Out on a Branch

You have heard of Shirley McLane’s book “Out on a Limb” and its story of Shirley’s adventure into the paranormal. I decided that a good title for this newsletter would be “Out on a Branch” because Out on a Limb was already taken.

It is interesting to think that each of us sometimes find ourselves in a place that, if we are not careful, we could fall hard – out on the end of a branch that bends with every breath of wind. Insecure in the belief that we don’t have a good hold of the branch, but only have a precarious hold on our branch of the tree of life. No one wants to fall off.

“Falling” is an expression that many people use to describe how they went from living a “normal life” to being in a life of desperation. Feeling desperate over whether we will be working at the same job for another week due to the rumors that the company may be sold, or our job maybe cut due to the company being reorganized.

Maybe, it has nothing to do with our jobs, but what about our children? The son or daughter, who has all that a child could possibly want or need at home, but they believe that they are being prevented from doing all that is in their minds to do in their life with out their parents stopping them.

These kids often leave home believing that they are not loved or wanted believing that they can do better on their own. They leave home only to find themselves living on the street in the part of town where prostitution and drugs runs ramped, where love is a roll in the sack for a one minute’s feeling of being loved and wanted. They get into trouble with the police, get beaten up by other street kids and end up in a hospital with broken bones and scars that will be with them for the rest of their lives – physical and emotional.

Parents, inevitability worry about their children, day and night. Parents want only the best for their children, and in general give them more than they could ever hope for. But, kids today take advantage of this in their demands. Even parents on limited income find ways to purchase the things that their children want, not what they need, but what they want. It is a well known fact that people in general want to have all that they can get and more “come hell or high water.” They are never satisfied. That is why so many people steal from their employers and sell what they have stolen, sell drugs, buy “lotto” tickets, or go to the gambling halls in the hope of hitting it big. Many years ago it was said, “even if every man, woman and child on earth were given a million dollars, in a short time it would that the rich who would have all of the money again and the poor would be poor again.”

So what happened with the kids? Why are kids today thinking that their life is so bad that they think that the only solution is to leave home? Let me say, that I think that most of us as adults have had the same kind of thoughts that our kids have had, but we didn’t act on them. We are all looking for something better; something that will gives us a sense of direction and security. Kids today are told from the time they enter school until they graduate from university that life is tough. That they have to prove themselves constantly and that if they don’t, they can end up with nothing. Nothing, meaning that they have no job after 12 or 20 years of school, no employer will hire them and their parents have banded them from their homes and that life has taken away their ingenuity and ability to be. This sounds very negative to me and I believe it sounds that way to you also. Is their no solution(s) to the “problems” of life?

Does the answer lie in a strong belief in God? Would it help for a person, us, to be involved in a religion sect, ism or denomination? Would this help us to have a strong belief in God? We learn as we go through life that God is a God of love and that we don’t have to be a member of any religion to know this. We believe that we are on a spiritual path and that path leads us back to the presences of God. Or by contrast, through circumstances, we believe that there’s no God and that we are on our own and that when we die, that’s it. Nothing exists beyond this life.

In thinking about what it means to be out on a branch, I have learned that even the flimsiest twig on the very end of a branch can hold a great deal of weight and not break – in fact it is extremely flexible. Have you ever seen a bird too large for the branch it’s sitting on? Does the bird worry about the rest of the branch or the tree that is holding it? They are secure and never fall to the ground below. We as humans, however, we are not as trusting and secure as that bird. We are always checking the branch that we are on. We want the security of a large and sturdy branch close to the trunk where it would be almost impossible for the branch to break. We want all the security the branch (life) and the tree can give us. Thus we don’t have to worry about anything – or do we?

Security may be the answer to what we are looking for out on our branches of life. Security that we are being taken care of by our parents, our government, our spouse, our grown children, the guy next door, the person across the street, even God. How about the person who lives down the street? Or the man who offers us a job mowing his lawn, even though we are only a skinny 10 years old kid.

We are people in a world that is in a constant state of flux that changes from moment to moment. Sitting on the end of our branch, we believe that we will live to be a hundred and be healthy with the mind of a 20 year old.

Our future, on the end of the branch, just keeps growing and moving us forward. Forward to our greatest joys in life of love, money, a home, good job, a song in our hearts, and happy in the knowledge that our kids do have all that they could ever want and need without us worrying about them. Out on a branch, but secure in the knowledge that we are who we are, and maybe, that will be enough.

Life

Aug. 2007

Closely related to life is death and the traumas that people experience. Yes, life and death are requirements for people who live here in this physical world. You have heard it said many time, “You never get out of this world alive.” You live, you die and in between times, you pay taxes. It seems as though that is what it’s all about, but on the other hand, life is a lot more than that – you do get out of this life alive. More about this later.

Many years ago I was thinking about my life and all of the ups and downs that I have experienced and, like most people, I wondered why. It seemed that no matter what I did, it was never right or enough. People seemed to want to make me into their own image and I don’t want that or even like that at all. Even today, forty, fifty or sixty plus years later it seems that people are still trying to make me into their image, and I still don’t like it.

You have no doubt experienced that same thing in your life. When did this all start, anyhow? Well, believe it or not, it started when you and I were born into this world. Our parents started to make us into their image and impressed upon us their beliefs and mannerisms that they had impressed upon them by their parents. Not that, maybe, astrology had something to do with it also.

I’m sorry to say, the influence of my parent, good or bad, is still with me today and it is going to take another hundred years or so for me to become the individual that I believe that I am. And even if I do live another hundred years, will it be enough? Maybe not!

One of the things that I have found in my life is that I want to be better than I am at the present time. I went to high school, to junior college and then university. I go to church. I sing songs. I have conversations with and intermingle with other people, and I even go to parks, ski resorts, the ocean, lakes, and just about anyplace I feel like going. But it never seems to satisfy my longings. Just who am I anyway?

I thought I once new who I am, but it seems that every day I’m reminded that I am really the person that my parents and society made me into. What a dilemma! So how do I overcome all of the life programming that I have?

Well I start by recognizing that I am really my parent’s son. Then I recognize that my personality has been greatly influenced by them and I need to determine whether or not I believe that it is good or no so good for me. Then after I determine that, I will have to decide if it is possible to make changes that I think will be for my highest good. Not an easy thing to do.

Question? Do you think that your way of life is better than mine? Do you think that you can help me? Maybe yes maybe no.

I used to be a complainer; yes I was a big complainer. I used to think that the whole world was on my shoulders and that I could do nothing to change it. I complained about my parents, my brothers and sister, even the guy next door, everything and everybody. I complained about the way the government was handling the affairs of the people of this great country. I used to complain about how the boss at work was pushing me to get the job done faster and make sure to that it was done right at the same time. I did my best, but it never seemed to be good enough. Sound familiar? I think that every person who works for a living goes through the same things even if they are one of the greatest engineers, businessman or parent around. Oh boy! What a life.

The question still remains, Will I ever be able to make the changes that I believe I need to make in order to be all that I can be? I will work on these things in this life – until I die, then I’ll continue working on them in the after life. Oh! You do get out of this life alive? Spiritualists have proven this for more than 160 years. Believe it or not, hundreds of psychologists have finally learned and continue to prove that there is life after physical death.

In Carol Bowman’s book “Children’s Past Lives” has detailed her own experiences with past life regression from being hypnotized herself and the hypnotizing of her two children who also under went past life regression by a trained hypnotherapist, Norman Inge. Mrs. Bowman quotes in her book, a number of stories told to her by numerous doctors of psychology who do regressions as part of their therapy sessions with their patients. She also read their books and consulted with them. Mrs. Bowman also talks about the past life regressions she did with various children as a trained and certified hypnotherapist.

In the Bible, Jesus talks about John the Baptist as being the incarnation of Elijah.

In Caroline D. Larsen’s book “My Travels in the Spirit World” she talks about how she started to do out of body traveling (OBT), the same type described by Raymond Moody in his books. She just started one day; kind of surprising event to her senses. As she started to have a number of OBTs she decided one day to see if she could go to the spirit world and see what it was like there. The book is a real eye opener for those who have never read any thing about the spirit world. Caroline’s stories are very much like those described by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, son of Edward White Benson former Archbishop of Canterbury. These two men lived during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Robert pasted to spirit in 1914, and was able to describe the spirit world through the mediumship of Anthony Borgia. Monsignor first book was titled “Beyond This Life;” the second book was titled “The World Unseen.” Monsignor starts by giving a general survey, an account of his passing and his subsequent travels through various parts of spirit lands.

The book of Caroline Larsen and Monsignor Benson are book that make it possible for the reader to know that life is indeed continuous. And that we have nothing to fear of leaving this physical world. Life does continue after the change called death and I will make all of the changes to me that are and will be necessary as I live here and in the great here after. I believe that you will also.