(no subject)
Sunday, I am on the mend from laryngitis, barely back in the land of the vocal. I made homemade mango lasi and a basil/spinach/oregano pizza. My last batch of kefir is getting low and I will have to put more on tonight or tomorrow. The idea of having milk setting on the table overnight in a jar is not part of our cultural norm and William seems to think it will crawl out of said jar and strangle one of us in our sleep, probably me. Life is in short ordinary.
However I have been to heaven and hell this week and they looked amazingly similar, the corridor of a hospital in Rome, Ga. Dad had open heart surgery, four bypasses and a valve repair. We could only visit two at a time and Mom went ahead of the rest of us. So I walked alone down a hallway, every medical horror story I had ever heard or lived through playing fresh in my mind. The doctor had already told us Dad's heart had taken a lot of damage and the outcome was uncertain. Mom had went this way before me but I didn't know her current state. For a moment I was in the Great Unknown.
Then I found my parents. Dad was sedated, still on a respirator, but his vitals were good. Within 24 hours he was awake and talking, albeit hoarsely. Every worst case scenario had been avoided. Walking down that same corridor the next morning I knew I was one of the lucky ones but in the little waiting area off to one side another family was crying... Their son/father/husband had died.
This is why I don't believe in prayer as a remedy for these situations--- God would have to be what? Cruel? Forgetful? Fickle? Why should I be among the lucky ones and not them? If we can only remember that there is no "your karma" or "my karma", only "our karma", I think karma is a better explanation. Maybe the Christian God is a personification of karma. Two of his attributes, as the creator of the world and the one who punishes wrongdoing, are attributed to karma in the Buddhist worldview.
Friday night we got home. Saturday I realized how sick I was. Me mostly quiet for 24 hours. Doesn't happen often.
However I have been to heaven and hell this week and they looked amazingly similar, the corridor of a hospital in Rome, Ga. Dad had open heart surgery, four bypasses and a valve repair. We could only visit two at a time and Mom went ahead of the rest of us. So I walked alone down a hallway, every medical horror story I had ever heard or lived through playing fresh in my mind. The doctor had already told us Dad's heart had taken a lot of damage and the outcome was uncertain. Mom had went this way before me but I didn't know her current state. For a moment I was in the Great Unknown.
Then I found my parents. Dad was sedated, still on a respirator, but his vitals were good. Within 24 hours he was awake and talking, albeit hoarsely. Every worst case scenario had been avoided. Walking down that same corridor the next morning I knew I was one of the lucky ones but in the little waiting area off to one side another family was crying... Their son/father/husband had died.
This is why I don't believe in prayer as a remedy for these situations--- God would have to be what? Cruel? Forgetful? Fickle? Why should I be among the lucky ones and not them? If we can only remember that there is no "your karma" or "my karma", only "our karma", I think karma is a better explanation. Maybe the Christian God is a personification of karma. Two of his attributes, as the creator of the world and the one who punishes wrongdoing, are attributed to karma in the Buddhist worldview.
Friday night we got home. Saturday I realized how sick I was. Me mostly quiet for 24 hours. Doesn't happen often.