The Christmas goose never has more proof of the farmer's eternal benevolence than he has at 8:00 on the morning of December 24th. Central European proverb
The Human Condition
Most of us spend almost all of our lives sleepwalking through it.
We are certain of success if we mumble magical incantations and wear the designated costume and are festooned with magical talismans.
We believe we have an unbreakable contract with destiny. Vote for this candidate and life will be good. Live in this neighborhood and we well be safe. Send our kids to the preordained school and they will respect us.
We do it because humans do not cope well with chaos and uncertainty. We HAVE to believe. And we march through life trapped in our rigid cage of mumbles, costumes and talismans.
And then…
The unbreakable contract is broken.
The Emergency Room nurse is on duty when her husband is brought in, a victim of road-rage. Mowed down by a truck going 55 miles per hour...a truck that swerved to hit him.
Our child tells us they were diagnosed with an aggressive, untreatable form of cancer or that they were sexually assaulted.
Our spouse tells us that they do not love us anymore and that they are leaving.
The company that you were about to retire from declares bankruptcy.
A parent of friend who we considered to be the rock of our life dies or has a stroke or becomes senile.
The variations are endless.
Three likely paths
One path is insanity. That is the entire reason we buy into the cage-of-mumbles.
To do otherwise is to court insanity.
A second path is abject victimhood.The third path is to stare insanity and victimhood in the eye and say “God, I believe that you can use all things for good. Let me be your tool that others might see how my misfortune can be the pile of compost that nourishes the rose.”
You see, the thing about disasters is that by destroying the illusion of the rigid cage-of-mumbles, it makes the concrete moldable. It gives us the freedom...the necessity...of looking at everything with new eyes and an open mind.
Spiritual Warrior Unit
Isaac Walsh processed his way through the three likely paths. He chose the third path.
Isaac Walsh knew that he was not the only person who had chosen the third path and he was intrigued by why some people who experienced disasters chose the third path while many chose the two, easier paths.
What is the difference? Why do most people curl up in a ball or become poisonously bitter while a few seem to launch out of the disaster like Secretariat out of the starting box?
I am skipping over a bunch of details but Mr Walsh deduced that God had a mission for him. Mr Walsh was on the receiving end of a grievous accident in 2009, one that should have left him a speechless, drooling hulk...but God healed him to the enormous surprise of his doctors.
Skipping over a bunch of details, Mr Walsh now runs a Youtube Channel called Spiritual Warrior Unit.
He interviews people who are involved in non-profit organizations and he gently coaxes from them the ways that their organizations guide erstwhile victims to the third path.
Surprisingly easy to watch
Many channels of this ilk have shaky production values. Literally, the cameraman shakes, the sound is dodgy and so on. Not Spiritual Warrior Unit.
I asked Mr Walsh and his producer, Mr Jackson to suggest a sampler-pack of productions for new listeners. These are their picks:
Humor
Don't drink beer under the street light Six minute runtime
Daddy died in the war...and then came back Four minute runtime
What is your race? "Poor!" Two minute runtime
Is it alright if I finish this funeral? Six minute runtime
Always the Southern Belle Two minute runtime
Interviews
Necole Hayes of Motherly Intercession One hour runtime Organization's website
Ben Cusick of NightHawkInLight One hour runtime Organization's website
Jeremy Riley of End of I One hour runtime
Disclosure: Mr Walsh and Mr Jackson are personal friends of Shotgun. He introduced us on our trip to Davidson, Michigan.
Interesting post and things to think about. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAnd the money quote is "I never imagined that it was honest..."
DeleteI get paid pretty good money to do whatever I please. All it took was 28 years in one main job for the pension, several side jobs for a little social security boost, and getting out of debt. "There's no free lunch."
DeleteThere is a version of your third path that we agnostics have. I suspect we share it with the more mathematically minded poker and craps players. And that is sometimes we are/were just unlucky or made a bad decision through no fault of our own (i.e., using the best information we had at the time), but moping around about it does help anything. So we pick ourselves back up and carry on as best we can, working on doing better. Until we can't. If you're still breathing, you're still in the fight.
ReplyDeletePlaying the odds is basically a sound strategy, but it is no guarantee of success. There is always an element of probability involved. The odds of every molecule of oxygen in the room suddenly rushing over into the corner and you suffocating is identical to the spatial location of the oxygen at this instant in time. What saves us is that there are a lot more spatial distributions where the oxygen is reasonably distributed throughout the entire room ... we are saved by probability. But that doesn't mean the first event can't happen, just that the odds are incredibly small.
Einstein was probably incorrect when he said God doesn't play dice with the universe. But those are not your normal dice.
moping around about it does* help anything
Delete*doesn't
Bookmarked and subscribed.
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