Connectedness
This post is as much about feeling as it is about thinking.
A strange thing happened to me yesterday. I started thinking about the first babysitter I ever knew. She took care of me during very early childhood, probably for a couple of years total. I called her Mama Pardo. I remember her as always being happy, funny, loving, and nurturing. Her husband was a good man, but I remember him being a loud "Man's man". I believe he was a blue-collar worker at a refinery or something.
Although she only kept me for a couple of years, I was always fond of her and visited her and Papa Pardo a few times throughout my school years and for the last time while on leave from the Navy. That last visit was about 28 years ago.
We moved away from her neighborhood when I was two or three years old, then my parents divorced when I was four. By the time I was nine, my mom and I had moved to Houston, over 250 miles away, so the only opportunity I would have to see Mama Pardo would be when in the Dallas area visiting my dad. Honestly, we weren't close enough for me to think of her often. I very rarely thought of Mama and Papa Pardo over the course of my life.
Perhaps it's a stage of life thing for me, but I'm trying to resolve "Why now?" Why start thinking of her now? On a whim, I decided to Google her. The first hit was her obituary, showing her passing on January 5, 2014. OK, that's strange. That's only a couple of weeks ago, and I've been thinking about her since then.
Then I remembered my dad sending me an email about "Pardo's Push" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRNbcPS3A9c), a legendary and heroic maneuver done in a F-4 fighter jet during Vietnam. Pardo's Push was performed by Papa Pardo's brother, Captain Bob Pardo. I remember Papa Pardo telling me the story about his heroic brother the last time we visited. Dad sent me the email on January 4th, 2014, the day before Mama Pardo passed away. Strange.
As a skeptic, I could sit here and try to calculate the odds of thinking about anyone on any given day. The closer we are, the higher the odds they'll cross my mind. No matter what the odds, I understand that my experience is completely anecdotal and not scientifically based. But does that matter?
I've had similar experiences, many times. Things that seem too spooky to possibly be coincidence. The seemingly unexplainable feeling of tremendous loss moments before getting the call that one of your closest friends just passed away. The call from your best friend - who couldn't possibly know about a situation you're enduring - just when you needed it most. If he's your best friend and you already talk monthly or so, odds are better than 1/12... Etc., etc.
Some will use these anecdotes with confirmation bias to affirm supernatural beliefs. While I'm not ready to leap to the conclusion that "because I had this weird experience, I accept scripture as literally true." No. Absolutely not. But I do acknowledge that scripture (and all literature) reflects what man experiences and struggles with. Good, bad, ugly. It tells stories about our struggle to understand the world and our place in it, our projections, our hopes, and our fears.
Many non-theists talk about our connection to The Universe at the quantum level. We're made of the same stuff - Star Stuff. Everything in the Universe is connected elementally and through action / reaction. Others adopt pantheistic or panentheistic views. My point is that we all grapple with the notion of Connectedness - our connection to both the living - including humans, other animals, and all living things - and even the dead. Is there a spirit that survives? I don't know. Do others live on only in our thoughts? I don't know. Is there any consciousness that lives beyond the body that we can connect to or that connects with us? I don't know. For the record, I know of no scientifically valid verification of any such phenomena. Does that mean it doesn't exist? Since NOTHING can be proven to not exist, we can only say that we do not understand it if it does exist.
But I don't want to be too quick to dismiss it altogether. When something happens to us, it often feels as if it's true 100% of the time, even though we can cognitively resolve that statistical falsehood. It's still meaningful to us. We feel different when we perceive moments of serendipity or other strange happenings. We seek to understand if there's a purpose or meaning behind them, even if they're purely psychologically rooted.
I embrace these weird events and do not want to diminish them or write them off as purely coincidental. Perhaps there is "something there" that we still don't understand. While I'm quite certain I'll never again embrace theism as I once did, I'm not yet convinced there's not "something else" that connects us that we still don't understand, and may never be able to fully grasp.
Peace friends. And with sincere love, farewell Mama Pardo.
http://www.obitsforlife.com/obituary/830942/Pardo-Faye.php
A strange thing happened to me yesterday. I started thinking about the first babysitter I ever knew. She took care of me during very early childhood, probably for a couple of years total. I called her Mama Pardo. I remember her as always being happy, funny, loving, and nurturing. Her husband was a good man, but I remember him being a loud "Man's man". I believe he was a blue-collar worker at a refinery or something.
Although she only kept me for a couple of years, I was always fond of her and visited her and Papa Pardo a few times throughout my school years and for the last time while on leave from the Navy. That last visit was about 28 years ago.
We moved away from her neighborhood when I was two or three years old, then my parents divorced when I was four. By the time I was nine, my mom and I had moved to Houston, over 250 miles away, so the only opportunity I would have to see Mama Pardo would be when in the Dallas area visiting my dad. Honestly, we weren't close enough for me to think of her often. I very rarely thought of Mama and Papa Pardo over the course of my life.
Perhaps it's a stage of life thing for me, but I'm trying to resolve "Why now?" Why start thinking of her now? On a whim, I decided to Google her. The first hit was her obituary, showing her passing on January 5, 2014. OK, that's strange. That's only a couple of weeks ago, and I've been thinking about her since then.
Then I remembered my dad sending me an email about "Pardo's Push" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRNbcPS3A9c), a legendary and heroic maneuver done in a F-4 fighter jet during Vietnam. Pardo's Push was performed by Papa Pardo's brother, Captain Bob Pardo. I remember Papa Pardo telling me the story about his heroic brother the last time we visited. Dad sent me the email on January 4th, 2014, the day before Mama Pardo passed away. Strange.
As a skeptic, I could sit here and try to calculate the odds of thinking about anyone on any given day. The closer we are, the higher the odds they'll cross my mind. No matter what the odds, I understand that my experience is completely anecdotal and not scientifically based. But does that matter?
I've had similar experiences, many times. Things that seem too spooky to possibly be coincidence. The seemingly unexplainable feeling of tremendous loss moments before getting the call that one of your closest friends just passed away. The call from your best friend - who couldn't possibly know about a situation you're enduring - just when you needed it most. If he's your best friend and you already talk monthly or so, odds are better than 1/12... Etc., etc.
Some will use these anecdotes with confirmation bias to affirm supernatural beliefs. While I'm not ready to leap to the conclusion that "because I had this weird experience, I accept scripture as literally true." No. Absolutely not. But I do acknowledge that scripture (and all literature) reflects what man experiences and struggles with. Good, bad, ugly. It tells stories about our struggle to understand the world and our place in it, our projections, our hopes, and our fears.
Many non-theists talk about our connection to The Universe at the quantum level. We're made of the same stuff - Star Stuff. Everything in the Universe is connected elementally and through action / reaction. Others adopt pantheistic or panentheistic views. My point is that we all grapple with the notion of Connectedness - our connection to both the living - including humans, other animals, and all living things - and even the dead. Is there a spirit that survives? I don't know. Do others live on only in our thoughts? I don't know. Is there any consciousness that lives beyond the body that we can connect to or that connects with us? I don't know. For the record, I know of no scientifically valid verification of any such phenomena. Does that mean it doesn't exist? Since NOTHING can be proven to not exist, we can only say that we do not understand it if it does exist.
But I don't want to be too quick to dismiss it altogether. When something happens to us, it often feels as if it's true 100% of the time, even though we can cognitively resolve that statistical falsehood. It's still meaningful to us. We feel different when we perceive moments of serendipity or other strange happenings. We seek to understand if there's a purpose or meaning behind them, even if they're purely psychologically rooted.
I embrace these weird events and do not want to diminish them or write them off as purely coincidental. Perhaps there is "something there" that we still don't understand. While I'm quite certain I'll never again embrace theism as I once did, I'm not yet convinced there's not "something else" that connects us that we still don't understand, and may never be able to fully grasp.
Peace friends. And with sincere love, farewell Mama Pardo.
http://www.obitsforlife.com/obituary/830942/Pardo-Faye.php
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