Blog 131 – 10.5.15

I mentioned sometime back a beloved friend of mine with a beautiful mind that had been diagnosed as bi-polar, manic-depressive, and schizophrenic. I believe, and call me crazy – you won’t be the first or the last, that we all suffer from those three things to some degree and they are really only one. Bi means two and bi-polar means two minds. Manic-depressive only describes the high and the low moods of the double minded person. While schizophrenic is a big fancy doctor word that means split or multiple personality.

If you have lived with a person who has a severe case of the above you know how difficult even that is but imagine what it must be like to live it from the inside out. Robert Louis Stevenson in his classic novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, tells the story of schizophrenia in a very graphic tale which has been retold in many plays and movies.

I remember a cartoon I saw as a boy where the main character had a little red devil on one shoulder yelling in his ear and a small white angel in the other whispering in his ear. Our higher nature, our higher best self, seems to always be at war with our lower or base self. But I submit that as real as the fight may seem it is not real but an illusion or delusion. The cry of the Jew of old and the Islamic and Christian believers for the past two thousand years has been, “Behold the LORD, God is one.” So also my friend is his child created in His image. All that is is God and there is a Oneness that transcends all the uniqueness and detailed and different threads in this beautiful and wonderful tapestry that is the Universe or God.

In the creation story in the first pages of the first book of the Bible after each of the six days or ages of creation (if you consider the ‘each day is with the LORD as a thousand years’ verse) you find the same conclusion phrase to the day or age: “And the evening and the morning were the (insert number 1st through 6th) day,”

Some people love sunsets more and others sunrises but I think they are one in the same. I challenge you to look at a picture of each and tell me with certainty which is which. And does it really matter. Ray Stevens once sang, “Everything is beautiful in its own way.” And the bright blessed day and the dark sacred night are both magnificent, wonderful, and beautiful. Both ours to enjoy.

The Bible says, “The double minded man is unstable in all his ways” and in another place “Be of one mind.” I have come to believe that doesn’t mean trying to change other people’s minds but to change your own to think with your higher best mind, the one mind of the Universe. Now that’s some pretty heavy thinking. But relax and have fun figuring it all out for yourself. That is why you are here. And I for one am so glad you are and that I am…

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White