Blog Chapter 1

With these new blogs I am hoping to reach any senior seniors out there who, like myself, are now confronting their mortality, as I was several years ago after undergoing surgery for cancer of the jaw.  I survived that experience with 8 fewer teeth, a reshaped lower jaw and requiring therapy for loss of memory owing to a stroke suffered while spending seven hours on the operating table.

When I recovered my marbles following successful therapy, my view of life was completely altered.  I realized I could have died on that table, could still die from a recurrence and had better get my act together if I wanted to begin to understand what my life has been all about, for whatever time I have left.

An avid reader, I completely lost all interest in the adventure novels I once loved, for example, and began to seek out what, somewhat dismissively, others have called “new age” literature.   To me, new age literature refers to writings by knowledgeable authors of modern thought regarding spiritual issues. So, I concentrated on reading books written by authors with genuine educational credentials and/or with significant public recognition. (At the end of this blog, if interested, you’ll be able to see a sample of my reading selections during the last several years since the operation). Some of the more meaningful titles I have read and reread several times. Some, like “The Phenomenon of Man” by the late Jesuit priest, Teilhard de Chardin, I’m still slogging through, trying to appreciate and to understand his efforts to link religion and science.)

Having referred to religion, now is an opportunity to mention that, as a boy, until I volunteered for military service at age 18 during World War II, my father hauled our big family, in our well-used limo equipped with jump-seats, one hour to church and then back home every Sunday.  More recently, I have just retired from my position as treasurer of my church, finally having convinced another member of the congregation to assume the responsibility I had held for seven years.  From the standpoint of this discussion, I would like you to understand that I value the Bible. While being inspired by those accounts of when Jesus, or the disciples or even earlier prophets were indicated in the writings to be in contact with or influenced by heavenly sources, I still find it quite difficult to relate in a meaningful way to the lives of those folk living more than 2000 years in the past.

Now back to the present.  At a reasonably healthy advanced age, I’m here with the awareness that, according to longevity statistics, this life is coming very close to its end.  I hasten to add, however, that fear of death does not in any material way intrude on my anticipation of raising my arthritic bones out of bed each new day, with gratitude for being able to add one more day’s mostly inconsequential adventure to my accumulated life experience.  Oh, sure I admit to being a little anxious occasionally, but I attribute it to the fact that I don’t recall having died before.

What’s my supposed secret?  The reading, no, the studying and assimilation I’ve done since my operation, of the books on the reference list included below, and many more, over the past several years.  I’m now convinced that death is not the end of life but only one of life’s stages.  I believe our lives may be eternal and that we live in this biological existence of duality, of good and evil, to give us the opportunity to grow philosophically in this lifetime through our daily choices. In fact, to evolve to the state of understanding modeled by Jesus, something rarely, if ever, achieved in a single lifetime, I should think. (The definition of philosophy that resonates with me, by the way, is stated in the Oxford dictionary as, “The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence”).

While I’m admittedly not the brightest light bulb on the block, I had experience, while in business, of writing contracts. I believe this work equipped me with the ability to synthesize coherent reports such as the accounts of the learned authors on the attached reading list.

Well, the above is quite enough to digest for this first effort.  If anyone out there happens on to this blog and would like to continue reading, please be assured I’d like to continue, too.  I’d appreciate the opportunity to defend my assertions mentioned above by reference to the writers who propounded them.  I feel strongly that the information I’ve happened upon, while not new, needs to be shared.

While it’s most probably wishful thinking, to avoid any chance of clogging up my in-box, I’m setting up a separate account for this series of blogs.  For the time being at least I’m going to identify myself by the “handle” I used when we were communicating on the road with citizen band radios.  My handle then was Dutch Treat, sort of a reference to an earlier time when I was pretty financially strapped. So, this is DutchTreat97 signing off for now.