miracles

Writer’s Workshop — Oh My Achin’ Back

Fandango15 Comments

For his Writer’s Workshop this week, John Holton gives us six writing prompts and we are tasked with choosing one of the prompts (or as many as we want) and writing a post that addresses that (or those) prompts. The prompts I chose this week are #1 — Write a post based on the word recovery, and #2 — Write a post in exactly 9 sentences.

Recovery from lower back surgery is like relearning how to live inside your own body.

The early weeks blur together with pain, medication, and the careful dance of movement.

Every step feels like a calculated risk, but also a small victory.

You become hyper-aware of your spine, of muscles you never noticed until they tighten up and start to ache.

Rest is not just encouraged, it’s mandatory, yet somehow exhausting.

Patience becomes your most valuable companion, even when it runs thin.

Slowly, through physical theray, you reclaim everyday motions, like sitting, standing, bending, lifting, twisting, reaching, and walking, each gain a quiet triumph.

The healing part is not just physical but mental, and trust in your body must be rebuilt.

Until the time arrives when you can begin to move without thinking again, and that feels like a miracle.


Badge by Patty,  http://anothercookieplease.com

Photo credit: health.com

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — June 16th

Fandango27 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Flashback Friday post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (16th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on June 16, 2014 on my old blog.

Q&A

I came across a post* at a site called “Today Christian.” Don’t ask why I was reading a website called Today Christian; it’s a long, sad story. The post was titled “10 Questions for Every Atheist.”

As an atheist I thought, “That’s cool. I can answer ten questions. Let me have at it.”

So here are the ten questions and my ten answers:

1 — How did you become an atheist?

I started to think for myself.

2 — What happens when we die?

We die. It’s over. Over and out. Don’t beam me up, Scotty.

3 — What if you’re wrong? And there is a Heaven? And there is a Hell?

Well I’ll be damned.

4 — Without God, where do you get your morality from?

From my parents, my teachers, the people I respect, the society in which I live, my desire to survive and be well, and my belief that everyone else desires and deserves to survive and be well.

5 — If there is no God, can we do what we want? Are we free to murder and rape? While good deeds are unrewarded?

Yes, we can do what we want as long as it is not hurtful or harmful to ourselves and/or to others and is subject to the terms and conditions set forth in my answer to #4, which would, therefore, preclude such activities as murder and rape or needing to be rewarded for doing “good deeds.”

6 — If there is no God, how does your life have any meaning?

Life has meaning through the deeds we do and the people we touch.

7 — Where did the universe come from?

Long ago and far away there was a big explosion. I think. I don’t know for sure. I don’t really need to know. Do you really need to know? How will knowing or not knowing where the universe came from make a difference in your life? (Sorry, I’m supposed to be answering questions, not asking them. My bad.)

8 — What about miracles? What about all the people who claim to have a connection with Jesus? What about those who claim to have seen saints or angels?

Miracles? You mean Smokey Robinson and the Miracles? Great group. As to all those people who claim to have a connection with Jesus and who claim to have seen saints or angels, I think they’re pretty much like those people who claim to have been abducted by aliens or who claim to have seen UFOs or ghosts or seen Jesus in their grilled cheese sandwich.

9 — What’s your view of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris?

I haven’t read everything they’ve written or heard everything they’ve said, but from what I have read and heard, I generally agree with them. Not about everything, but about most things.

10 — If there is no God, then why does every society have a religion?

We, as humans, tend to seek answers. If we don’t know the answers, we create these supernatural deities who supply us with answers to the questions we can’t answer. And then we worship these deities — these gods — we’ve created. And we build a hierarchy and develop dogma and rituals around how we worship these deities and we call that religion. Every society in human history has created gods. Some have created a bunch of gods. Some have created just one super god. And everybody believes that their god is the one true god and that their religion is the one true religion. Nobody likes to believe that they don’t know the answers to the big questions. So God becomes the answer. How convenient.

How would you answer these ten questions?

* This site apparently doesn’t exist anymore.

Share Your World — Miracles, Surprises, and Zoo Animals

Fandango7 Comments

Share Your WorldIt’s time once again for Melanie’s Share Your World prompt. Let’s see what she wants us to share with her today.

Do you like or dislike surprises? Why or why not?

I like good surprises. I don’t like bad surprises.

What’s your favorite zoo animal?

I don’t go to the zoo much anymore because I don’t like seeing animals caged up or confined to small spaces.That said, back in the day, I always enjoyed watching the antics of the various monkeys, apes, chimps, and orangutans in the monkey house. Very entertaining.

What three things do you think of the most each day?

Well, most recently it has been the U.S. elections. Now it’s the antics that the soon-to-be banished orangutan in the Oval Office is going to pull to try to discredit the election results and do as much damage to America as he possibly can between now and Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20th. I also think about my blog a lot, like what to write about, my prompts, etc. And finally, about what to eat. Which reminds me, it’s almost lunch time.

When, if ever, is taking a human life justified?

The only situation where I can think of where taking a human life might be justified is when someone has a terminal illness and is suffering. I do believe in death with dignity and if someone has instructed in a living will that they do not wish to have heroic steps taken to keep them alive when they are on death’s doorstep, I feel that “pulling the plug” is the right thing to do.

Do small miracles exist?

I don’t believe in miracles at all, large or small, that are attributed to a “divine agency” or to something supernatural (i.e., God). That said, I do believe in the possibility of what might seem to be extraordinary, surprising, or unexpected events or developments that bring welcome results, but that are explainable in natural, real-world terms. For example, if I take a look at a car that has been totaled and find out that the driver survived the accident, I might say that it’s a miracle that he or she survived. But that “miracle” may be the result of an airbag or some part of the structure of the vehicle the driver was in. I don’t buy that God intervened on the behalf of the person in the car.