Some inspiring healing stories

Quantum Touch is a very interesting and effective healing modality. Here are some inspiring stories from the latest newsletter:

4. Disappearing Cancer and the Use of QT

Wendy Slatters lives in Perth, Western Australia. She is 69 years of age and has had cancer for 8 years. Wendy was diagnosed with 4th stage breast cancer and after extensive treatment that was unsuccessful was given a very poor prognosis of 3 to 6 months maximum. Being a very determined person she embarked on a variety of natural therapies over the 8 year period but eventually was worn down by the pain and physical exhaustion and began to prepare herself for the inevitable.

The day Wendy came to see me she had difficulty walking from her car to my door, a distance of 25 feet. At that time I had been doing healing work for over 25 years with mixed results. As the universe would have it, I had just completed a second live QT workshop.

Wendy's condition was cancer in the pelvis, some ribs, both lungs, both upper arms, coccyx, thickening of the pleura, liver and in one shoulder ( humeroclavicular joint ) plus other minor lesions and a blood count of 1400. All of this was accompanied by severe pain which stopped her from sleeping, because of pelvic and shoulder pain. Her biggest dread was lying on the hard table having her CT scan every 8 weeks and crying in pain for the whole 1 hour.

Wendy has now had 10 sessions of QT and after the first 4 sessions most of the pain left her body. Her blood count started to drop and her appetite increased. The QT sessions were aimed at her endocrine glands to boost her immune system and then to the organs. Her blood count now is of no interest to the Oncologist as it is normal. The report she showed me today, 23rd August 2005, stated the following: “No new lesions to be found in her body. Cancer in her arms and one shoulder has gone. Her left lung shows no lesions. Left side pleura thickening
has decreased markedly. Her breathing has improved to where she walks for 40 minutes every morning without becoming breathless.”

Wendy is enjoying walking and shopping with her friends, having lunch and now seeing life is good. Thanks to Quantum touch and the energy of Richard Gordon spreading the word, Wendy has her life back.

All of the above can be verified by doctors’ reports and is given with Wendy's full permission.

Sincerely
Barry & Ruth Elwin-Jones
Herne Hill, Western Australia
Australia




5. A Birthday Gift of Healing

I must tell you about a client I saw today. It was her birthday and her friend gave her a full massage voucher as a present. When she arrived I asked her to lay face down on the couch and started on her legs. When I got to her lower back, I noticed that her hips appeared to be rather out of alignment. I said that at the end of the massage, I would like to have her stand at the end of the bed so that I could measure her hips and see the extent of the misalignment.

Well, I could not believe it; they were out by about three inches. Her right hip was much higher than her left. I thought to myself - this would be a challenge. Anyway I put my hands on her hips and started to run energy. Within a few seconds her right hip started to move down, I could see my hand moving but I was hardly touching her. She commented that she could indeed feel something moving on her right side and then said that there was a slight pain running down
her thigh. I started to chase the pain and it went from the thigh to the knee and eventually to her foot. The pain subsided and I went to measure her hips again and yes, they had aligned. Both hips were perfectly even. Wow this was amazing. I have had people who had hips out by about an inch at the most but this was well out and just leveled up so easily. I then looked at her occipital ridge and that was out a little on the right again, so just ran the energy and again within a few seconds it popped and was back in line. The client was most impressed.

Jane MacKinnon
Christchurch, New Zealand
Certified Quantum-Touch Practitioner




6. An Engineer’s First Experience Using Quantum-Touch

I just want to share the story of my first experience with Quantum Touch.

I got the Quantum Touch book last fall. I had only had the book a few days and had read only the first few chapters when a co-worker came by my work station. It was obvious she was in great pain, moving very slowly, very stiffly, very unlike this athletic young woman. My hands went crazy, tingling so much I actually sat on them to try to get them to stop as I talked with her. Finally I could stand it no more and asked if she was in as much pain as she appeared to be
and what had happened.

Two days prior she had had a horse back riding accident and had wrenched her back and right shoulder. Her right shoulder was causing her the most pain. Taking a deep breath, I told her about QT and asked if she would like me to try to help. Keep in mind that we are both engineers, and engineers just don't do these kinds of things as a general rule. But it turned out her brother is a practitioner in a similar modality as well as a chiropractor, so she was willing to
give it a go. I explained that I had never done this, and only had 5 minutes before I had a meeting.

So there, in front of my very open cubicle, I placed my hands on the spot she identified on her right shoulder and started running energy. After only a minute or so, she reported that her right arm was feeling "weird", relaxed. A minute or so after that, the muscles under my hands started twitching and a few seconds later we heard crunching noises from her shoulder. She almost immediately pulled away, saying that she was going to let that settle in and asking if I
"heard that". I said yes, I heard it but that she wasn't done. She repeated that she was going to let that settle in but that the pain was gone, and with that she scurried back down the hall. I should point out that when she came to my desk she walked over slowly and stiffly.

We did not speak of it for several weeks. Both of us, being engineers, were probably a bit embarrassed about it. But I saw her right before Thanksgiving and asked about her shoulder. Rubbing her left shoulder, she said that it was still bothering her, and that she was planning on having her brother work on it over Thanksgiving. I responded that we had worked on her right shoulder and her face blossomed into a look of amazement as she exclaimed, "Oh, that's right!
You know I forgot all about that - it was my right shoulder wasn't it!!"

I guess the pain had not come back! Since then, I have noticed the tingling hands whenever I see anyone who looks to be in pain. Most have been complete strangers in very public places so I have not yet developed the confidence or the courage to ask them if I can help - but I will get to that!

Janet McSwain
New York



7. Carpet Installer Gets a Double Dose of Healing Energy

I had been working with an adolescent in my counseling practice and he was very interested in Quantum Touch to the point of borrowing a QT book and taking it home to read. After our next session he asked if I would work on his dad because his dad had constant pain in his right shoulder from years of carrying rolls of carpet.

His father stated that he was willing to do anything to alleviate the pain in his shoulder, and nothing he had tried in the past couple of years gave him any relief except heavy duty pain killers and he did not like the side effects from that medication. About 15 minutes after running energy into his shoulder the father reported that the pain had lessened over 50 percent, but now his left leg was hurting in the thigh area.

I continued to work on the shoulder and explained to him that I would move to the leg area soon. After another 15 minutes of running energy on the shoulder the pain in both areas stopped completely!!! The father said that he realized that after 20 years of carrying carpet on his right shoulder, his left leg had been compensating for all that weight. He said that he had always felt pain in his leg, but that it was minor compared to the pain in his shoulder, but now
both pains were relieved in about a half hour.

Bryce Roekle
Certified Quantum-Touch Instructor and Practitioner
Bellaire, MI



8. Distance Healing with Quantum-Touch

The more that I practice Quantum-Touch, the more I am in awe that there seems to be very little difference in effectiveness whether I am treating a client in person or at a distance. A couple of months ago, you posted my story of treating a woman in person who had such severe sciatica that she was in tears with the pain and could barely walk. When I saw her, I asked her what the intensity of the pain was from 0 to 10, she said, "a thousand!" After I ran energy for an hour into the sciatic nerve and following the pain, she announced that the pain had gone to less than one on the S.U.D. scale. By the next morning she was completely pain free.

Well, shortly after you published that story in the Q-T newsletter, she called me on the telephone and asked if I could do anything for her adult daughter, who was experiencing sciatica down her right leg. The mother was living with her daughter thousands of miles away from where I was at the time, so I asked her to get her daughter's permission for me to run energy to her, and also to find out at what number her daughter would rate the pain. A couple of minutes later, I got a call back from the mother, who said, "She says to please do it, and the pain is at an 8, and it really hurts down her whole leg when she moves or stands!"

"Let her know I'll begin running energy in five minutes," I said ( I find that telling a client when I am going to work on them is very useful as they become conscious co-participants in the process). I did "distant" healing for 30 minutes, focusing running energy into her daughter's right buttock and leg. Then I called back the mother to see how her daughter was. "My daughter said that right after you started running energy, she got very, very relaxed, almost like a deep state of meditation. She says that all the pain is gone, and there is only the slightest soreness at the point that hurt the most. It was amazing!" (By the next morning, the soreness had completely cleared up).

One other aspect of my application of Quantum-Touch that really works is something that Richard pointed to in a recent article about how his teacher worked. While I put my hands on that part of the body where the client says they have a problem, I never work on the problem. I see the person as whole and perfect and hold that frequency of love as their body aligns with it.

It is very clear to me that Quantum-Touch is perfectly named. The effects clearly take place at the level where the illusion of distance doesn't apply, all is interconnected, and healing can be instantaneous! Thank you for providing the gift of Quantum-Touch, so that we can contribute it to others!

With love and appreciation,

Hal Isen, CHT
Washington, D.C



9. Client’s Dog Feels Quantum-Touch Energy

About 15 minutes after I had started to run energy during a remote session into Linda, a client of mine, she interrupted my breathing. She told me, that something completely unusual has happened. Linda had rescued her dog, Bobbie, about a year ago from a bad place. Bobbie is suffering from a severe trauma, which occurred when she was very young. She had been left alone in dramatic moment. She carries still a lot of fears, which she had not been able to overcome. She is frantic and crazy and always in motion.

Bobbie lay quietly for some time beside Linda and seemed to be very comfortable. Linda said, she has never experienced this before and she asked if I had any explanation for that. I told her, that the dog is feeling the healing energy and that she would like to be part of it. I could feel that the dog had still fears of being left alone. I run softy energy into the dog’s heart for a few
minutes, which calmed her down even more. Since then, the dog seems to be calmer and more balanced, happier and much more loving. Linda loves to be around her, because her energy is now soft and gentle. What a big change and a wonderful healing in just a few minutes. I am so grateful for this experience.

Adelheid Reinhardt-Hanson
Fountain Hills, AZ
Certified Quantum-Touch Practitioner



10. Quantum-Touch and Endometriosis

I just wanted to share my story about endometriosis. I was introduced to Quantum Touch in October 2004, and started working on my endometriosis. I had noticed a 70% improvement, and the medication I was taking had dropped in 1/2. This was a great improvement, as I had considered having a hysterectomy done and really wasn't wanting to.

A 70% improvement was good but I wanted to be free of it. I took the Core Transformation course that Alain taught in Toronto, and I am pleased to say that 3 months later I am pain free. I am also amazed by the amount of emotional issues that are attached to our physical conditions. We create many of these issues ourselves and healing the physical body really is intertwined with our emotional and spiritual bodies. I have my life back, thanks to QT.

Cheryl Brown
Gananoque, On
Canada
Posted to the QT Message Board



11. Heavy Smoker Finally Quits After Using QT

Thank you all QT'ers!!!! After 12 years of heavy smoking, I quit cold turkey 3 weeks ago. I never thought I had it in me until I started QT, and then it just happened. Thank you all! Thank you!

Love and peace
Mrs.D
Oregon
Posted to the QT Message Board



12. Never Underestimate the Power of Quantum-Touch

I frequently tell my students never to underestimate the power of Quantum-Touch and that the only limits it has is that which you give it. Well, I recently had a client present himself with a multiplicity of symptoms, but I kept 'feeling' his right ankle. After inquiring, he told me that nothing could be done with that ankle. He had fractured it 25 years earlier and never had any rehab, and it had fused into its current position. I'm always up for a challenge and was
curious as to what might happen.

Understanding the anatomy of the ankle, I combined the slope breath with amplified resonance and had a bit of a talk with this ankle. Surprise, surprise....the ankle regained some flexion and rotation to our amazement. Every cell knows the perfection in which it was made, and its function. Sometimes it just needs a little jump start for it to remember. With each successive session, he has increased the range of motion to his "fused" ankle.

Joanne Boyer
Certified Quantum-Touch Instructor and Practitioner
New Hope, PA



13. Helping Geese with Quantum-Touch

I just want to share a very interesting experience I am having with a Canadian goose juvenile. On our property we have two ponds and this year a goose and his two females (that is right two, not just one) nested here. We ended up with four babies that survived. They are now juveniles, almost as big as their parents with permanent feathers and all. I thought they had gotten large enough that there wouldn't be any more predation on them, but I was wrong.

A few days ago I was watching the geese eat in our backyard. They have become so comfortable that they come right up to the back door. When one of the smaller juveniles came into view he had a horrible injury to his neck. All the feathers were gone and when he ate food was falling out of a hole in the front. I was so sad, because I figured this guy was a goner. I called an animal rescue league with no success and then remembered that I could do Quantum-Touch on him. So, later in the afternoon, when my schedule had cleared up (I work out of the house), I sat down and did about an hour session on him.

The next day he was in the field with the other geese and seemed to be somewhat better. I didn't get a close look, as they were far out in the field. The following day I didn't see any of the geese all day. I feared the worse. However, yesterday morning when I was just about to sit down to meditate I heard a honk. Now this was very unusual because the geese have not honked once since they've had their babies. After several honks I decided I was being paged. When I got there I saw only six geese and my heart sank. I went outside and followed the
geese. They waddled down to the pond and began swimming. I didn't see the other goose, but felt I needed to go back to the house, get dressed as I was still in my nightgown, and really look for the goose. I thought maybe he needed my help. I went and changed and grabbed my camera and started on a trek around the property. I went over to the other side of the ponds, because I had seen them swim toward that area a number of times. I didn't see the geese at all, so I gave up the search and began taking a few pictures.

I was on my way back when I caught movement in the water. I looked out and there were the geese, all seven of them! The goose that had been injured looked so much better. The damaged feathers were molting off and new ones were growing in all along the area that had been stripped. I was elated.

I think the goose came up to get me to follow him so I wouldn't worry about the other goose, and in a way to thank me for the energy. Whenever I get close to them I run energy so that they know I am a safe person to be around, and where the energy came from.

I am continuing to do energy work on the goose every day and hope to see him back in the field with a totally healed neck within a few days. I'll let you know. I love to work on animals, because they can't lie. If they feel better you know it is real.

Peace & joy,
Debra Austin
Certified Quantum-Touch Instructor and Practitioner
Greensboro, NC
Posted to the QT Message Board

"The corrupt morality of altruism"

What do we think of this, then? It seems a very logically argued piece to me. From Op-Ed from the Ayn Rand institute.

The Perversity of U.S. Backing for the Gaza Retreat - America’s support for the Gaza withdrawal is morally corrupt.
By Elan Journo

In a step fraught with danger, Israel is uprooting its citizens and withdrawing its military from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. That Palestinian terrorists are rejoicing over this momentous pullout is hardly shocking. That the United States is also applauding is contemptible. Worse still, America is demanding more concessions of land: Secretary of State Rice has insisted, “It cannot be Gaza only.”
Why is America urging Israel to make such perilous concessions? The rationale is that the withdrawal will open an unobstructed path for the “downtrodden” Palestinians toward a self-governed ethnic state. Such a state, Washington hopes, will alleviate their suffering and establish peaceful co-existence between Israel and the Palestinians.
But such a state will intensify the misery of the few genuinely freedom-seeking Palestinians by entrenching a tyrannical regime. The Palestinian Authority, a provisional governing body, has drained the lifeblood out of its citizens, trampled on their rights and, despite receiving billions in foreign aid, kept them in devastating poverty. Under the PA’s anarchic reign, rival “security forces” arbitrarily seize property, arrest and jail people without charge, and summarily execute dissidents.
The actual victors of the withdrawal are terrorists and their vast legions of reverent supporters in the Palestinian population. The motto emblazoned on banners throughout Gaza expresses their belief, borne out in practice, that violence works: “Gaza Today. The West Bank and Jerusalem Tomorrow.” The withdrawal has strengthened their resolve, not to achieve peace, but to destroy Israel. “We’re going to keep our weapons,” one terrorist told reporters, “because the battle with the enemy is a long one.” A cleric allied to Hamas, which has carried out umpteen suicide bombings in Israel, observed that “when we offer up our children [as ‘martyrs’], it is much better than choosing the road of humiliation and negotiations.”
As some have observed, with a populace and leadership so hospitable to terrorists, in time the Palestinian territories may succeed Taliban-ruled Afghanistan as a training ground for jihadists, lusting to murder not only in the streets of Jerusalem and Baghdad, but also London and New York.
Israel’s retreat from Gaza--rightly celebrated by terrorists--is neither a means of fostering peace, nor a solution for the plight of innocent Palestinians. Why, then, does America support it?
Because Washington holds that Israel has no moral right to assert its interests, but the Palestinians do. Their quest for statehood enjoys Washington’s wholehearted support, encouragement and financing as an incontestable entitlement--even if they tyrannize themselves and terrorize Israel. But if Israel pursues its interests, by contrast, Washington considers that a moral transgression. Israel could, and for a time did, easily protect the lives and property of all individuals within its borders and the contested territories, by smashing aggressors and imposing its rule of law on Palestinians (which innocent Palestinians welcomed). But Washington refuses on principle to endorse such assertions of Israeli interests.
Why this double standard? Our leaders believe in altruism: the view that one’s highest moral duty is to selflessly serve the needy--and thus that the world’s “haves” must sacrifice for the sake of its “have-nots.” The productive, on this abhorrent view, have no moral right to pursue their own interests; their only justification for existing is to serve the needy. Because Israel is strong and prosperous, it is thereby forbidden from imposing its will on the destitute Palestinians--even though it is the innocent victim of Palestinian aggression. Because the Palestinians are weak and poor, they may demand anything they wish--including a state with which to terrorize Israel.
It might seem that President Bush is being hypocritical: forbidding an ally, Israel, from fighting terrorism effectively even as U.S. forces wage a “war on terror.” But observe that in fact he is being devastatingly consistent. For Bush, Iraqis are entitled to the sanctity of their Mosques--but our troops are forbidden from rooting out insurgents hiding and sniping from within; Iraqis are entitled to textbooks, hospitals, sewers, roads--but, in defending themselves, our troops must place the lives of Iraqi civilians (some of whom are or aid insurgents) above their own. Attesting to the cost of this sacrificial policy is the burgeoning U.S. death toll.
And Washington has refused to impose on Iraq a constitution that would make the new regime non-threatening--as we did in Japan after World War II. In the name of satisfying the poor Iraqis’ demand for “self-determination,” President Bush has pledged to recognize as sovereign whatever regime the Iraqis vote for--even a militantly hostile Islamic theocracy that, in unison with Iran’s mullahs, clamors for “Death to America.”
Neither Israel nor the United States can vanquish Islamist terrorism unless it repudiates the corrupt morality of altruism, which enjoins the sacrifice of the successful as an ideal. Victory can only be achieved if one is convinced of one’s moral right to live and to act consistently to achieve one’s goals. Every self-effacing step that Israel takes--in lockstep with America and with our blessing--encourages the terrorists with the belief that their success is achievable.
Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.

More about love

I recommend the article on love among the penguins (NY Times 26 Aug 2005) from which I took this extract. Professor Bernd Heidrich is talking:

"... Functionally, I suspect love is an often temporary chemical imbalance of the brain induced by sensory stimuli that causes us to maintain focus on something that carries an adaptive agenda. Love is an adaptive feeling or emotion - like hate, jealousy, hunger, thirst - necessary where rationality alone would not suffice to carry the day. Could rationality alone induce a penguin to trek 70 miles over the ice in order to mate and then balance an egg on his toes while fasting for four months in total darkness and enduring temperatures of minus-80 degrees Fahrenheit and gusts of up to 100 miles an hour? And bear in mind that this 5-year-old penguin has just returned to the place of its birth from the sea, and thus has never seen an egg in its life and could not possibly have any idea what it is or why it must be kept warm. Any rational penguin would eventually say, "To hell with this thing, I'm going back for a swim and to eat my fill of fish."..."

The Mind Boggles

I think I shall have to start a blog collecting the absurdities and hypocrisies of religious folk and politicians. The problem here is that it would be so big that no-one would have time to read more than a small fraction of it.

Evangelist tells 7m TV viewers: US should kill Venezuela's president

Julian Borger in Washington and Duncan Campbell
Wednesday August 24, 2005
The Guardian

America's leading televangelist appeared to take Christian fundamentalism into uncharted territory yesterday when he called for the assassination of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez.

Speaking on his own channel, the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pat Robertson said President Chávez should be targeted because he was a "terrific danger" whose country, a big supplier of oil to the US, was "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Islamic extremism all over the country".

Furthermore, killing the Venezuelan leader would be "a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability."

Article continues

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The Venezuelan government expressed outrage and said it was examining its legal options. Vice-president José Vicente Rangel said: "It's huge hypocrisy to maintain this discourse against terrorism and at the same time, in the heart of that country, there are entirely terrorist statements like those."

A state department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said: "Allegations that the US would take hostile action against the Venezuelan government are completely baseless and without fact."

The secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, said: "Our department doesn't do that kind of thing. It's against the law."

President Chávez, who was visiting Fidel Castro in Cuba yesterday, claimed earlier this year the US was plotting to kill him and yesterday's assassination call, coming from an ardent supporter of the Bush administration with a television audience of 7 million, was unlikely to reassure him.

"As everybody knows, the Christian right is the muscle behind the Republican party and the current Bush administration," Alfredo Toro Hardy, the Venezuelan ambassador to the UK, told the Guardian.

"Televangelist Pat Robertson is, in turn, the undoubted patriarch of the Christian right. The fact that Pat Robertson is openly calling for the assassination of President Chávez, invoking ... the supposed rights of the US over its Latin American backyard, is extremely serious and worrisome."

In his remarks, Mr Robertson called Mr Chávez a "dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly".

He added: "This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen. We don't need another $200bn war to get rid of one strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

His spokeswoman said he was not available for interview and would not elaborate.

Mr Robertson's remarks will embarrass the Bush administration, which has insisted that Mr Chávez's fears of a US assassination plot are groundless.

The White House denied Venezuelan claims it was behind an abortive coup attempt in 2002, although CIA documents suggested US officials had some prior knowledge.

Mr Chávez, a former army colonel who was first elected as president in 1999, has long been a thorn in the Bush administration's side, mainly due to his support for Castro. He pledged to send Venezuelan troops to defend Cuba if the US ever invaded.

He has also criticised the US decision to go to war with Iraq and has branded the US a "terrorist state". This week he accused the US of being the main destabilising force in Latin America and said: "The grand destroyer of the world and the greatest threat ... is represented by US imperialism."

In February, in a broadcast to the nation, Mr Chávez accused Mr Bush of plotting to assassinate him. "If I am assassinated, there is only one person responsible: the president of the United States."

Mr Robertson, 75, founder of the Christian Coalition and a former Republican presidential candidate, has become increasingly idiosyncratic with advancing age.

Two years ago, he joked about getting rid of the state department's Washington headquarters, long suspected by the right to be a den of liberals, saying: "Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up."

Last year, he declared liberal judges were a worse long-term threat than al-Qaida, arguing: "I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings."

He also believes that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians".

The chairman of America's National Council of Churches, Bob Edgar, said Mr Robertson's declaration was "appalling to the point of disbelief.

"It defies logic that this so-called evangelist is using his media power not to win people to faith but to encourage them to support the murder of a foreign leader."

Smile please!

On my way into the town yesterday a couple of high school girls crossed my path. One of them turned towards me and gave me a most beautiful smile. This quite often happens in this country. It’s a place where a young girl may safely and happily smile at an old man, for no reason at all other than joie de vivre.

I’m nobody’s heart-throb, I think.. But that smile gave me a warm feeling all the way into the town and back. I don’t smile a lot. I don’t smile enough. I find it difficult to generate a smile when ever it seems to be called for, yet it would be very helpful both to me and to others if I was more liberal with smiles. Keeping a straight face is something a part of me values, while another part of me doesn’t want that. I shall have to work on this.

Iraq

Anyone who hopes that the problems of Iraq can soon be solved by political, military or any other means, had better have a quick read of this informative article:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0822/p01s02-woiq.html

Family Day at Claude's School

I took these photos at Claude's school today.

Click on any photo to make it bigger


Family day at Hermann Gmeiner School


A colourful scene


Dancers at Hermann Gmeiner School

young love

Mothers, is this you?

This piece is by Gary Craig, who, readers of this blog must have realised by now, is a hero of mine. The "walls" he talks about are psychological, not physical walls. The "Palace of Possibilities" is a series of articles he wrote for an email list.

It has been my privilege to know, and be shaped by, the world’s greatest psychotherapist. Interestingly, she has no formal training in psychotherapy whatsoever and has no grasp of "therapese" terms such as secondary gains, PTSD and the like. In fact, I don’t think she has ever read a book on psychology. She didn’t graduate from high school either. That’s because she gave birth to me while she was still 16!!

Mom is my greatest gift. Long before I ever thought of The Palace of Possibilities, Mom was writing good stuff on my walls. It was non-stop, too. Every time I did anything that was even remotely meritorious, Mom was genuinely astonished. And, over and over again, she told me so in glowing terms. It was unbelievable to her that she could have given birth to such an immensely "talented" child even though, in truth, I was born with no more than the standard raw material. Perhaps it was because she came from a very poor family of four children and no father. Perhaps it was because her mother told those children (including Mom) that she wished they were never born and resented having to scrub floors to support the family by herself. Perhaps it was because Mom always felt inadequate because she couldn’t afford underwear and was ridiculed and unwanted by the other children in school. She often sat by herself in a remote corner of the playground during recess.
I remember coming home from school one day (I was in the third grade) and telling Mom, with pride, that I got third place in a spelling bee. Now, admittedly, that is a reasonably good accomplishment from a class of about 25 students. But to Mom it was yet another of an endless string of achievements by "Wonder Boy." She told our neighbors and friends, of course, and for the next couple of months adult visitors would ask Wonder Boy things like, "How do you spell garage?" I would perform, of course, to yet more accolades.

This kind of thing went on constantly as I was growing up. Mom came to every sports event of mine and sang my praises regardless of how I performed. So did Dad, although he was less vocal than Mom. Even on a bad day, Mom would point out the positive to me. She would say things like, "See, if it wasn’t for you catching that line drive in the fourth inning, the score would have been worse. You don’t see the wondrous things you do."

That’s how I grew up.

A stolen shot of Rose

Warning: this puzzle may take you more than five minutes. It took Storm a long time (see comments) because at first the pieces were small, but I have now made them bigger to make the puzzle easier.

Whose side is God on?

I am not a Christian, or a believer in the inerrancy of the Bible. Far from it, I think the Bible is a mixture of tribal ignorance, blind prejudice and wise insights, all written by all-too-fallible men (some say the author of Luke was a woman, but I don’t think so).

One of my favourite passages, as for many other people, is Psalm 23. I think it bears close analysis and careful consideration as to the meanings that it contains, but I shan’t try that here. Here it is, complete:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

In this link there is an interview with Rabbi Kushner, Rabbi Laureate of Temple Israel in the Boston suburb of Natick, Massachusetts. He likes this psalm, too, and it has helped him deal with difficulties in his life. However, there are some points in which I believe he is amazingly mistaken. Here is an example. He says,

“This is a scary, out-of-control world, but it doesn't scare me, because I know that God is on my side, not on the side of the hijacker.”

What makes him so sure that God is not on the side of the hijacker, too? I don’t believe God takes sides, preferring one human being, or one group, over another. We have to move past this mentality where we are appealing to God to look after us and not the one who displeases us. It’s the very mentality that drives the hijackers themselves, I wonder why Rabbi Kushner does not see this?

idiosyncrasies

searabbit tagged me for five of them.

1. I dislike the radio, or any music, playing most of the time. This was the cause of a colleague leaving the firm I worked for: when my turn came to decide what should play on the radio, I turned it off. He went and never came back.

2. I talk to my dogs. They don't understand the words, but they receive the accompanying feelings. They are only mongrels, but to me they are wonderful creatures.

3. The older I get, the younger are the women that attract me. There are some really pretty girls around here!

4. I like cooking Chinese food (I was born in China but left there before I was two.)

5. I dislike social gatherings. I was on board ship at my second birthday, and a party was organised for me. I wouldn't go to it, and lay on the floor kicking and screaming. I've been like that ever since! Thoroughly unsociable.

Another milestone reached

It's a sad time for me today as I have found I am not able to drive my son to school on our little pedal tricycle any more. I have enjoyed driving him to school ever since he started, five years ago, but the last few times I have found it affects my heart too much, as there are a couple of steep bridges to cross and his present school is further away than the others have been. So this is another milestone in my life.

I can still drive my tricycle, if there is no-one else on it; I do the household shopping every day and go into the town for any necessities; but driving with a heavy load I will not try any more. So Sanny, our willing and loyal helper, will drive Claude to school and maybe I will go with him. Claude is just a bit too young to negotiate the crowded roads on a bicycle with a heavy school bag ; maybe next year or the year after he will be able to cycle to school.

Tits? How dreadful!

When there was all that hoo-ha about Janet Jackson’s breast being exposed during some sports event – Super-bowl half-time concert, I think - I thought it was some ploy the media had cooked up to sell themselves. I really thought there must be very few people in America who would object to seeing a bare female breast for an instant on TV. Just a few religious cranks, perhaps.

But it seems that isn’t the case. I read a blog last evening that really startled me. The writer was inveighing against breast-feeding in public. She said she never EVER wanted to see someone else’s breast.

Now that really does puzzle me. What an unfortunate hang-up to have. But there’s more: her blog is popular, and there were many comments, a number of which expressed agreement with her view. It began to dawn on me that there must actually be a large number of Americans who don’t want to see another woman’s breast.

It’s OK in America for TV to broadcast violence, killing, cursing, general evil behaviour; but a woman’s breast? Not allowed. My question is – Why not? Please, someone answer this for me!

Some good-looking folk

Here are two more photos taken recently

Rose and Malcolm, taken by Claude


Rose and Claude in the bedroom - bedtime for Claude

The dressing on Claude's elbow and the raw knee are the results of falling out of a tree on the school campus, he tells me.

Love yet again!

Love software

Service Rep: Hello, you have reached the Heart Systems Software Company help desk. How may I help you?

Customer: I just received your latest program, LOVE v4.0...you know....the freeware. I don't understand it. Can you tell me how to install it?

Service Rep: Sure thing ma'am. Do you have the installation disk and instructions with you?

Customer: Yes I do, but first can you tell me what the program does?

Service Rep: Sure thing ma'am. LOVE is a unique program, there is no other like it in the world. LOVE attaches to your operating system and runs silently in the background, you will never see LOVE on your monitor or your toolbar, but you will notice its effect on every application you may have. It makes the good programs run smoother and greatly restricts and/or deletes the bad ones.

Customer: Wow! That sounds great. How does LOVE make my machine run smoother?

Service Rep: Well, good sound files, like COMPLIMENT.WAV, ENCOURAGEMENT.WAV, and KINDWORD.WAV will play frequently. Also, FORGIVENESS.EXE will be invoked every time there is an external violation, including the ever-popular syntax errors. Also, all those aggravating errors that say "unable to connect" will be avoided. LOVE allows for a smooth connection with any external device, regardless of what country it is manufactured in, the brand name, or the age of the model.

Customer: That's exactly what I need, my machine has been isolated for too long. But what about the bad programs?

Service Rep: Good question. LOVE searches your memory for programs like HATE.COM, BITTERNESS.EXE, SELFISH.COM, and SPITE.EXE. These programs can't be entirely deleted off your hard drive, but LOVE overpowers those programs. LOVE stops their commands from being executed and runs its own instructions. You will no longer hear INSULT.WAV and you won't be able to write with the fonts "BADWORDS12" or "HARSHNESS10".

Customer: That's a fantastic program you have. Are the upgrades free too?

Service Rep: They sure are ma'am.

Customer: How do I get the upgrades?

Service Rep: That's easy. Once you have LOVE installed and running, it automatically copies a module, or a piece of itself, to every external Harddrive, Email And Remote Terminal (HEART) that it comes in contact with. In turn, those external devices run whatever version of LOVE they have and return a module to your HEART. You will be upgraded with each and every module that you receive. But you have to remember, to receive the upgrades you have to be running LOVE and you have to come into contact with other computers while it is running.

Customer: I can do that. I'm not very technical, but I think I am ready to install now. What do I do first?

Service Rep: The first step is to open your HEART. Have you located your HEART ma'am?

Customer: Yes I have, but there are several programs running right now. Is it okay to install while they are running?

Service Rep: What programs are running ma'am?

Customer: Let me see....I have PAST_HURT.EXE, LOW_ESTEEM.EXE, GRUDGE.EXE, and RESENTMENT.COM running right now.

Service Rep: No problem. LOVE will automatically erase PAST_HURT.EXE from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory, but it will no longer disrupt other programs. LOVE will eventually overwrite LOW_ESTEEM.EXE with a module of its own called HIGH_ESTEEM.EXE. However, you have to completely turn off GRUDGE.EXE and RESENTMENT.COM. Those programs prevent LOVE from being properly installed. Can you turn those off ma'am?

Customer: I don't know how to turn them off. Can you tell me how?

Service Rep: My pleasure. Go to your Start menu and invoke FORGIVENESS.EXE. Do this as many times as necessary until GRUDGE.EXE and RESENTMENT.COM have been completely erased.

Customer: Okay, I'm done. LOVE has started installing itself automatically. Is that normal?

Service Rep: Yes it is. You should receive a message that says it will reinstall for the life of your HEART. Do you see that message?

Customer: Yes I do. Is it completely installed?

Service Rep: Yes, but remember that you have only the base program. You need to begin connecting to other HEART's in order to get the upgrades.

Customer: Oops...I have an error message already. What should I do?

Service Rep: What does the message say?

Customer: It says "ERROR 412 - PROGRAM NOT RUN ON INTERNAL COMPONENTS". What does that mean?

Service Rep: Don't worry ma'am, that's a common problem. It means that the LOVE program is set up to run on external HEARTS but has not yet been run on your HEART. It is one of those complicated programming things, but in non-technical terms it means you have to "LOVE" your own machine before it can "LOVE" others.

Customer: So what should I do?

Service Rep: Can you find the directory called "SELF-ACCEPTANCE"?

Customer: Yes, I have it.

Service Rep: Excellent, you are getting good at this.

Customer: Thank you.

Service Rep: You're welcome. Click on the following files and then copy them to the "MYHEART" directory: FORGIVESELF.DOC, SELFESTEEM.TXT, REALIZEWORTH.TXT, and GOODNESS.DOC. The system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin patching any faulty programming. Also, you need to delete SELFCRITIC.EXE from all directories, and then empty your recycle bin afterwards to make sure it is completely gone and never comes back.

Customer: Got it. Hey! My HEART is filling up with really neat files. SMILE.MPG is playing on my monitor right now and it shows that WARMTH.COM, PEACE.EXE, and CONTENTMENT.COM are copying themselves all over my HEART!

Service Rep: Then LOVE is installed and running. You should be able to handle it from here. One more thing before I go...

Customer: Yes?

Service Rep: LOVE is freeware. Be sure to give it and its various modules to everybody you meet. They will in turn share it with other people and they will return some really neat modules back to you.

Customer: I will. Thank you for your help.

Author unknown

(I found this one, too, on Gary Craig's website, and couldn't resist copying it here)

Love - again!

I found this story on Gary Craig's website. I have few heroes in my life but Gary Craig is one of them. I don't say this easily.

Cerebral Palsy and a Flower Inside a Coconut Shell
By Gary Craig

I made an error recently.

I was asked if EFT would be useful with Cerebral Palsy and I said that it was certainly worth a try. I thought persistent use of it would probably help with some of the symptoms. I still think that is so, but that wasn’t my error.

My error was in forgetting to mention a great lesson I learned from Sally, a Cerebral Palsy sufferer. It is a lesson in healing for all of us in the people helping professions. It came about solely because of love and intention. It was not aided by EFT, EMDR, TIR or any of the other power therapies that are so useful today. That is why I am sharing this story with you.

I met Sally eleven years ago at a two-week personal improvement seminar in Hawaii. When I say I "met" her that is not quite accurate. I never did become her friend. I don’t even know her last name.

Sally was different. Her body was so twisted with Cerebral Palsy that her upper torso tilted at a constant 30-degree angle. The tilt was so extreme that no one could sit on her right side because she took up the space of two chairs. Her hands were gnarled and clamped shut. Her facial muscles wouldn’t allow much of an expression and her mouth was fixed in an open position and saliva involuntarily drooled out of it. She could speak but it took a great deal of patience to understand her poorly formed words.

I admired Sally. Here she was, attending a personal improvement seminar amongst 1,000 "normal" people. She couldn’t communicate and couldn’t participate in most activities. She was an "outsider" who wanted desperately to be accepted. But she was largely ignored. A few people befriended her and lent a helping hand when needed. I wasn’t one of them. This was not, I thought, what I came here for. I missed the opportunity.

Sally was a flower encased in a coconut shell. Her spirit, her desires, her love were flowers just like yours and mine. But I couldn’t see the flower because I was blinded by what my eyes were reporting. All I saw was a useless coconut shell.

But that was soon to change.

One night all seminar attendees were being taught how to break a one-inch thick board with our bare hand. It was the kind of thing karate masters do. One person held the board up while another was to jam his/her hand through it. Strength didn’t matter, we were told. What really counted was mental intention. Sure, technique had something to do with it but we were assured that it was resolute intention that really did the job. I found this fascinating but didn’t really believe it. When my turn came, I focused on the technique (but added intention just in case they were right) and, to my astonishment, I broke that board with ease. My hand went flying through it in a manner that I thought impossible. This was real wood. Solid, no tricks. My hand even hurt after doing it. I watched others do it. Men and women of all sizes and strengths. Some needed several tries but almost everyone did it.

Sally was one of the first to try it and, as you might expect, got nowhere. Her body was so weak and uncoordinated that her hand landed on the board with little or no force. It reminded me of trying to topple the Empire State Building with a piece of last night’s spaghetti. I felt sorry for Sally. Intention just wasn’t enough in her case. She was over her head and I was relieved when the trainer in charge asked her to go over in a corner and practice with Dan, another participant. She was rejected yet again.

As the other participants were taking their turn breaking these boards, Dan was shouting encouragement to Sally over in the corner. He kept yelling, "You can do it, Sally, you can do it!!" Sally kept trying to break that board but the effort was so pathetic that I silently wished Dan would "give it a rest" and quit encouraging the impossible. Nonetheless, he persisted. And so did Sally.

When everyone else was done, we all gathered around Sally and Dan who were still at it. Maybe it was because our own beliefs about the "impossible" had just shifted. I don't know. But somehow excitement began to fill the room as we began to cheer Sally on.

Her facial expression didn’t change. It couldn’t. But fire (intention) came into her eyes. She knew she was finally accepted. Love was everywhere. Her posture shifted a bit. I started to cry inside. I’m crying now as I write this. The tears were not because I thought she could break that board. Instead, they were because I felt this deep connection (love) in the room that we all crave so badly. It was clearly there. Genuine indeed with Sally on the receiving end and the audience doing the giving. With love inside her, she took yet another aim at that board and hit it with all the apparent force of a marshmallow and---BROKE IT!!! It shattered in two pieces under her intention. The audience was ecstatic and so was Sally. I was astonished. It was no trick. Engineers are too hard to fool under these circumstances.* I inspected the board afterwards and I can tell you straight out that she broke it with nothing but her intention. There was no other explanation.

More love and support occurred for Sally throughout other events over the next few days. She had become an overnight star. On the last day of the seminar, she went up on stage and straightened the fingers on one of her hands for all to see. She then spoke (slowly but clearly) and said, "You guys think there’s no one in here. But there is. You helped me open my hand. We did it together. God bless you. I love you."

With that I became a puddle of tears. The flower inside the coconut shell was now plain to see.

As I said, I tell you this story to share some perspective on what we are doing as people helpers in this world. This event took place eleven years ago before EFT, TFTtm, EMDR, TIR or any other power therapy was readily available. Sally’s progress came from support, from love, from caring and from our own built in powers to heal. Our new tools are certainly a major aid in healing but, ultimately, it all comes from love.

Peace, Gary

*****************

*P.S. Gary is a Harvard-trained engineer.

Pre-Modern Theology in Public Life

I have taken this from Bishop Spong's weekly essay to which I have subscribed. Details here.

I don't agree with everything that he says, but I like his iconoclastic stance and he is extremely articulate.

When the hurricane named 'Dennis' placed weary Floridians under water in the first major Caribbean disaster of 2005, their Governor Jeb Bush, reflecting on the recent pounding his state has taken, made an interesting, an almost stream of consciousness, observation. "I think there is a legitimate feeling," he said, "Why me? What did I do wrong?"

Governor Bush was giving _expression to a major tenet in a pre-Copernican God theology that finds ample space in the pages of the Bible. In the Noah story, for example, the weather is sent by God to punish people for their sins. Consistent with this biblical lesson, natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, Tsunami waves and droughts have throughout history been interpreted as a divine response to a real or imagined human failure. People prayed for weather changes and accompanied those prayers with promises of repentance and a pledge to future actions more pleasing to God. General George Patton in his diary attributed the fair weather that accompanied his military successes in France in 1944 and 1945 as a sign from God, who, he believed favored the Allies and hated the Germans. Since God was assumed to live just above the sky, divine direction of the weather was easy to imagine. This childlike religious rhetoric is thus not the sole possession of a sitting governor. Indeed it permeates our culture on many levels. It is reflected by the fact that many people still view sickness as punishment. 'What have I done to deserve this?' is a familiar refrain falling from the lips of the ill. Most significant of all this is, as I shall try to demonstrate, the view of God upon which religious leaders and institutions have always leaned to build their power.

We see this mentality being employed today by the Vatican, among television evangelists and in the words of many people in public life. Modern athletes seem to believe the God above the sky directs their fortunes. One sees an athlete making the sign of the cross before stepping into the batter's box, or up to the free throw line. Others point to the sky in gratitude to the God who helped them strike out an opponent, hit a home run, or kick a winning field goal.

This theology also penetrates the way tragedies are interpreted. Survivors, who climb out of an airliner crash or escape a subway bombing, seem almost invariably to assume that God has spared their lives. The unspoken implication is that those who died deserved it or that God had no special plan for them beyond premature death.

What is it that gives such power to these primitive ideas that both athletes and presumably well-educated people in public life still think and talk this way? Is some basic human need met by this primitive theology? Does pious rhetoric blunt our thinking processes? Or does this tenacious idea simply reflect an ever present but seldom faced part of our humanity?

It is part of what it means to be human to yearn for some assurance that we are not alone in this vast and empty-feeling world. We are the only creatures whose minds are sufficiently developed to embrace the vastness of the universe. We alone live inside the meaning of time. This means that we can both anticipate impending disasters and embrace the fact that we will die. It is, therefore, the nature of human life to be chronically anxious. Both are the byproducts of self-consciousness. This anxiety and fear seems to compel us to create a divine supernatural God figure, powerful enough to be our protector. This deity must not be limited as we are, since that would not give us security. Human beings never escape that childhood memory of having an apparently all-powerful parent figure taking care of us. Finding ourselves alone in adulthood we place a divine parent figure called God into the sky where, unseen but ever watchful, this God can look after us. Then we ascribe to this God the qualities we lack. God's immortality counters our mortality. God's power counters our impotence. Once that definition is set, we begin to relate to this God exactly the way children relate to parents. We bargain with God, make our requests known to God, manipulate God, flatter God into getting our way, seek to win favor by keeping God's rules, confess to God when we fail and always remember to say 'thank you' so that God will reward us for being a grateful child. This supernatural theistic religion is still very much alive in our churches. Claiming the ability to interpret how God will act and what will please the Holy One is both the source of ecclesiastical authority and the cause of our own spiritual immaturity. From this perspective we view sickness and tragedy as signs of divine anger, reflecting the world we have created with ourselves living at the center of it and God, understood as a heavenly "Father," keeping things fair like a good parent should.

The result of this religious mentality might well be temporarily soothing but ultimately it turns destructive. In the disaster that fell upon Western Europe in the 14th century, known as the Bubonic Plague, between 20-35% of the adult population of Europe died. What caused the wrath of God to fall so heavily upon their world, they wondered? The first answer was that their own sinfulness was responsible, so a movement known as the "Flagellants" developed in which thousands of men marched through the streets of European cities lashing their own bare backs with whips. Their hope was that if they punished themselves sufficiently, God would withdraw the punishing 'black death.' The second answer they heard was that God was angry because Europe's Christians had tolerated infidels. Responding to that premise they proceeded to persecute Jews in a frenzy of killing anti-Semitism. When unexplained mysteries baffled the citizens of Salem, Massachusetts, in the late 17th century, they responded by executing women they deemed to be the agents of Satan, who, they concluded, had caused their distress.

Why do we find this capricious God comforting? Do we really want a Deity we can manipulate with the flattery of regular worship and from whom we can win brownie points with good behavior? Do human beings really desire a God who is so unstable that the divine mind will change to accommodate fervent prayers? What is the value we find in a God who keeps us in a state of perpetual dependency? Why can we not let this pathetic God die? Is it that we are not able yet to accept responsibility for our role in the determination of the destiny of this planet?

Ironically enough, there does appear to be a far deeper connection between human behavior and natural disaster than our popular rhetoric imagines. Some natural disasters, like the collision of tectonic plates that create Tsunami waves are just that, natural disasters. They are not a response to anyone's behavior. Other disasters, however, are connected with our behavior but not in the old moralistic sense. We are, for example, experiencing today changing weather patterns that reflect impending environmental disasters. They result not from an angry deity but from such things as irresponsible human breeding habits that have led to overpopulation and the resulting exhaustion of many of the earth's resources. We have cut down the rain forests, polluted the air we breathe and the water we drink. Our behavior has led to global warming, acid rain, the melting of the polar icecaps and the resulting dramatic changes in the weather patterns of our world. These present and pending disasters are nature's way of saying that our rape of mother earth has dire consequences. They are the result of a humanity that has not yet embraced the fact that the world is not an enemy that we must conquer and subdue as if we are not a part of it. They are the result of our conceptualizing God as separated from this world, isolated in the sky, then endowing this God with symbols of parenthood that allow us to remain irresponsible children who cannot see beyond the level of our own self-centered need for comfort and security.

Let me say boldly what religious leaders are loathe to say. There is no God in the sky who will send out a divine vacuum to gobble up the human waste that now warms our atmosphere. There is no heavenly filtering system through which we can recycle the water of our river, lakes and oceans. In today's world there is no scapegoat other than ourselves upon whom we can heap the blame for our rapid environmental degradation. That is why the number and intensity of hurricanes seems to rise every year. That is why the American Midwest has seen a tenfold increase in the number of tornadoes in the last fifty years. That is why killing heat waves have become regular features of both Europe's climate and ours. These things are not the result of a wrathful God punishing us for some supposed misdeeds; they are the direct result of human beings continuing to act with childlike irresponsibility because we have not yet embraced the idea that there is no supernatural God in the sky who will protect us even from ourselves.

Has not the time come for our understanding of God to mature, to embrace reality? Our 'heavenly parent' definition of God acts to relieve us of responsibility. Our great religious fear is that if God is not this Supernatural Being in the sky, then there is no God. Atheism is, we think, the only alternative to theism. That is the boundary over which religious people fear to walk.

Suppose, however, that God is defined as the Source of Life, so that our worship demands that we cooperate with all of nature rather than trying to conquer it for our own benefit. Suppose God is defined as the Source of Love, so that our worship enables us to journey beyond the limits of our fear to embrace all that is. Suppose God is defined as the Ground of Being so that our worship relates us to a holiness that permeates all that is. That is what we need to understand before we human beings can grow up and accept responsibility for our world.

The next time you see or hear a Governor or any other person act as if God is responsible for the weather, sickness, or our victories and defeats, recognize it for what it is: the juvenile whimpering of an immature human being who above all else needs to mature spiritually. — John Shelby Spong

A Lovely Story

I read this story on the Meridian-Energy group to which I belong. I haven't asked permission to share it here, but I am confident the contributor will like it to be shared.

During World War II, a US marine was separated from his unit on a Pacific island. The fighting had been intense, and in the smoke and the crossfire he had lost touch with his comrades.

Alone in the jungle, he could hear enemy soldiers coming in his direction. Scrambling for cover, he found his way up a high ridge to several small caves in the rock. Quickly he crawled inside one of the caves. Although safe for the moment, he realized that once the enemy soldiers looking for him swept up the ridge, they would quickly search all the caves and he would be killed.

As he waited, he prayed, Lord, if it be your will, please protect me. Whatever your will though, I love you and trust you. Amen.

After praying, he lay quietly listening to the enemy begin to draw close. He thought, Well, I guess the Lord is not going to help me out of this one. Then he saw a spider begin to build a web over the front of his cave.

As he watched, listening to the enemy searching for him all the while, the spider layered strand after strand of web across the opening of the cave.

He thought what I need is a brick wall and what the Lord has sent me is a spider web. God does have a sense of humor.

As the enemy drew closer he watched from the darkness of his hideout and could see them searching one cave after another. As they came to his, he got ready to make his last stand. To his amazement, however, after glancing in the direction of his cave, they moved on. Suddenly, he realized that with the spider web over the entrance, his cave looked as if no one had entered for quite a while. Lord, forgive me, prayed the young man. I had forgotten that in you a spider's web is stronger than a brick wall.