Affirmation
I have a new (to me) philosophy to share with you .... but, as always, you have to bear with my extensive lead-in.
Years ago, while I was working on the Rambo genealogies at the Gowdy's and decided I needed to "escape" from the tedium for a bit, I started hunting for reading material in my favorite form: science fiction. Alas and alack, there was virtually no science fiction in the Gowdo household. (I experienced similar results at your condo once.) Consequently I read whatever seemed most promising - with little satisfaction until I found that delightful book, A Wrinkle in Time, a wonderful read about a little girl heroine whose father was trapped in stais behind a huge dark cloud on the far side of the galaxy. Three peculiar little ladies with magical powers appeared in the neighborhood "haunted house" and befriended the little girl, transported her onto the planet where her father was trapped, and gave her only the advice, "You cannot fight this evil on it's own terms, you have to draw upon something entirely different from within yourself." After great stress and duress, the little girl realized that her love of her father was that something different, and the story had a very happy ending.
As I continued looking for diversions and SF, I came across a science title about Time, so read that book too. It was the scientific explanation of an elementary particle from the earliest predictable nanoseconds of the Big Bang onward, a fascinating read. Towards the end of this book, it said that string theory provided the most accurate model of the universe to date, and that it predicted "dark matter" (aka "anti-matter") and that it allows for nearly infinite numbers of "parallel universes" (some of which could conceivably differ from ours in relatively minor ways). I've never studied string theory, but have heard it mentioned many times. Interesting to think that there could be other universes just a "worm-hole" away (and "black holes" could be the connecting points.)
The last book of relevance was The Dilbert Future by Scott Adams, the cartoonist. All fun, satire, and irony until the last chapter in which Scott Adams says that all the foregoing has been in fun, but now he has something serious to discuss, affirmation. When he first decided to write an affirmation, he wrote 15 times a day, "I want to be a great author" and after six months realized that it was phrased wrong because indeed he still wanted to be a great writer. So he switched to a new affirmation, "My next book will be a best seller." and was astounded when his next book rose to the tops of the best seller lists. Since then he has employed many other successful affirmations - hence his desire to spread the news.
Being a bit spacy, I decided to write an affirmation, but had no worthy wants or needs. Also I am very leery: be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. (My sister hoped to never again hear the noise of my brother falling down the staircase at night - but now he is dead, and odds are that she'd prefer to hear him falling.) As I said my life was perfect, but I decided that a stronger belief in God would be a good thing, so I phrased the affirmation as a fact, followed by a measure, "I believe in God to my great benefit," and I wrote that diligently (hurriedly, illegibly) fifteen times a day for months, including while hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Cynthia and I are beyond perplexed that the two of us became involved, and a year later I realized that my affirmation had indeed worked wonderfully well. I thank God for Cynthia often and have a much stronger belief. I've now started a new affirmation, "I love God to the benefit of all," and can feel the power.
So I recommend that you craft an affirmation, but be careful with the phrasing. "My kidney is returning to normal function" sounds fine until you think of a kidney's "normal" function after death. "I thank God that my loved ones and I enjoy progressively better health and vitality daily" is a bit long to write 15 times a day, but I cheat and write the shorter version more often than the full "I love God to the benefit of all around me."
Life is good and getting better.
Love from Ron Beatty
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Pages of personal interest:
Eve's Garden Organic Bed and Breakfast, a wonderful, eclectic, artistic papercrete alternative living learning mecca in Marathon, Texas,
Rambo family genealogy, Bankston & Bankson family genealogy, the Camblin family genealogy, the Dorsey Overturff family, cousin Jean's Schenck and Hageman genealogy, and