Musings on Genesis and the Nature of Reality

I've often asked myself "What is real? What does 'real' even mean?"  This world is a world of illusions, or perceptions, if you will.  No one sees the world exactly as another does, and now Quantum Physics tells us that the world is recreated every moment as new quantum particles pop in and out of existence.  They have also observed that the outcome of their experiments is affected by expectation and observation.  What we think is solid, then, is an illusion.  Put solid things under an electron microscope and we see the vastness of space between the particles we see, and quantum particles cannot be seen at all, merely evidenced by their behavior.

In Genesis it says that God put Adam in a deep sleep.  Nowhere does it say he awoke from it. We are in the world to be tried and tested, but what is this world, really?  Is it Adam’s dream? Is it our own?   I sometimes compare this life to Luke Skywalker’s test on the planet with Yoda, where he is told to confront his own fears and told that nothing in the test is real, but that if he believes it is real he will die.  He is able to overcome the awful monster he encounters only when he remembers and trusts Yoda’s words and stops battling the illusion.

Back to Genesis.  What is the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge?  It is the experience of good and evil, all the experiences of mortality.  The Tree of Life is the experience of God’s pure love.  Many think God punished Adam and Eve for eating the “apple”, but suppose it was not a punishment at all, but merely a consequence, one they were told of at the beginning.  “Here is what will happen if you eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  You will have chosen to leave the garden, you will have chosen to make your own decisions.  I will still be with you and give you direction, but from afar, you will not see me daily as you do now. You will learn for yourself firsthand the difference between good and evil.  This is your choice.” 

Okay, so they think about it and the dream proceeds. Perhaps the dream is originally a waking dream, perhaps it is not.  At any rate, a new character comes into the Garden (and What is the Garden? Is just another question we could ask, but will put away for later), and convinces Eve that the there is no other way to become like God except to experience good and evil.  She convinces Adam that they must leave the Garden in order to learn. Certainly in a state of innocence they could not procreate, and they had been commanded to do so.  Perhaps the lie which deceived her was “there is no other way.” 

Was Lucifer lying when he said “you will not die, but be as the gods, knowing good and evil”?  Death does not really exist, but we think it does because it is part of this existence. There are lies of omission as well as commission and Lucifer is a master of deceit.  If this is all illusion (and I think it is), then he didn’t lie…exactly…he just neglected to mention that death was part of the mortal existence.  Too, there are two kinds of death, mortal and spiritual.  Separation from God is spiritual death and we experience separation during this lifetime.  I wonder if Adam and Eve realized the depth of that separation.

Another thought.  The mortal body can be tempted, hurt, destroyed, but in the Resurrection we will be reunited with our bodies.  Jesus’ resurrected body could not be hurt or destroyed.  Suppose, as Intelligences we were clothed with Spirit, so also as resurrected beings we are clothed with another layer which we call the body but which, we know, is not anything like a mortal body.  We know that Jesus as a resurrected being could appear and disappear, sometimes appearing at the same time in two different places, walls had no meaning, place and time has no meaning.  He was not constrained by temporal laws. Since God lives in the Eternal Now, perhaps after resurrection we are no longer in the dream, and we have returned to our Father’s perfect love, clothed with that layer of perfection that we call our resurrected body.  The Prophet Joseph Smith said the soul is the spirit and body combined.  Though we think of the body as solid, it is not. Then the resurrected soul is not solid, but is the spirit clothed with the next layer in the journey to eternal perfection.

Of course, all these musings are part of the illusion, too.

Exploring North Carolina

           I’m back at my sister’s, with delightful memories of my time at Jennie’s.

 

           Who knew that there were palm trees in North Carolina?  Not me! But there they were, right in front of her house.  I was there longer than I anticipated, and I hope I was as good a guest as she and Jay were hosts.  Their youngest daughter entertained me with stories and videos of all the things you can do with “Slime”.  I’d never heard of it (I’ve led a sheltered existence), but now I know all things Slime, except how to make it.  Is that a hole in my education?

 

           The Wilmington area is very populous, but once you get away from the city, it’s quite lovely.  The beaches are beautiful!  White sand stretching for miles, tufts of beach grass growing on and around large dunes, clear water that invites a dip.  Ah! December in North Carolina!  Not at all like December in Maine.

            We went to what was billed as a “ghost town”.  Well…that’s rather stretching it, but it was a fascinating historical site, Brunswick Town,  donated by the Ortin family to North Carolina.  I was still on crutches at the time so didn’t do a lot of wandering, but I did go through the administration building, which houses many artifacts. There I finally learned how Cape Fear got its name (one of those mysteries that one mulls over but never take action to actually solve). According to the story, in 1585 Sir Richard Grenville’s ship, while sailing to Roanoke Island, became trapped behind the cape.  Some of the crew were afraid they would wreck, and the name “Cape Fear” was born--and stuck. I’d always suspected it was something like that, but the details were enjoyable to learn.

 

I took several pictures, and left them large so clicking on them will show close-up details.

Entrance to the Ortin Plantation (private residence).

A view of the site with several Civil War cannon on display.

The church, what's left of it.  The walls are still in magnificent condition.

Mural inside the building.  This is a glass mosaic, quite stunning.

           Later we wandered over to the stocks, which were actually open to the public to play with.  Yes, indeed, a great way to contain your children!  It must be gratifying, too, to see your big brother well contained.

I'm guessing the original occupants of the stocks weren't quite this amused.

 

           This lovely tree graced the entrance to the site. Covered with Spanish Moss, it begged to be remembered.

 

 

Thoughts on larceny

         Those whom I’ve visited here in North Carolina have impressed on me that I must lock my car.  Now, my sister Jo lives in a rural area and even she was adamant that I not leave my keys in my car.  My friend Darlene, whom I visited on Friday, told me that her brother’s cars had been broken into, that in that area a young woman had walked in on a thief stealing things out of the house in mid-afternoon “because she needed them”.  The thief ran out of the house and was caught by the police 20 minutes later.  The friends I’ve been visiting outside of Wilmington lock their doors even during the day and cautioned me to lock my car at night and not leave anything valuable inside.  

 

           I’m dumbfounded.  How can one state, in three separate locations divided by hours, have the same problem?  Is life in Maine so idyllic and insular that people think nothing of leaving houses and cars unlocked, trusting that no one is going to rob them? Or is North Carolina unique in having a large population of larcenous souls?  And why, I ask myself, as I have many times in the past, would anyone think they are more entitled to someone’s goods than the person who owns them? What makes a person so utterly devoid of conscience that they think it’s okay to break and enter, to appropriate someone else’s property, to lay claim to items of whatever ilk that don’t belong to them? Is this an outgrowth of our “entitlement society”?  Is it caused by our increasing police state, emboldening the rebellious to strike back at society in general, in protest of the constant tightening down of personal liberty?  Could it be boredom or callousness from our constant flood of bread and circus?

           Whatever the cause, it’s a disturbing trend.  I’m left to wonder if this is peculiar to North Carolina or if Maine is the odd man out.  I’m sure I’ll get a clearer picture as my travels continue, and I can only hope that North Carolina is idiosyncratic and not indicative of a general malaise.

 

Technophobia, siblings, and dogs

           My sister is a technophobe—oh! Such a technophobe.  She “hates everything computer”.  How can two siblings be so different?  She watches TV, I play on the computer and don’t care for TV at all.  I do research online, listen to all kinds of health summits, avoid GMO’s, and look for naturopaths, homeopaths, and all kinds of alternative practitioners; she believes everything that MDs tell her.

 

           What life experiences make us so different?  Our environments were similar, our genetic makeup is similar, we both like dogs and horses, have both had several dogs, several horses, yet there our interests diverge.  I love to read, will read anything from poetry to science fiction, to mystery, to the latest research on PUBMED; try (unsuccessfully, btw) to get my head around Donald Hofstadler (Metamagical Themas, Godel, Escher, Bach), and she doesn’t like to even pick up a book. It’s a mystery to me how we could have grown up in the same family! 

 

           Jo dotes on her dogs, especially Jewel.  Both Jewel and Jackson are afraid of my crutches, and come timidly to me only when the offending appliances are well out of the way.  Jackson is a glutton for touch.  He wants to be patted, caressed, and made over.  They are very good watchdogs.  As soon as the sun retires, they are dashing out the dog door to investigate every sound and bark at every movement.  In and out they race Jewel leading the way, barking furiously, Jackson sprinting after her, not to be left behind.  Bark! Bark! Bark!  Run, run, run!  until Jo closes the dog door and sternly tells them it's time to stay in.  

 

          It's so good to be around dogs again!

Snowy North Carolina

           So much for getting away from the cold weather. 

 

           The morning dawned cloudy and rainy, turning to mixed rain and snow. At 2:49 in the afternoon, it’s snowing for real, with the forecast 4-6 inches by the end tomorrow.  Isn’t this North Carolina?  Isn’t this supposed to be warmer than Maine?

 

          Fast forward to this morning.  Snow, wherever it is, is beautiful.  I was the only one on the road.  North Carolinians don't know what they're missing.

 

Early morning

On the road to town

          Internet is very slow here, so I’ve resorted to frequenting the library for internet access.  First snag, they have a very restricted network there.  No videos, no high graphic websites.  Solution:  VPN trial.  Virtual Private Network got through very nicely, nothing restricted now.  Ah, the joys of modern technology.  I might just keep the VPN after the month is up.  No tracking, no “targeted ads”, easy access to the sites I want, and secure enough to do banking online.  This morning, though, the library was CLOSED!  In fact, several places in the area had closed because of the weather.  Who'da thunk it?

 

Virginia to North Carolina

          I left Virginia around 9:30 yesterday and had another three hours to my sister Jo’s. People were so helpful, both at the motel and at at the convenience store/gas station where I stopped for water.  At the Quality Inn, I guzzled down four glasses of orange juice before I left.  The orange juice was the bright spot of breakfast. The eggs sausage that I tried didn’t taste like real food, so I threw most of it away. I should have known better: hotel breakfast buffets don’t serve real food.  I ate peanut butter and rice crackers once I got under way.

          The drive through the Shenandoah Valley and southward and was stunning. The mountains loomed larger and larger.  As I passed them by, I fantasized about hiking the Appalachian Trail, saw myself trekking with a backpack, imagined the various ways I could do it, with or without a car.  I’m still hoping I can do that, looking forward to doing it, in fact.  Perhaps I’ll have to do it in two or three stints, but after seeing the beauty of the mountains from a distance, I know I want to experience them firsthand.

          My sister Jo doesn’t have a spare bedroom anymore.  She took down the walls and the doors between the two small bedrooms that and made one large music room.  After I’d been there for a bit, she pulled out an inflatable single bed and pumped it up.  It was a beautiful thing, and so comfortable--but it kept losing air, how much we didn’t realize at the time.  As I sat in bed with my computer on my lap, I could feel the mattress going down just a tiny bit every few minutes.  No problem.  I’m sure it’ll last until morning. 

          Around midnight, I woke up with my butt on the springs and my feet and head in a V.  Always trying to find a way to get along, I imagined that I was on thin ice and that spreading my body over a larger area  would spread my weight and allow me to sleep through the night,  As I tried to adjust my body, the mattress flipped me over like a pancake and I landed on the floor.  I lay there laughing softly, and, reaching for the small flashlight that I’d put on the floor, scuttled on my crutches across the room and turned on the light.  After a few minutes, I called in a low voice, “Jo?  Jo?”  I heard her answer and called, “I think we need to make alternate arrangements.” I ended up on the recliner for the night, which wasn’t a hardship, and sleep through until 7:00.  We both had some good chuckles over that during the day, Jo musing, “I wish I’d been there to see you flipped like a pancake.”

          I spent a while yesterday cleaning up her computer and fretting that it was so slow to download anything.  Ah, little did I know.  By 8:00, the modem had gone south, and all the coaxing and rebooting wouldn’t convince it to come back. But there was more.  When we went in to YadkinTel, I found out her plan was 1/2 MB!  Are you kidding?  That’s over dialup speed, but just barely!  Anyway, the modem is dead, there’s no internet, and now I know why she had such a great price on her internet.  Tomorrow we’ll go exchange the modem and hopefully get a modem that works.  In the meantime, I’ll have to go to the Mocksville Library every day or two.  A half MB is not enough to download and upload what I need.  Ugh.

          Now there’s a scary thought.  We went by the library and there are several steps up to the door.  This is not going to be a fun prospect, but it’s better than not having internet access.  Oh, I am a child of the techie generation!

The Great Hotel Escapade

I set out from Pennsylvania about 9:30, after the fog had burned away, destination North Carolina.  Since it's about an 8 hour drive to my sister's house, I didn't plan to drive the entire distance in one day. After driving about 5-1/2 hours, stopping a few times at rest stops, the afternoon was waning.  I stopped for gas in Harrisonburg, but five minutes there was all it took for me to know I did not want to stay there overnight.  The roads were congested, buildings everywhere, lights flashed, in short, a proper suburban sprawl.  I left as soon as I got gas, knowing I had at least another hour before it got dark.

          Approaching Lexingon, Virginia, the sun was dropping low enough to be a nuisance, so I exited to get a motel for the night.  Smartphones are wonderful things (yes, that's me saying that).  I pulled over and looked on my cell phone for hotels in the area.  Aha!  A Day’s Inn right down the road!  And a Quality Inn and Howard Johnson’s Motel as well.  No problem.  Good choices.  I opted for the Day’s Inn and headed for the address.  My GPS directed me to take a right, and I found myself in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant.  Hmm.  I must have made a mistake.  Looking around, I saw the Day’s Inn up the hill.  Off I drove, and was puzzled when I saw only one car parked in front of one of the units.  At the end of the complex were a couple of small trucks and some workmen, but I ignored them and drove all the way around the building, sure there must be guest cars on the other side.  No luck. I drove around to the front and stopped, asking one of the workmen, “Is this hotel open?”  “Yes,” he smilled, “It’s open.”  “Where’s the office?”  He pointed solemnly down the hill. “The restaurant?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied.  The office is in there.

          Okay, call me paranoid, but two things went through my mind.  One, why weren’t there any guests at the hotel?  Did they know something I didn’t?  Had word gotten around about a problem? Bedbugs perhaps?  Two, why wasn’t there a reception desk in the hotel proper?

Day's Inn.  Even in the morning it had only 5 cars.

 I drove down the hill, across the highway to the Quality Inn parking lot.  Once again I looked at my options.  The Howard Johnson’s was cheaper, so I headed out.  Not even a driveway’s length later, I remembered the last time I booked into a Howard Johnson’s.It turned out to be very seedy; what was once an up-and-coming motel chain had slipped badly.  I turned around and checked into the Quality Inn.

          That was an adventure, too.  The room was clean and bright, they had WIFI, I got a room on the first floor, and they served a buffet breakfast, which I might or might not take advantage of.  What I didn’t know at the time was that the bathroom door measured 2 feet across, and with the door open, there was about 22 inches for me to maneuver through. 

 

Notice the squares?  Each square is one foot. Take off for the width of the door and there's 22 inches.

Scuttling in sideways.

Oh, well, I went in sideways, and all was well.  Around 9:00 I crashed, and promised myself a long bath in the morning.

          Around 11:00, I awoke to voices, After a few minutes, I became curious, because the voices were LOUD.  I thought there were people outside my door, and I just couldn’t figure out why they’d be in the hallway holding a convention.  Finally I got up, grabbed my crutches, and went to the door.  What a surprise to find that the voices, now very clear, were coming from the room next door.  A man and a woman were having a fine time, laughing talking, chortling, and forgetting that some people actually go to a hotel to sleep.  I gave up and ran a hot bath, hoping they’d have quieted down by the time I was done.  No such luck, so I turned on my computer and watched a movie for about a half hour.  A little after midnight, all was quiet and I went back to bed.  Ah! Blessed silence!  I slept until 8:00.

Pennsylvania

           I’ve been lazy this week, but I hadn’t realized how much until I looked at the date and saw that I hadn’t updated my blog in over a week.

           I’m still at Valerie’s, but getting ready to leave for North Carolina tomorrow.  It’s an 8-hour drive, so after trying unsuccessfully to find a driving companion on Couchsurfing, I decided I’d just head out after church and drive half way, stopping at a motel to rest my ankle before I drive the rest of the way on Monday.  Countdown:  Monday marks the half-way point in my forced crutch use.  Well, almost.  If I look at a full 30 days, it’s actually not half way.  That would be reserved for Tuesday.  Close enough, though!

            I’ve been taking short drives for the past 3 or 4 days to get used to the idea of driving with a broken ankle and hobbling around on my crutches.  I’ve seen a little of Pennsylvania that way, though admittedly limited.  One of my favorite places is Green Lane Park, quiet, rural, and lovely.

           

Pennsylvania is a odd mix of freedom and oppressive laws.  No helmets required for motorcyclists, raw milk is easily obtainable, but it takes 6 months to get a handicapped sticker and the threat of a $200 fine—even if you can prove you were handicapped when you pulled into that spot.  And then there’s the requirement to pass a background investigation before you can even go into a school.  Really? Guilty until proven innocent?  Val and Jack opted to have an escort when attending parent-teacher meetings.  They’re pretty hardcore freedom lovers. I like that in a person.

 

The Gadsden Flag

           Jack and I have had some spirited conversations about government policy, the Administrative State, and the continual chipping away at the Federal Constitution. I was delighted to find a kindred soul, but he surprised me by telling me that it was I who had first introduced him to libertarian thought many years ago.  You just never know the profound influence you might have on someone.

           Pennsylvania looks much like Maine in many ways: narrow roads,  a profusion of forest and fields, and good farmland, to name a few.  

No shoulders on this narrow road.

Hay field after harvest

There are differences, though.  Lancaster County, with its myriad of farms, beautifully maintained, with silos rising above the barns, looks nothing like small farms dotting the land in Maine.  I’m sure there must be a silo or two in Maine, but they’re not common.  One disturbing trend is obvious.  Every large field was bordered by houses.  Residential developments are encroaching on the farmland, eating away at the tillable land.

Residential development is nipping at the heals of existing farms.

            How short sighted people are!  What will they do when all the farmland is gone? I’ve come to appreciate even more the small farms of Maine, especially the small organic farms that bring fresh produce to our farmers markets.  With all the farms in the area surrounding my current resting place, I haven’t found one farmers market.  I’ve had to drive 35-40 minutes to find a store that sells organic and bulk foods. 

           The architecture is beautiful.  Stone masons must have been plentiful, as stone houses can be seen everywhere.  Stucco and brick are also common, and can be seen in newer houses as well as those from colonial and post-revolutionary times, quite a difference from the wood frame houses of New England.

            Each building has a tale to tell, but Val told me the story behind one particularly beautiful. It was originally the Perkiomenville Inn, a turn of the (20th) century hotel for vacationers, who would come up from Philadelphia on a train.  The building was vacant when Val and Jack moved to the area in the early 1990’s.  Around 2005, a woman bought it, gutted it and put in a restaurant downstairs, a commercial kitchen for the restaurant, and refurbished the upstairs as turn of the century rooms with antique, Victorian-era beds and furniture.  She was in business for about 3-4 years and then building went up for sale.  When it sold (for over a $million), the downstairs was reopened as a bar, but the upstairs was never reopened as a bed and breakfast.  However, the bar was not successful, lasting only a few months.  According to Jack, "They didn't know one end of a wine bottle from the other." That would explain it!  

 

            Since then the Inn has been vacant, for whatever reason.  Even so, the architecture is sensational.  The facade of the building can be seen on postcards and old historical books, and with all the change of owners, has not been changed.  

 

           I tried several times to get a picture of that inn. It took me four times to be free of trucks, sun in my camera lens, and cars on my bumper to be finally able to pull over and get a photo.

Perkiomanville Inn

            The newer buildings—well, let’s just say that they remind me of the Pete Seeger song, “Little Boxes”, only instead of “there’s a green one, and a pink one, and a blue one, and a yellow one…”  it’s “there’s a brick one, and a stone one, and a stucco, and a combo one, and they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.” 

The boot and me

          I’m in a boot, but told I am not allowed to do any weight bearing for four weeks.  Four weeks.  Ugh.  Valerie and her husband Jack have been sooo gracious and welcoming.  I spent Thanksgiving with them and Jack’s family, and enjoyed myself tremendously.

My life is a bit askew

           You know, I haven’t played cards in a long time, but when friends of Jack and Valerie came over in the evening to play cribbage, I joined in.  It didn’t take long before I remembered how to play and how to score. 

Simple pleasures.  How often do we take time for the simple pleasures of life?  Our lives are so busy that we forget to stop, and just enjoy what is before us.  Are our lives too busy?  Are we so captured by technology that we have forgotten how to take a walk, play a board game, dash into the sea, accept an impromptu invitation, be spontaneous!?  Isn’t spontaneity what gives life its zest?  The things we do in the spur of the moment, setting aside our fear of making an error or "being foolish", are where we find our greatest and perhaps most unanticipated pleasures.  Oh, sure, sometimes we can fall flat on our faces, but what of that?  Isn’t it worth the risk to have a rich life, full of friendships and precious moments?  Sometimes I have to be reminded of that, and I’m grateful for those moments that I would have missed had I been too busy to enjoy the unexpected and the opportune.  May I never be too busy to live.

Finally, on my way!

           The journey has begun, with a bang—or rather, with a crack, but I’ll get to that in a bit. 

           My Nissan having brand new tires and being fully checked out and repaired where necessary, I left home a little before 10:00 on Saturday morning, after having carefully (as I thought) looked around to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, headed to the post office, and found waiting for me a package that I’d been expecting.  Cool.  On my way.  I’d planned on visiting with my friend Carol Poulin-Taylor, who owns Esprit Equestrian Center in Durham, Maine.  I had a box of tapes and other horse articles for her, and delivered them to her barn, only to find that she was away, judging a show.  Oh, well.  I left the box and continued on to Massachusetts.

           Honestly, I don’t know why anyone lives there.  The traffic is horrendous and the drivers have no equal for rudeness—or so it seemed when the road was dividing and I had to merge left, or end up on the road to Nashua, NH.  One driver quickly pulled up beside me when she noticed there was a small space in front of her that I might take advantage of! After several attempts to get in, my signals blinking furiously, I had to put on my aggressive driver hat and pull in front of a car that didn’t really want to give me room.  Then I waved and smiled to say “thank you”.  Perhaps that abated the scowl that I saw just before I bullied my way in.

           My sister Toni was a gracious host, as she always is, and it was fun spending time with my nephews.  Soon I discovered, though, that not all was as I had supposed. The hatchback on the Nissan refused to open.  I fiddled this way and that, was able to open the glass part of the door and so reach boxes and suitcase, but no matter what I did or how I held my mouth, that hatchback just would not open.  All the fiddling did lock the car, though, and I learned an important lesson—never leave the keys in the car; the locks have a mind of their own and will gladly lock me out if given the opportunity.  What a good thing I put the keys in my pocket and not on top of one of the boxes in the back! Lesson learned.  My keys go with me everywhere.

           The next surprise was that a small box I’d filled with my external backup drive, insulated earbuds for my phone, and chargers for my Kindle, phone, and Garmin GPS module was not in the car.  Nope, not at home either and not dropped unwittingly into the box for Carol.  Its whereabouts is still a mystery.

           People in Quincy, as in most of greater Boston, live cheek to jowl, but at the end of Toni’s street is a small bit of protected wetlands where the tides fill and empty, leaving a lovely and quiet place to walk.  The town has laid out a gravel pathway which encircles the area.  A family of coyotes dwells there, and cranes can be seen on occasion.  One can see the city from the shore, and turning in another direction, the ocean comes into view.  It’s a wonderful place to walk, and walk I did, enjoying every moment as dusk drew in.

One enters the conservation area through a small gate guarded by  towering trees.

Looking across the wetlands

The path to the left

Low tide

As the dusk gathered, lights turned on across the way

       Monday morning I left early, about 7:00, and headed for Pennsylvania to see my cousin Valerie.  At Darien, Connecticut, service plaza, I misstepped on a curb and twisted my ankle badly.  “crack, crack, crack”.  That didn’t bode well, I thought, but I hobbled inside, sat for a few minutes, hobbled to the store at the far end of the building to buy some water, and hobbled back to my car, where I took Arnica, a homeopathic remedy that is a good first go-to for any kind of physical trauma.  By the time I got to Val’s, I knew I was in trouble.  The Arnica hadn’t helped the swelling a whole lot and weight bearing was almost impossible.  I headed to CVS to buy an Ace bandage, and the clerk mentioned an urgent care facility.  You can guess the rest—a fracture, a splint, and today an orthopedist.  Blah!