“Illusions – The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah”

A life-changing book from Richard Bach author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

A Dell/ Eleanor Friede book Copyright 1977

An amazing book that confirmed and completed all I had been accumulating over my years of searching for answers in spirituality. These are quotes from the book within the book:

Messiah's Handbook

Reminders for the Advanced Soul

For my handy reference, and yours if you so choose...

Perspective, use it or lose it.

If you turned to this page you're forgetting that what is going on around you is not reality.

Think about that.

Remember where you came from, where you're going, and why you created this mess you got yourself into in the first place.

You're going to die a horrible death, remember.

It's all good training, and you'll enjoy it more if you keep the facts in mind.

Take your dying with some seriousness, however.

Laughing on the way to your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms and they'll call you crazy.

Learning is finding out what you already know.

Doing is demonstrating that you know it.

Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you.

You are all learners, doers, teachers.

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself

Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah

The simplest questions are the most profound:

Where were you born?

Where is your home?

Where are you going?

What are you doing?

Think about these once in awhile and watch your answers change.

You teach best what you most need to learn

Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world even if what is published is not true.

Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.

The best way to avoid responsibilities is to say “I've got responsibilities.”

You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self.

Don't turn away from possible futures before you are certain you don't have anything to learn from them.

You're always free to change your mind and choose a different future or a different past.

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands

You seek problems because you need their gifts.

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood but of respect and joy in each other's life.

Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.

Argue your limitations and, sure enough, they're yours.

Imagine the universe beautiful and just and perfect

Then be sure that it has imagined it quite a bit better than you have.

(Prelude: “If you really want to remove a cloud from your life, you do not make a big production out of it, you jut relax and remove it from your thinking. That's all there is to it”)

A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such speed.

It feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all the clouds and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see the horizons.

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true.

You may have to work at it, however.

The world is your exercise book, the pages on which you do your sums.

It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you want wish.

You are also free to write nonsense or lies or to tear the pages.

The original sin is to limit the Is.

Don't.

If you will practice being fictional for awhile you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.

Listen to it carefully.

Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there

What you choose to do with them is up to you.

The truth you speak has no past and no future.

It is, and that's all it has to be.

Here is the test to see if your mission on earth is finished:

If you're alive, it isn't

In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom

It isn't always an easy sacrifice.

Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.

And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy.

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly.

Everything in this book may be wrong.

The Razor's Edge

Bill Murray made a deal with Columbia Pictures that he would appear in Ghostbusters only if they financed this movie. Originally, no studio was interested in making the film until Dan Aykroyd suggested the deal to Murray. On the final day of shooting, Murray flew to New York City to start filming Ghostbusters

The critics were less than pleased with the $13 million result, but many were moved by a scene that Murray, as co-screenwriter, wove into the story as a way of saying goodbye to his friend and Saturday Night Live colleague John Belushi, who died of a drug overdose a year before the movie was made. In the film Darrell cradles the dead body of his gruff but beloved ambulance corps chief, played by the star's brother Brian Doyle-Murray, and curses him for dying.

"He was a slob. Did you ever see him eat? Starving children could fill their bellies on the food that ended up in his beard and on his clothes. Dogs would gather to watch him eat. I've never understood gluttony, but I hate it. I hated that about you. He enjoyed disgusting people, being disgusting, the thrill of offending people and making them uncomfortable. It was despicable. You will not be missed."

"That scene is all about John," says Murray. "It comes from this old Persian thing where if somebody dies you tell horrible stories about him. That's what I did when John died." And that is what Darrell does as he berates the dead man. "What it does is remind you not to get sentimental. You say, 'That guy was a rat,' and I'm a rat too, and I'd better do something about it rather than weep my life away."

Evan Almighty

In the diner with the wife God says
"Let me ask you something. If someone pray for patience does God give them patience or does He give them the opportunity to be patient? If they pray for courage does He give them courage or the opportunity to be courageous? If someone prays for their family to be closer do you think God zaps  them with warm fuzzy feelings or did he give them opportunities to love each other?"

This guy knows why they called it Hurricane Sandy

Reuters via nypost.com

"Mark Baronowski helps clear out the sand-carpeted living room of a beachfront home in the devastated Jersey Shore borough of Bay Head yesterday, six days after Hurricane Sandy sent a tidal surge barreling into the community."

One shovel at a time.

Sticks and stones...

may break my bones but words will never harm me.

It's an English language children's rhyme persuading the victim of name-calling to ignore the taunt, to refrain from physical retaliation, and to remain calm and good-natured. It is reported to have appeared in The Christian Recorder of March 1862, a publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where it is presented as an "old adage" in this form.

AMAZING to me that it was part of the AFRICAN MEC and yet they are the quickest to resort to physical retaliation for the utterance of a few syllables.

J.K. Rowling reached out to the real world with sage advice from a 150-year-old gay wizard in her very first book about Harry with a modern twist on the old adage...
page 298: "Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."

If you are not Politically Correct you might find yourself with a few broken bones. Here are a few words to avoid. Fill in the missing letters as you see fit:

A-word like opinions, everyone has one and everyone elses' stinks
B-word Oh, I just meant a female dog http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/24/politics/main6709122.shtml
C-bomb fourth of seven words you can never say on television, not even a word it's a bomb!
D-word eternal fire and brimstone
E-word
F-word third of seven words you can never say on television, Guaranteed R-rating
G-word
H-word not the sapien kind
I-word
J-word
K-word a derogatory slur used to refer to Jews
L-word
M-word sixth of seven words you can never say on television, variation of F-word
N-word most notorious yet conditionally offensive
O-word
P-word second of seven words you can never say on television, urination
Q-word
R-word mentally challenged
S-word first of seven words you can never say on television, excrement
T-word seventh of seven words you can never say on television, upper female anatomy
U-word
V-word
W-word
X-word
Y-word
Z-word

The Future of Healthcare in America

This is no slight at our current Healthcare system teeming with highly trained professionals motivated by the well-being of their patients and a handsome reward for assuring it. 

This is a true, really happened, example of the result of government healthcare. A man in surgery dies during a lunch break and the responsible party, The National Board of Health and Welfare, goes to the far extreme and issues "a harsh critique of the hospital's procedures." 

But don't worry, it wasn't the fault of the system, "the operation's lack of organization as well as the chaotic situation which occurred was the underlying causes behind the misjudgments and insufficient care,"

It's just not that far in the future if we allow our country to go down that path.

http://www.thelocal.se/43048/20120906/

Man dies after doc takes lunch during kidney op

Published: 6 Sep 12 11:44 CET | The Local, Sweden's news in English

A 72-year-old man having a tumour removed from his kidney died after the chief anesthetist and nurse took a lunch break in the middle of the surgery.

The incident, which took place at the Lidköping hospital, has prompted stinging criticism from Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen).

The 72-year-old went under anesthetic at 10.45am on the day of the operation, which took place in January 2011.

At noon sharp, the head anesthetist left the operating room to go for lunch. Fifteen minutes later, the head nurse anesthetist also left the patient and went for lunch.

No other anesthetist was called in to take over responsibility for the doctor who was on his lunch break.

And while another nurse was brought in to cover for the nurse anesthetist, the nurse who arrived came from the orthopedic ward and wasn't familiar with the respirator to which the 72-year-old was attached.

Suddenly, the patient started hemorrhaging and his blood pressure started to drop, sparking a "chaotic" situation.

As the patient's condition became critical shortly before 1pm, the substitute nurse tried desperately to reach the lunching anesthetist, but to no avail.

When the doctor and the primary nurse anesthetist returned to the operating room, they discovered that the patient's respirator had been turned off, leaving him without oxygen for approximately eight minutes.

Despite immediately starting resuscitation efforts, doctors were unable to revive the man, who had suffered irreparable brain damage and died several weeks later.

The man's daughter subsequently reported the incident to the health board, which on Tuesday issued a harsh critique of the hospital's procedures.

"The operational planning, which allowed for the responsible doctor and nurse to take lunch breaks at the same time without any other doctor taking responsibility for the patient, entails taking an unacceptable risk," the agency wrote in its findings.

The agency also found fault with the fact that the doctor wasn't reachable by phone, as well as with the decision to hand responsibility for a high-risk patient with a single nurse who lacked sufficient knowledge of the equipment in use during the operation.

"The National Board of Health and Welfare finds, however, that the operation's lack of organization as well as the chaotic situation which occurred was the underlying causes behind the misjudgments and insufficient care," the agency wrote.

The only constant is change

There seems to be this odd notion that the world we grew up in is perfect the way it is and that it should be never altered or changed in any way:
warmer
colder
fewer animals
more people
no digging holes deep enough to harvest oil
no filling holes with the refuse of our existence
fracking for natural gas
Strip mining for elements and minerals
Clear cutting for wood
All of these things that are a part of our advancement of a species are somehow destroying a pristine planet that is as it always has been and always should be
It is sad evidence of poor science education that doesn't  fundamentally teach that the only constant between the Big Bang and this very moment IS change and that the Earth is a lively and resilient place, much larger than most people imagine, that can easily handle the existence of one species forming, shaping, and playing on its surface, and even its outer crust, without completely destroying it,
The teaching seems to be that evolution is our history but it really must stop with us, and now.
Funky religion to preach.