Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Took a different shot today, this angle was so awesome. Beautiful day. My father’s birthday was last week, he would have been 108 if he was still alive. I looked at old photos of us together, thought about the parts of his personality and the traits I got from him. He liked to work. He was kind of a wise guy from what I remember. He was a pretty good musician in his day. Then I started thinking about my mom – she was a bookkeeper, always really good with numbers, extremely intelligent, a little OCD, loved to read… and I started wondering why it is that we inherit traits at all from our parents that aren’t just physical ones. The physical side I get, that makes sense to me – but inside, our thoughts, feelings and emotions – why and/or how can that be affected by who our parents are? Professional athletes having kids who become professional athletes – I get that. But why would accountants beget accountants, or engineers beget engineers? It seems like pretty much everyone comes into the world with a certain skill set inherited from our parents. This kind of leads to thinking about “where/when does life begin”? If you believe life begins at conception, I guess coming into the world with inherited traits makes sense. Where were you before you were born, though? What is life? Is this it? I have friends who think this is it, we’re born, we live, we die – that’s all there is. They could be right, I guess. I don’t think I ever really thought that way. But if that isn’t what happens, then where do we go when we die? Heaven or Hell? Based on what we’ve done, what we believed and/or how we acted while we were here? I have a hard time with that concept as well. Humans have souls. Some believe animals also have souls, but I’ll curb that topic for another day. Is there a beginning and/or an end to our souls? Is our birth date on earth the actual birth date of our soul? If it isn’t, then how can we be affected by who our parents are? And, why do most people think we live on after we die, but so few think we were here before we were born? Isn’t there a finite amount of energy in the Universe that just moves from one form to another? If that’s true, wouldn’t souls be timeless? I have no answers today, only questions. Myself, I find peace in moments with God, in meditation and prayer. I don’t feel the need to have all the answers. I know many of my Facebook friends might have deep religious beliefs on this subject. I also know several of you think there is no God at all. Respectful comments will be retained, but I’ll delete anything that gets belligerent. For every person on Earth, we all walk with (or without) God in our own way. May everyone find a way to love others and be happy, today and always.
