurt until their task is done.

If they do not abate I will call in for tomorrow's shift. It is not right, not fair to the others who deserve the best I have in me to give to them. Someone will ask me, when they answer the phone, 'Are you sick? What are your symptoms?' And what will I say?

I am heart-sick. 

What do you mean, you're heart-sick? You have a heart condition? You need to see your doctor.

Not that kind of heart-sick.

Well, what do you mean then?

I'm grieving.

Oh. Did your mother die? One of your children? Who?

When I tell them who, they will remind me that I work in a nursing home, what do I expect? Taking time off work every time somebody dies? Are you kidding me? You'd never be at work. Suck it up Buttercup.

No, this is only the third time in almost six years. I can't even count the number of my people who have died in that time, I can't remember all their names even - yet I loved them, each and all, cared for them and about them. And I learned from them, each and all. From them all I learned. Hard, harsh lessons.

I've learned the hard way about courage, tenacity, resilience, peace, strength, endurance - and love.

It's the goodbye part I'm still having trouble with.

Yes I know all the platitudes and yes they're all true.

It's me that is the problem here, you see. It is I who am bereft, I who am grieving, I who now feels pain. I'm not yet as tough as they are. One day, if I am lucky, perhaps I will catch up to them.

Meanwhile, the lessons continue.

This year and a day is going to feel like eternity.

There Is No Such Thing As 'Godless'

Some say our nation has become Godless.

I want to know how anyone, most especially a Believer, can make any such assertion.

It’s the equivalent of an atheist scientist saying that energy does not exist.

No, you say, that’s not true, it’s nothing at all like what we’re trying to say.

How is it not the same?

In order for a Believer to make such a statement, said Believer is negating the most elementary fundamental core of their Faith.

There is not one – not one – particle of our world that is Godless.

There is not one – not one – particle of our world that is not energy.

Denying God does not make God less real.

Denying energy does not make energy less real.

What has no beginning and no end, can be neither created nor destroyed, is the Alpha and the Omega, is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent … ?

Some will answer ‘God’.

Some will answer ‘energy’.

Guess what.

Both are right.

So tell me what is the difference.

God is everywhere, in all things, at all times, knows all, guides all, rules all.

So is/does energy.

As our sciences figure things out, the interconnectedness of all things comes closer and closer to being proven with cold hard facts, people. Every new discovery carries us another step along the path of knowledge, and they’re all leading toward something that many (perhaps all, deep down) already know intuitively.

As the world in which we live in becomes more defined, more understood, that there is a method to its madness seems to become ever more clear.

Maybe it is true after all that things don’t ‘just happen’ at random.

Maybe there really is a guiding force at work, an underlying Law which we cannot alter, to which we are immutably bound body, mind, and spirit.

Whatever we choose to call it, be it God or PHI, it’s one and the same – and has been around for much longer than mankind has been around to label it, and will be around for much longer than we, as individuals and as a species, will be.

For Believers, the above statement is acknowledgement of God the Creator, Ruler of Heaven and Earth, validates the Power of Prayer, and holds the promise of life eternal. God is All. All is God. God set everything in motion and will continue to control its direction.

For others, it represents the constant movement of energy, the changing from one form to another of said energy in terms of its presence, usage, release, dispersal, storage, reformation, and re-use in yet another form, be it body, mind, or spirit. PHI is All. All is energy, PHI, the motion of all things and the Law by which all things abide.

Again, tell me the difference.

We are all on the same page here, whether we acknowledge it or not. Our labels are just different.

Me, I prefer to believe in God but have no reason to quarrel with those who might refer to His works by whatever label they choose.

Likewise, those who do not believe in God are in no way a threat to Him nor to those of us who do believe. That they can see and appreciate the intricacies of our world; that they actively seek and find the balance in all of it as they make their advances is to our benefit as well as to theirs.

It is truly a wonderment to me to realize that I am a part of such an amazing world, that the energy that is me belongs to that world and always will in one way or another, that it always has.

Sometimes I can’t help but feel oh so small and insignificant, and I am right to feel that way. Like a single atom of a cell of a single strand of my hair – so infinitely small that I myself am unaware of that individual atom – yet in a sense I am aware because it is a part of me – just so, even more so, am I that atom in the immensity of our world. I can no more change the Will of God than a single atom of my body can change the course of my individual life; I can no more affect the unfolding of the Universe than I can control the behaviors of even one other soul on the face of our planet. I have only my own small life to live as I choose to live it, as best I can, for good or for ill. My choices contribute to the balance of the whole in only a very small way, too small for me to understand. Yet my choices are all I have.

Likewise, mankind cannot change the course of PHI, of the energy which is our world. It is inexorable. It cannot be altered in its course, certainly not by us. We as a species have only our own small life to live as we choose to live it, as best we can, for good or for ill. Our choices contribute to the balance of the whole in only a very small way, too small for us to understand. Yet our choices are all we have.

For good or for ill, I am all I have. For good or for ill, we are all we have.

If we are so small, so insignificant, what then is our purpose?

I don’t know.

None of us knows.

Yet that there is a reason for all things we know, each and all of us, in the hearts and the souls of us.

As we discover more and more about the interconnectedness of the world in which we live in, maybe we’ll come to understand the importance of our individual and united contributions to that connection. Perhaps we are more vital than we imagine to the keeping of the overall balance, for good or for ill.

Just in case, might it not behoove us to use our energies in support of the good, and harm none?

Remember how I likened myself to a single atom of a single cell of my own body? Think what happens when an infection sets in; perhaps beginning with one cell that infection can and will spread harm throughout the body.

Still, every particle is a part of All, for good or for ill. The energy may seem to morph itself into something harmful for a time; yet that same energy may at another time be part of a powerful good. Is that not largely how the saints of Christendom have come about?

Me, I don’t believe in saints. I believe in the good and the ill in people, and the balance that must be kept one way or another in the bigger picture.

And I believe that God, the Holy Trinity, is the Who part of the age-old quest to identify Who What When Where How and Why of every last thing mankind has ever encountered or will ever encounter.

For that matter, God is all of the other parts, too.

You see, science will more easily come to terms with the What When Where and How than it will comprehend the importance of Who and Why, although those are indeed the most important of the whole.

Getting back around to my original point here, there is no such thing as any part of our world being ‘Godless’.

We can say whatever we want; it’s our right. We cannot, however, expel God from any part of His Creation.

Not one particle of our world – not one – is without God. God Is. God is the life force of all, past, present, future. God is the energy stored in inert masses to be spent when its time comes. God is All of All.

Call it God’s Will or call it Fate or call it PHI – labels are utterly meaningless and so are disputes about them.

How can people not GET that?