SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2025 - PARADISE?

 Saturday, March 1,2025

“Coming down off the mountain with them, he stood on a plain surrounded by disciples, and was soon joined by a huge congregation from all over Judea and Jerusalem, even from the seaside towns of Tyre and Sidon. Everyone was trying to touch him—so much energy surging from him, so many people healed! Then he spoke: You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all. God’s kingdom is there for the finding. You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry. Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal. You’re blessed when the tears flow freely. Joy comes with the morning.”

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From Luke 6 -“sermon on the plains” - The Message Bible.

So radical- I’m blessed when I’ve lost it all?  Really? 

I’m blessed when I’m ravenously hungry? C’mon now?

I’m blessed when I cry freely? 

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Here I am - 77 years old, seeing concepts in a new light.  

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What are my priorities? Live a quiet and peaceful life?   Or to lose everything - everything- and find God?

Big picture- does the caterpillar see the butterfly and think “Gee I’m going to be like that someday “? 

Does the child at a funeral for a grandparent think “Gee I’m going to die someday “? 

Let’s take the child example. After (hopefully), a long and challenging life, there is a little door shaped like me. It’s a hidden door at the base of a huge mountain.  I may have walked by the door in my life - and not paid attention.  

Someday I will have to go through that door - to death.  There is no way around it, no drugs or meditation, no exercise, no money - that can stop that door from being in my future.  

No one really knows what is beyond that door- nothing? An icy, foreboding nothing? 

Or a paradise so lovely we can’t even imagine it.  Like the caterpillar am I going to have a beautiful second existence?  Who really knows? 

Is it Nirvana? Utopia? Shangri La? Heaven? Hell? 

Will I be transformed into another being (reincarnation) and sent back to Earth or to a different planet? 

When I get to that door, will I have the right key to open it? 

That’s philosophy and religion.  Will that infinite being say “well done, good and faithful servant?”

“Now abide faith, hope, and love- but the greatest of these is love!! (1 Corinthians 13:13?)

I have to believe that love wins, that a loving and merciful being - who knows me far better than I know myself- will give me a hug that is a unifying embrace? 

Karen Anne White

March first, 2025